Really Good, Actually

by Monica Heisey

But we weren’t unhappy, just unsatisfied . . . until suddenly we were so, so unhappy,

not quite ready to take it down but not ready to face it yet either.

I was not about to be the first woman alive to experience emotional devastation without the sudden, dramatic emergence of my collarbones.

Anyone trying to comfort me had been dealt an impossible task: too much attention and care felt like pity, not enough was proof that I was worthless and no one wanted to be around me.

Like everyone I’ve ever loved, both of them were capable of being a Bit Much.

Couples were an affront, single people with their shit together equally so.

“I hadn’t even realized I’d become a ‘we’ person,”