Trust Exercise

by Susan Choi

Previous experience with the condescension of religious belief helps somewhat in correcting overestimations of yourself.

Karen was willing to bet, at that moment, that Sarah’s thoughts were so preoccupied with what an unhandsome dork Liam was despite his eyes and bone structure, and with how far he fell short of the romantic ideal she’d tried to believe that he was, and with how little she wanted to let his tongue into her mouth, that she couldn’t even see that pure joy on his face which she’d caused. Which is too bad, because a lot of us never get looked at that way.

Karen’s true adult life began when she recognized she was a child, and remembered that, unlike her mother, her father viewed her as a child as well.