Just Like Mother

by Anne Heltzel

“He’s amazing at sex, but there isn’t really any more mystery. Like, if he sent me something that didn’t look like the lone tree amidst the shrubbery, I’d probably accuse him of using a filter.”

A breakup is like a death, someone told me once. You lose the person abruptly, entirely, just the same way. At the time I thought that sounded right, but in fact it wasn’t. With a breakup, there existed a parallel dimension in which that relationship continued to thrive if you wanted it to, preserved for eternity whenever you looked back on it.

This house, I realized for the first time, was the only place I’d ever been where I didn’t feel followed. I merely felt watched.