None of This Is True

by Lisa Jewell

Today is her forty-fifth birthday. She finds it hard to believe. Once she’d been young and she’d thought forty-five would come slow and impossible. She’d thought forty-five would be another world. But it came fast and it’s not what she thought it would be.

“You don’t ever think that your life would be better if you were on your own?” “No. No, I don’t.” “And yet you call yourself a feminist.” “Yes. I do. And I am. You can be happily married and a feminist.”

Her boy sits inside headphones every night with eyes wide staring at a screen. Her girl cries over mean things said to her by other girls on the piece of plastic and glass she allows her to have access to.