Like It Never Was

by Faith Gardner

But like love, goodness is never really unconditional.

Over the years, I’ve learned the art of how to sever ties. Call it a knife-sharp gift. Where it came from, I can’t say—born, learned, either way, it’s mine. I can cut things and people out of my life with the ruthless precision of a surgeon.

I love this first stage when cities, jobs, and people are brand new. Like the beginning of a passionate affair—a place of pure potential, where anything can happen. Nothing will crash and burn. No, never.

“Being alone is the bare-naked truth,” she says, brushing a piece of my hair out of my eyes. The motherly gesture of it is comforting somehow, even if her words are not. “We’re born alone and we die alone. Company is temporary.”

The worst kind of unhinged—sane enough to be aware of how insane I’m acting.