Intimacies

by Katie Kitamura

I had lived with my slow-moving grief for so long that I had ceased to notice it, or recognize how it blunted my feeling.

Her character was the opposite of mine, she was almost compulsively open whereas I had grown guarded in recent years—my father’s illness had served as a quiet warning against too much hope.

I felt a throb—not of envy, perhaps of admiration, although the two are not unrelated.

I was both deadened and amazed by the man’s audacity, his technique was remarkably repetitive, it was the same strategy every time, he capitalized on disorientation.

The burn of humiliation remained in my throat all day, and by the following day I felt deflated and worn out. I had made myself too easy to leave, stashed away like a spare part, I had asked for too little, and now it was too late.