Really Good, Actually

by Monica Heisey

I think part of me assumed we would get back together, even after we agreed he’d go, even after everything. I couldn’t envision it lasting, this time apart. Who would I complain to about the speed of the wifi? What would he do when he needed to remember his mom’s birthday?

Of course, it did not feel better to burn a tobacco and juniper candle and listen to the Backstreet Boys than it had felt to be loved.

Anyone trying to comfort me had been dealt an impossible task: too much attention and care felt like pity, not enough was proof that I was worthless and no one wanted to be around me.

No matter how carefully I closed the bolts, checked and double-checked that I’d done it, fear would keep me awake. I’d get up to redo it ten times in the night in case someone was about to break in and kill me. I didn’t worry about that anymore. Maybe someone will break in and kill me, I’d think. Perfect.

I would say I was operating at about 98.9% long, bad, lonely days, then once in a while, despite the restless sleep and all-beef diet and nights spent sitting directly in the glow of my phone, I would wake up and feel calm – like things would be okay, even if I didn’t know how.

Plus, I assumed his friends all hated my guts. Some of them hadn’t cared much about me to begin with; others I mourned alongside everything else, one more part of the life I’d counted on now dissolved.

I had accepted that it was over, that it would never be how it was again – even, possibly, that it was for the best, but I would have paid a million dollars for one more cab ride home from a party, drunkenly touching each other’s legs and poring over the night’s events