Blue Sisters

by Coco Mellors

She has said the words I need a drink one hundred and thirty-two times so far this year. That’s more than she’s said I love you in her entire life.

As long as you are alive, it is never too late to be found.

“I just…I couldn’t handle hearing about how someone’s Higher Power never gives them anything they can’t handle. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have rape or child abuse or incest or domestic violence, and people wouldn’t develop PTSD or complex trauma or crippling drug dependencies, all of which are the direct results of being given exactly what you can’t handle.”

Weren’t all addicts looking for relief from some invisible pain? Weren’t all people?

She was just killing time, she supposed. Killing time instead of killing herself.

Could you fall out of love with life if you were never in love with it?

She had always marveled at women who appeared to want to spend time with their mothers, planning weekend trips and mother-daughter days with evident delight, and she had secretly suspected that neither party could actually enjoy that time.