Do Not Open

by Kiersten Modglin

Once you’ve lost the two people who matter most to you in the world, no other loss or pain can compare.

“If you don’t want this stuff to happen, why do you write about it?” he demands, staring at me with wild eyes. “It’s just fiction. It’s made up. It’s just supposed to be a story.” “It’s so much more than that, Mari. We both know it. There’s beauty in it. In pain. In suffering. In fear.” He inches closer, like something out of a horror movie. In the book, the killer plucks out his victim’s two front teeth. “You saw that. You got it, more than anyone else. You understand how beautiful pain can be.”

Things aren’t fixed between us—they never will be. Not because I don’t forgive him, but because the pain between us is a deeper rift than could ever be mended. There’s too much pain and loss in the space that separates us.