I Let You Go

by Clare Mackintosh

I take a breath, waiting for something to hurt. But I am fine. I wonder briefly if I have become immune to physical pain: if the human body is not designed to handle both physical and emotional hurt.

The grief I feel is so physical it seems impossible that I am still living; that my heart continues to beat when it has been wrenched apart.

Gradually, without my noticing, my grief has changed shape; from a raw, jagged pain, that won’t be silenced, to a dull, rounded ache I’m able to lock away at the back of my mind. If it is left there, quiet and undisturbed, I find I’m able to pretend that everything is quite all right. That I never had another life.