Before She Knew Him

by Peter Swanson

“I was sure it was schizophrenia,” her mother said, driving Hen back to upstate New York, “because of your uncle. But turns out you’re just batshit crazy like everyone else in this family.” She’d laughed, then apologized. It was what she did.

“I’m doing really well now,” Hen said, thinking, I am a happy person, always have been. But that’s just my personality, which has nothing to do with this broken brain that periodically and very convincingly tells me that I’m a worthless person who doesn’t deserve to live.

They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.