IT’S ALWAYS COMPLICATED

Katie Kronwald

Katie dated her high school boyfriend, Mike, for three years after graduation, despite his having cheated on her several times with many different women, including: Christine, a cocktail waitress aboard the cruise ship Tropicalia; Sapphire, a concierge at the Monte Carlo casino in Las Vegas; and once with Amelia, Katie’s older sister. Katie finally dumped Mike after she overdosed on sleeping pills and he failed to show up at the hospital, but she also dumped her three best friends – Lila, Stephanie, and Justine – because they were strong proponents for her leaving Mike and she couldn’t stand to admit that they were right. Katie moved to Washington for six months to live with a boy she met at work but he raped her in the back seat of his Prius after a night of Irish car bombs (the drink, not the explosives) and she now lives with her mother in Chapel Hill, somewhat interested in Phillip, the goofy-looking elementary school librarian who carpools to church with her mother, but is not sure that she ever wants to have sex with another man again.

Peter Teefertiller

Peter and Shela met each other on a Battlestar Galactica fanfic forum after his comments on her story about a Cylon orphanage on Caprica drew dozens of new readers to her work. She gave him her phone number and the two stayed up late for weeks, outlining a collaboration that never came into fruition. The two rendezvoused at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, near where Peter lives, the day Shela had a three-hour layover there. She was on her way to the Los Angeles Comic Convention where she was to be a booth girl for a science-fiction weapons replicator, but was sidelined by a bad egg sandwich and spent the day in bed on the phone with Peter. A few months later, Peter spent a month with Shela at her apartment in New Jersey, where the two had awkward, unfulfilling sex, and Shela talked Peter through his mother issues while they watched Adult Swim. The two now make sure to get on their personal Ventrilo channel for at least an hour every night while he plays of City of Heroes and she plays World of Warcraft.

Lisa Berg

Lisa fell for Walter while watching him play Frisbee Golf on the green belt outside her apartment. Though she is normally a meek and unsure individual, she surprised herself by shouting an invitation for free beverages and sandwiches to Walter and his friends as they walked through the parking lot to their cars. They accepted, not-so-secretly hoping that Lisa had prettier roommates waiting for them inside. Their disappointment was assuaged by Lisa’s cooking skills and Walter programmed her number into his cell phone before leaving. Their relationship didn’t fully blossom until Walter announced he was leaving for his second tour of duty in Iraq. Forecasting that this time around he would, at the very least, have a limb amputated, Walter proposed to Lisa by placing a wedding ring in her champagne flute on New Years Eve. Currently, Walter is witnessing unbelievable atrocities in the cradle of civilization that will haunt him until the day he dies and Lisa is taking a class on studio art.

Harry Attanucci

Harry had only been in America for one week when he realized that six months wouldn’t be enough time to break into New York City’s late-night comedy club racket. Returning home to the desert wasteland of Western Australia was not an option on the table, so Harry began to actively seek a woman who would be ‘cool enough to marry.’ Four cocaine-fueled months later he met Joanna, a woman so disillusioned by her parent’s divorce two years previous that she was up for anything that could potentially break their hearts. A days worth of paperwork and minimal dues at the courthouse was all it took for Harry and Joanna to enter into that most blessed of unions. The two live about twenty minutes apart (on the V line) and visit each other regularly to watch old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Danielle LuPone

Danielle and Tom like to fuck each other, but they don’t like to talk about it.