The Friend

by Teresa Driscoll

Libra Not every hour is equal. Ask an insomniac how long the night is.

Today’s was spot on: hours are not equal at all. Some people you can know for years and yet not at all.

Instead I was thinking, So is this what real shock feels like? Hovering just outside your own body? Watching it, not living it.

‘People tell you to try not to think about it. Your own instinct is not to think about it. But that doesn’t work,’ she said. ‘The trick is to learn to cope with thinking about it. To accept how truly awful it was. Am I making any sense?’

LIBRA Be careful. Sometimes when we read back what we have written, we read what we intended to write, not what is on the page. And sometimes when we listen, we hear what we expected to hear and not what is being said . . .