How to End a Love Story

by Yulin Kuang

She thinks sometimes if she ever wanted to pivot, she could still write an entire book of poems about all the ways she breaks her mother’s heart in a day.

“I don’t want that for you. For either of us. It’s not—it’s not healthy.” “I don’t want to be healthy,” Grant says, and his chest is heaving as if he’s just run a marathon. “I just want you.”

This would be the part of the episode, Helen thinks idly, where mother and daughter finally have a heart-to-heart. Walls come down, they finally, truly see each other, and all is resolved at last. It’s the all-American fantasy she’s been peddled by every episode of her favorite Emmy Award–winning, syndicated television dramas featuring tough-but-loving families. But for some reason, she and Mom always seem to miss each other.

Letters You’ll Never Read.scriv.

I’m not fine. I haven’t been for a while, and I blamed you for so long because the last thing you ever did was teach me how much loving can hurt.

Still—I hope this is the kind of story where there’s an epilogue. One day I’ll turn the last page, and suddenly—there you’ll be. And I’ll walk up to another chance to get everything right, this time. I’d start by telling you, “I love you.” I’ll keep hoping for the both of us.

“You don’t have to be completely healed to be everything I want. To be mine. I love every part of you, you silly, infuriating woman. I love the parts of you I haven’t even met yet.”