My Last Innocent Year

by Daisy Alpert Florin

I felt detached from what had happened to me, Debra’s anger reminding me how I should be feeling, but didn’t. What was wrong with me, I wondered? Why didn’t I react to things the way other people did, in ways that were normal? I opened and closed my hand, watching the mechanics of tendon and bone. Was this really my hand? If so, how was it connected to the rest of my body? What was my body anyway? What made it mine?

as small and unimportant as I mostly felt, the egotism of youth hadn’t left me, and I placed myself firmly and squarely at the center of the universe.

We need women. Somewhere along the way the balance shifts and all these boys you pine for now become men who are very afraid of being alone.”