Good Boy (The Northern Weird Project)

by Neil McRobert

“So, you’ve been alone with this, all this time?” “I think we’re always alone with the things that really matter to us,” he said.

She was sweetness and the brightest of lights, but she had a mouth like a lorry driver, too. That piglet laugh of hers, when she was caught off guard. I still laugh myself just thinking about it.

The word heartbreak suggests a snap or a shatter, a sudden, violent before-and-after. For me, it was gentler – like my heart was water turning to steam – but, in the end, pain is pain.