The Thinnest Air

by Minka Kent

Funny how all those old misgivings no longer matter once shit gets real.

It turns out the human body doesn’t always know the difference between excitement and anxiety.

His eyes soften, and in the span of two seconds, he sees me for the neurotic, anxious worrywart I’ve always been.

We’re not meant to be best friends with every person who crosses our paths. Not everyone has our best interests at heart.

But my sister was tofu. Absorbing the characteristics of whoever has managed to capture her attention at that point in her life, assimilating herself and becoming what they want her to become because it makes them like her better.

I’m overcome with a wave of contentment, the same warm, gushy feeling I tend to soak up like a dry sponge anytime I’m with her.

I suppose we’re always deciding what we want to see in life and choosing how we’re going to see it.

Some of the women in the back chuckle, proving that kicking men in the balls can be humorous at any age.

But there’s something about human nature that makes us shameless opportunists. We stumble across a chance, experience the tiniest taste of something we want, and we can’t say no.

He hears me, but he’s not listening.

Monsters are real. They’re real, and they’re capable of doing the unspeakable. And they don’t hide under beds or in closets—they hide in plain sight. You just don’t always notice them.

Never has my decision to be child-free felt so reinforced as it does in this moment.

We’re all just . . . doing the best we can. Trying to make sense of things that probably never will.”

This is what’s wrong with our society. We treat tragedies like entertainment, the American public priding ourselves on being armchair detectives trying to solve these crimes, but the second the sensationalism dies down and the case grows cold, we move on to the next exciting thing.