“Floating,” by Souvankham Thammavongsa
By Souvankham Thammavongsa••The New Yorker
Fiction by Souvankham Thammavongsa, the author of “How to Pronounce Knife” and “Pick a Color”: After he left, I said to my friend, “I like him. Is he single?” My friend said he’d never mentioned a partner.
I had not noticed him. He came to stand in front of me, and asked if I was nervous, doing that, talking in front of people. He said hed seen me looking at my notes, practicing.
I do this all the time…