The Last House Guest

by Megan Miranda

I’ve known enough of loss to accept that grief may lose its sharpness with time, but memory only tightens. Moments replay.

Looking back, I realized that this was the thing I was most taken with—the idea that you didn’t have to apologize. Not for what you’d done and not for who you were.

grief did not create anything that had not existed before. It only heightened what was already there.

Obsession was the gravity that kept you in orbit, a force you were continually spiraling toward, even when you were looking away.

But that was the thing about loving someone—it only counted when you knew their flaws and did it anyway.

you had to take great risks for great rewards. That to change your life, to truly change it, you had to be willing to lose.

You’re a mess, he’d say, laughing. My mom shrugging, So let her be.