Crushing

by Genevieve Novak

‘You’re amazing,’ I said. ‘How do you do that?’ ‘Self-esteem, babe.’ ‘Where do I get some?’ ‘You get a good dermatologist and a couple of friends who tell you how great you are until you believe it.’

If I had a heart attack and keeled over, would anyone notice? Or would I die as I lived: surrounded by people who had their shit together?

You don’t have to want to be with him to want him to want to be with you.’

I’d always been told it was a bad idea to drink your emotions, but some days called for it.

It was easy to make grand declarations of independence until you feared for your life.

‘That’s unfair. To be gorgeous and capable of forming a coherent thought. That’s cosmically unjust.’

‘You’re twenty-nine.’ ‘I know.’ ‘We are literal infants. We’re practically still in utero.’

you just pick something you don’t hate and do it until you don’t want to anymore. Life isn’t a storybook. There’s no arc. You just live and try to have a good time doing it.’

I was a woman who was tired of herself and the places she had been.

I had never really known what I wanted, not in any significant way. But inaction was action; opting out was a choice. I’d floated along and called it fate.

You could walk away from friendship, injured but fulfilled, disappointed but stronger, shivering from the loss and warmed by the memories. You could never stop being someone’s sister.