One Small Mistake

by Dandy Smith

My sister’s husband is loved by the entire family and though we get along, I feel that where he is a dog person, I am like a cat being shoved in his lap.

I forget when people ask how you are, they don’t really want a truthful answer.

How is knowing there’s someone worse off supposed to make you feel better? As though it’s socially acceptable to take a little bit of comfort in the knowledge that there’s someone out there suffering more than you are right now.

‘I’m not convinced I want kids. I mean, I like my vagina the way it is. You know, separate from my anus.’

That’s the thing about words – once they’re out there, they’re no longer just yours. They hang in the quiet and are plucked like cherries from a tree then, bitter or sweet, they’re devoured.

‘It’s okay if you’re not okay,

I want to have sex. I want to have sex like Jack was having with that girl. Hard and angry and carnal. Hands pinned to the bed above your head. Fingers around your throat. The kind of sex that

makes you question if you’re a good feminist.

Why is it that men always feel the need to announce they’ve nipped the hoover round or done a load of laundry like they’ve just cured cancer? Then they beam at you as though they’re waiting for you to offer them a gold star or a blow job despite the fact that you do these chores every day without so much as a ‘thanks for that’ from the supposed love of your life.

‘You’re not fine,’ he said. ‘It’s okay to not be okay.’

But maybe coming up against a puppet master means it’s impossible to know your strings are being pulled.

during negotiation you always ask for the impossible, then settle instead for what you actually wanted in the first place.

‘Love is always a risk; it’s giving another person the power to destroy you and hoping they choose not to, but when it goes right …’ I don’t even think she’s aware that as she says this, her gaze drifts towards Christopher. ‘When it goes right, it’s like falling through stars.’

‘I’m not unhappy,’ I tell him. ‘I just miss you. Miss the way we were. It’s hard. After everything, getting through each day is still hard.’

What I need now and what I’ll need always, is a love that washes over me like river water. That soothes. A love I can bathe in.