You Are Here

by David Nicholls

If anything she tried too hard, a people-pleaser, though no one ever seemed that pleased. There is who we want to be, she thought, and there is who we are. As we get older the former gives way to the latter, and maybe this is who I am now, someone better off by themselves. Not happier, but better off.

Sometimes, she thought, it’s easier to remain lonely than present the lonely person to the world, but she knew that this, too, was a trap, that unless she did something, the state might become permanent, like a stain soaking into wood. It was no good. She would have to go outside.

At home he was merely lonely. Stepping outside transformed loneliness to solitude, a far more dignified state because it was his choice.

She would shrug off this self-pity but shrugging hurt and here it was, creeping in again like damp in the walls, the loneliness, present even in company.

Four things I wanted to be: good son, good husband, good teacher, good father. And I’m a good teacher.’