Crushing

by Genevieve Novak

Obviously men were the problem, always, in every scenario, but I wasn’t blameless.

I had no desire to occupy a spotlight, happy to let confident extroverts do the talking.

Whoever you spent your life with, if they didn’t know how to take a joke and drag it out until it was clinging on with its fingernails then pull it back in and make you wonder how you ever saw the brighter side of things without them, then you weren’t having enough fun.

What is the point of relying on someone, and investing in them, and supporting them, building them up, putting them first, always, fucking always, when you’re not even on their radar? Why do you always have to come last?’

Which girl am I supposed to be for you today?

I wanted to be known, but accidentally, by someone listening for a thousand tiny details and piecing them together in a notebook, arriving at the finished story without me ever having to be brave and reveal myself.

You couldn’t feel at ease in an empty room if you were too clouded with anger and shame to notice your breath.

‘We don’t like to be alone,’ I said, ‘and that’s not a good enough reason to be with someone.’

All the happy endings, happy only in their unending nature, constantly rewritten and refilled with a rosier tint than could ever really exist.