Notes on Heartbreak

by Annie Lord

And in the towel now, with coldness starting to prick up all the hairs on my arms, and the sheets dark with damp, I experience another ‘over’, and this time it’s a promise, to keep on being nice to her. To order expensive takeaways, and go on walks, and watch films that are difficult to understand, because this life could be gorgeous if only I gave myself permission to allow it.

My mum doesn’t like it when I say stuff like this. She thinks it’s unfeminist. And I know the better story is the one where you’re liberated on your own. But I don’t think I would be this way now if it wasn’t for him. I was hurt when he left because I didn’t know who I was going to be when this person, who contributed so much to my composition as a human, disappeared. What I didn’t realise is that he taught me all the lessons and I know them off by heart without him now. So, as much as I’m glad that he made me who I am, I’m glad that I’ve been left alone to be her too.

Perhaps Joe and I can carry on loving each other, even when miles of air and experience separate us. Not in the way of wanting to wake up in the same bed. Or needing to speak to each other when something goes wrong. But as a quiet love that endures out of respect for the impact he had on my life.

I told myself there was too much of him in me and me in him for us to ever fully forget each other. But there we were, walking at different paces, heading in different directions. He’s handed me back my arm and my leg and in return I’ve given him back the same. What’s left in the end? Not even the charred ground after a volcano, the ruin of a battlefield, just empty sentences and good manners. What hurts more than missing him is realising I no longer do.