One Small Mistake

by Dandy Smith

God, working here is like being stuck in an unrelenting Groundhog Day of serving coffee, wiping down tables, and loading the dishwasher.

For my sister, her accountant husband, Ethan, has a bank balance big enough that it’s a better lubricant than anything Durex could ever make.

I’m telling you, Elodie, men age like fine wine; women rot like meat.

Telling stories is my first, most long-lasting love. The best kind because the paper will never reject my pen. It is a lover I can’t quit and when I let it wrap its arms around me, it feels so good, I wonder why I’ve stayed away so long.

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

‘Crushes slip love letters in your bag or buy you a coffee – they don’t follow you home. That isn’t normal.’

‘If sex ruins a situation, you’re doing it wrong.’

I’m about to ask what her new skincare regime is but then I remember the answer is probably just: ‘I’m in love and living with my boyfriend and having tons of hot, sweaty orgasms.’ And no matter how much money is in your account, you can’t buy that and rub it on your face.

Defeat hangs from my body like an ill-fitting dress. Strange, it should be snug now, I am so used to its company.

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.

People say misery loves company, but I’m not convinced company loves misery.

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.

I’m lucky to have a husband who loves me.

To distract myself from my hurt and seething anger, I cleaned my house while I blared Britney Spears’ first album Baby One More Time because no one can feel down listening to bubble-gum pop.

I’m no longer young enough to bounce back after copious amounts of fermented grapes, and writing to you feels more doable than finding the remote to watch reruns of Dawson’s Creek.

Your marriage must be loving and fun, but also meaningful, and you must make sure others know your marriage is loving and fun, but also meaningful, because if not, people will wonder what the fuck else you do with your time. It’s important to note they must know about your fun, loving but also meaningful marriage without you shoving it in their face like a cream pie. It is a pie to be smelt and displayed on a window ledge and admired.

‘Set yourself free. Being unhappy with your husband isn’t the happiest you’ll ever feel. Not if you take control of the situation.’

You can pour years into a relationship, pour into it hopes for the future, memories from your childhood, mix laughter and sex and love into it and with one conversation on a sunny, freezing afternoon in January, you pull the plug and watch it all drain away.

‘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 …’

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.