Don't Let Him In

by Lisa Jewell

because my life doesn’t work like that, it doesn’t have markers and delineations, it doesn’t hang on dates and plans, it just hurls itself at me in disjointed chunks that I have to somehow knit together into something that looks like normality, and it’s why I work so hard to maintain my charming exterior, because my interior is a chaotic hellscape beyond anyone’s possible imaginings.

I cannot forget the disgust and the embarrassment of that moment in his restaurant a year ago. I have never felt like this before. Vindictive, I think, is the best word to describe it. Yes. I am vindictive.