The Boutique Owner Told Me to Stay Quiet Before I Heard Something I Was Not Meant to Hear

to my apartment alone one evening and sat on my couch in the particular way of a person who does not know how to begin the thing they came to say. I made tea and waited.

“I thought if I did not grab control first,” she said finally, “I would be left behind. Like you were.”

“I was not left behind,” I said. “I chose to stay for you.”

She turned that over continue reading …