Page 65 of Our Hearts Knew Better

My breathing picks up and my heart thuds against my ribcage, every time, when I snap back into myself.

My filled hands clench around the bowls as an ache builds in my clenched teeth.

The snap sends me to the trash and the bowls inside, both landing with thumps and clangs near the bottom.

I walk backward to rest against the sink—this is fine—and stay in this next state until the sounds around me—traffic on the street, the hum of the fridge, the drip of the faucet—are again louder than my own.

The start of a video is paused on my laptop. I set it on the island to play some low music as I cooked, and I had to fight having a stranger’s company.

I slap the top closed on the girl about to eat a plate of fettuccine alfredo and strawberry cake as I round the island to the living room, swiping up my phone from the table.

The couch calls to me next and I fight that too, pacing around instead, attempting to walk off emotion.

I pass the small table that has a vase of fake pink camellias and honeysuckles Isolde sent to us after we moved in, and those few bridge figurines of my mom’s. I trace my finger along the arch of one, thinking what I know she would tell me if she were alive.

Don’t be afraid, Summer.

I wince to think about her watching over me and have a shameful second of being thankful she’s not here to see me now.

I then pass my shelves of books, tracing my finger along one as I eye the spines, small specks of dust flying. I haven’t kept up witheverything.

These aremytrophies, the reading I’ve accomplished, since I haven’t read anything that wasn’t required since high school, since I got a life of my own.

And I’m pulling off a favorite now, bringing it to my corner chair and flinging my thin blanket over my lap.

My bag of dried pineapples that I snack on while I’m working—all I usually do in this chair—still sits at one of the legs, and I pop a couple into my mouth. I love how they’re made. They taste like the sea.

I’m only a few sentences into the book when my entire face suddenly stings, my body tight and shaky, right before I slam the book shut.

A tear falls on the cover, then more come, and I can’t stop them as I spiral into the breakdown, a defense immediately putting the blame onto leaving my hair wet to curl on top of my head. The style makes a difference, they say, and I say this one too. I can be harsh and tough, appear sharp-edged more with my hair straightened. Curly is the girl naive. Straight is the woman who knows better.

I don’t know anything.

I have a few absolutes, but they’ve been abandoned too. Trying to be the established person you’ve become in a similarly old way of living, you’re guaranteed to lose your mind a bit inside the Deja vu.

So how much longer until I do?

If I’m going back to books, back tofiction, it’s because I hate my reality. I love reading, but those adventures have been tainted by how they started.

Not reading means I’m too busy living.

Not reading means I’m happy in my surroundings.

Not reading is a good thing. . .

Thethudof the book slipping from my lap to the floor gives sound to the one in my heart as I muffle my cries into the blanket. This is the easy part, curling myself around my knees, pressing harder until my face and lungs hurt and I have to force in silent gasps of air just to breathe.

I’m not this person again.

But I am.

I’m giving up my life, again.

I discovered myself, and I’ve been losing her.

I got a life I wanted, and I’ve been losing that too.

I used to be brave. . .

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