It Ends with Her

by Brianna Labuskes

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. —Ernest Hemingway

The fragile stability she’d established in the quiet spaces between the doubts shook at the mere thought of becoming untethered once more. Those days were supposed to be a memory.

Maybe happiness wasn’t something everyone could get. But emotional stability was certainly underrated.

The frazzled edges of her nerves were raw and pulsing after the constant barrage of misogyny and alcohol that was the mainstay of this getaway weekend.

Clarke waved toward the window as if it were their descent that had her stomach trying to eat itself and not the absolute soul-sucking futility of putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other in the never-ending shit parade her life had become.

He was avoiding using contractions and self-validating his own lies by repeating the same wording multiple times, which were both clear signs of deception.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

She’d been feeling like her synapses would just not stop firing, and then she held the cool little piece of metal, and they seemed to calm immediately. The manic fire that had burned in her brain was about to be doused. And that was one real and true thing she could count on.

“Today. All you have to make it through is today.” She narrowed her eyes, because she knew him too well. “All the ‘todays’?” Smirking, he saluted her with his coffee cup. “When tomorrow becomes today, you’ll make it through that one, too.”

She could be strong. If only for today.

The human brain liked to recognize patterns even when they didn’t exist. It would create links, organizing chaos into something that resembled order just because that was more pleasing.

It was about who woke up every day in a world that made that decision a painful one, but did it anyway. It was about who made the choice to live when giving up would be so much easier.

“Abusers do that, you know? Manipulate fear and sadness into self-hatred. Soon you’re blaming yourself for things you had no control over. Soon you’re believing you’re responsible for something you could never have stopped in the first place.”