A Separation

by Katie Kitamura

It was a terrible thing, to love and not know whether you were loved in return, it led to the worst sensations—jealousy, rage, self-loathing—to all these lesser states.

This was the process by which two lives were disentangled, eventually the dread and discomfort would fade and be replaced by unbroken indifference, I would see him in the street by chance, and it would be like seeing an old photograph of yourself: you recognize the image but are unable to remember quite what it was to be that person.