The Other Side of Disappearing

by Kate Clayborn

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a face like hers—it’s like looking through a window at a storm. There’s rain, lightning, wind; there’re trees bending and shaking with the force of it. Part of you is glad to be separate from it. But part of you wants to press against the glass and get as close as you can.

I watch as her smile comes into full view—and then I’m a beating heart on legs, unimaginably worse off than I was before I heard her, saw her like this.

I realize, with a startling sort of clarity, that I’d cut out my own heart before I treated hers carelessly.