Twice in a Blue Moon

by Christina Lauren

“I remember we had this whole discussion in history class a couple years ago, how history is subjective. Like, who is telling the story? Is it the person who won the war or lost the war? Is it the person who made the law or was jailed because of it? I kept thinking about that so hard afterward, like—and I totally get that I’m just one person, and not, like, important—but I wonder what’s the actual story between my parents?”

Am I angry? Indifferent? Happy to see him doing well? I think the fact that I never got to fall out of love with him—that I just had to keep moving forward, stumbling into something new and totally different—means that my brain and heart don’t know the protocol here.

I’m fighting the fear that I’m no more than a stepping-stone to every man who has ever meant anything to me. I feel small, and silly, and strangled by the realization that the longer I stay angry, the pettier I seem.

A watched pot never boils, and a watched phone never rings.