The Girl Beyond the Gate

by Becca Day

So much for my private sanctuary. I make a mental note to get a floor-length curtain to block the view. Maybe I won’t be lying on the sofa in my underwear today as I had hoped.

That, and dipping into my mother’s inheritance. As much as I’d have preferred staying put, at least here no one knows where I am. I’m a needle and I’ve created my own haystack to bury myself in.

Keeping up the appearance of someone who’s not teetering on the edge of a breakdown is tiring.

My fingers drift along the photo frames inside, as if they’re greeting old friends with the caution that comes from time apart. Moments of perfection captured for eternity that cling to me like a coat fashioned from shattered glass. The tighter I pull it around myself the more it cuts into me. All it takes is seeing these pictures one more time, to see your face that I miss so much, to realise that I almost enjoy the sting of the glass shards. It reminds me how much I loved you. How much I still do.

It’s ironic, really, how some doctors self-medicate like that. Do what I say, not what I do,

Moving on … what a ridiculous concept.

become a sort of private joke that only I understand. The thing with grief, I’ve discovered, is that there is a time limit to how long you’re allowed to grieve.

Transparency is so often the best strategy. Again, not always my forte, but maybe that would change. I am so tired of pretending.