After You'd Gone

by Maggie O'Farrell

one thing I hope you never find out is that a broken heart hurts physically.”

What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?

and I’m furious with him…for leaving me…and

It seemed cruel to me that I was so healthy, so alive, so seemingly indestructible when your life had been so easily and so randomly severed.

used to wake up and wonder for a split second why I had this weight of grief pressing down on my chest and why my pillow was wet. I used to forget because it was just absurd for me to be without you. Absurd.