Happy Medium

by Sarah Adler

equal opportunity not-dater. Sex? Sure. Once or twice a year, if the opportunity arises. Dating? Never. Too much trouble, too much risk.

She wanted to say that, yes, it is actually difficult for her to let people in. But not because of the way she lives her life. No, it’s because, in her experience, love isn’t worth her time or the inevitable heartache; she’s a person who isn’t meant to keep anyone she loves. They leave her, or she’s forced to leave them, and it always hurts just a little more than she wishes it did.

Because he thought maybe he’d rather be dead than alone any longer.”

“It’s okay. I knew this would happen one day.” Because it always does. Things come to an end. People you care about leave you. That’s life.

Maybe that’s what happens when you spend most of your life using your feelings instead of feeling them. All those years of treating her emotions like models in a figure drawing class—memorizing their shape and shades so she could accurately replicate them on cue—have made it so uncomfortable to sit still with them

She didn’t lose everything back then. But she did lose everything that mattered.

I can’t tell you all of my secrets, because then you’ll know me better than anyone in the world. And what will I do without you then?

That doesn’t mean losing him won’t haunt her, of course. But she’s used to that by now.