The Return

by Rachel Harrison

There were times when I fantasized about vanishing. Chucking my phone through a sewer grate and taking the train to God knows where with nothing but a stack of cash. Cutting my hair with dull scissors in a shitty motel room.

“I go crazy without my alone time,” I said. That had been true at some point in the past, but then I was alone all the time, and that was bad, too.

You can’t erase your past when there are pieces of it scattered inside other people.

My problems aren’t invalid. Not to me. Just because they aren’t life altering, life-threatening, doesn’t mean they don’t make me feel bad. I wake up with them every morning, carry them around all day like a lead backpack, and I fall asleep with them at night. They’re real, and they’re mine. I know I’m lucky. I know that. But it doesn’t change how I feel.

“The more you love someone, the more you make yourself vulnerable to them, and it’s easier for them to hurt you. Because you care so much, and because their love will inevitably fall short of your love. Your love is too big. And then, when it doesn’t measure up, you’re hurt. And that hurt turns to hate. To love someone is to hate them, a little bit. We hate everyone we really love.”