No Strings

by Lucy Bexley

“Oh. She was looking for me? Did she dead name me again?” “Yeah, babe.” Elsie reached out to touch Avery’s arm. “Then she didn’t really call for me.” Avery stood up straighter and took a sip of their beer.

Memory always degrades, like a VHS stuck in the player, until all that’s left is snow.

That was life: happiness framed by struggle and absurdity, all of it a little messy.

She shouldn’t be walking into people's houses and eating their weed gummies like some modern-day Goldilocks.”

How could she help Bentley when she couldn’t even keep her own moods from hijacking her life.

She never knew when her depressive episodes would end, just that, most likely, they would.

No one she’d shared her bed or life with had been able to understand. They wanted to know what was wrong. They wanted something to fix, and then they wanted her to be better.

our impressions of people are really a reflection of us. If you want to see yourself more clearly, Elsie, people you dislike are the best mirrors.

Cleaning after a depressive episode always felt like a punishment for struggling. Sometimes the thought of dealing with the flotsam of messes left by the wave of her low was enough to pull her back under.

Nothing fixed her depression, but sometimes these little things shifted the bricks weighing her down just enough that she could draw in a breath and move a little.

“When we miss someone, it’s always the exact right amount. You can’t do grief wrong. It’s like improv comedy in that way. Or poetry.”

Elsie was familiar with relationships that were best explained as something you tried to keep from eating you alive.

Maybe normal is always something in the past that we’re trying to get back to, even when we’ve outgrown it.”

“Am I ever going to convince you to take advantage of me, Elsie Webb?”

Self-doubt was possibly the most powerful drug.

Elsie smiled. “Doing things you’re bad at is the best.” Jones gave Elsie a questioning look. “I don’t understand.” “Because there are no expectations—you get to surprise yourself.”

Even if she didn’t have natural sunshine, store-bought was fine.

It was imperfect and messy in a thousand different ways, and she thought she might want it to be hers for real.

Elsie laughed. “I hope not. It means did not finish. If a book’s not for you, you can just stop reading it.”

You know you can check something off your to-do list by simply deciding not to do it, right?”

Reading doesn’t have some sort of moral value, so I don’t take it personally. Though it can make you a better person because when you see things from a different perspective than your own, it creates empathy.

But being near Elsie made Jones want to grow. She wanted to tend to herself, which wasn’t something that had ever occurred to her to do before.

“If you’re sorry for something you did or regret your actions, then by all means apologize. But if you’re only apologizing to appease others, others whose opinions you don’t even care about, then why bother? No one wants an empty apology. They’re going to expect changed behavior.”

I’ve made a lot of mistakes recently. Like a lot. But one thing I learned is that trying matters so much more than the end result. You just have to be here. You just have to try.”