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Why is it always the biggest arses who have the most incredible arses? Someone’s probably written a thesis on it, where gluteal firmness is inversely proportional to agreeableness of personality.
“For me, falling in love feels like gazing up at a dark sky. First, there is nothing but blackness, then gradually your eyes adjust, a few stars come into view, then suddenly, you see everything—thousands of stars, an infinite spectrum of light. It’s mind-blowing. Falling out of love feels the same but in reverse. One by one the stars recede, gray clouds sweep in. Then one day you realize you are alone in the dark, there’s nothing out there.”
The rest of the day passes like a dream. I am not myself. I am not Anna the mother, nor Anna the journalist, not even Anna the sister. I am not divorced or thirty-eight or anything you could write on paper. I am simply a woman in the woods, in my own private Eden, returned to a raw, animal state. I’m annoyed and delighted in equal measure to discover why this beautiful, arrogant, swaggering man walks through life with such a cocksure gait. In his hands, my body feels like a Ferrari, long parked in a dusty garage, now being driven by a Formula 1 driver who knows exactly how to handle one.
My body relishes it, like stepping into a warm shower after swimming in a cold sea.
“She used to remember all our little food preferences. Like how Simon loved Red Leicester, whereas I preferred Cheddar, or I’d eat the salami with the pepper around it, but Harry wouldn’t touch it. Every packed lunch she made was this little act of love and remembering.” He hands me my roll. “After she died, Dad made the same packed lunch for everyone. We ate what we were given.”
“There are forgeries on people’s walls all over the world. If they like the art, it hurts no one. If they bought it for the value it holds to others, then maybe they’re valuing the wrong things.”
He’s like a drug I am getting high on, and as long as I don’t get addicted, as long as I keep it recreational, then I will be fine.
“Don’t let life make you hard, Anna. It’s the soft, gooey middle that makes it all so delightful.”
Even if I’m too late, even if he doesn’t call, I still needed to say it. Because true love does not cower in the shadows; it roars, loud and proud, until it has given its all.
