Acts of Desperation

by Megan Nolan

Living alone, I began to split apart from myself in a deeper and more grotesque way than ever before.

I thought, not for the first time, that wheedling of the sort he had employed should be forbidden in men. It was already so near to impossible to say no to a man, so difficult to accept the possibility of being hurt or disliked or shouted at. It takes so much out of you to make yourself say no when you have been taught to say yes, to be accommodating, to make men happy.