Ghosted

by Rosie Walsh

We can perhaps only ever fall in love without knowing quite who we have fallen in love with. Alain de Botton Essays in Love

“More will be revealed,” my father always liked to say about people. “You have to watch and wait, Sarah.”

and I wondered how it was that you could spend weeks, months—years, even—just chugging on, nothing really changing, and then, in the space of a few hours, the script of your life could be completely rewritten.

I can’t know you’re somewhere in the world and not be with you. I think we should try to make this work.”

“It can be frustrating, watching everyone complaining about their problems, never wanting to discuss solutions. Believing they’re a victim of other people, of themselves, of the world.”

“Sarah, if we didn’t have thousands of years’ writings on the pain of love—not to mention the questioning of faith, the loss of self it precipitates—I’d be out of a job.”

“The world has raised its whip,” I read aloud when my turn came; “where will it descend?”