I Let You Go

by Clare Mackintosh

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.

If you’ve lost someone, you’ll know a lot of pretending goes on. ‘I’m okay’ must be the biggest lie ever told, don’t you think? We pretend to other people, and to ourselves, as self-preservation, because it’s just too hard to deal with how we’re really feeling. That’s my own experience, anyway, and it became Jenna’s.