Hunger

by Susan Hill

She did not feel hostile, just detached. Different. She lived in an invisible shell.

Paula had started to tackle the jungle that was the garden, slashing back, raking out, digging up, while he slept on. She did not mind. She liked her own company after all.

His face was an open beam of satisfaction. He had taught her something. He liked to teach people.

lol...mansplaining.

She was by nature quite lazy and a sort of inertia had stifled her, blurring her usually sharp critical sense.

She made tea and sat on the grass, trying to remember when Adrian had started to talk about moving to the country, when she had started to take him seriously, when it had become her own want, stronger than his, but for different reasons. He had tried it on to see if it would fit, half-serious, then in panic when he found himself here. She had slipped into it as into the right skin.