Almost Surely Dead

by Amina Akhtar

I wished I could drown their voices out, but they owned prime real estate in my brain.

I could feel the future regret already blooming.

No one ever tells you how to get through grief, how to not let it take over your life. Because it does. Every part of your life is hit. And sometimes, just when you think you’re turning a corner, months after your loved one died, you get hit by something new all over again. It doesn’t stop. You just have to learn how to live with it, until the pain of them not being in your life anymore becomes a dull ache.

Boys got to act out, but girls? No, we had to behave and be good and not imagine things that scared everyone.

I know it’s not normal to laugh at these things, but eventually, you have to or you’ll go insane. Maybe I was already nuts.