What Mended My Heart - Anne Wright

I don’t think that I ever stopped loving Will. At first, when he stopped calling me I gave him excuses in my mind like, “he’s busy now” or “ doesn’t want Diana to find out about us” or “our relationship is maturing.” I started putting more energy into us, stoking the slim flame until it stuttered and stifled under my heavy, heated worry.

Then one evening he said we were finished. I guess I had started to realize it, but being tossed by him was an ugly thing. He didn’t give me any reason, other than he didn’t have feelings for me, any more. The weeks that followed were swallowed up by my misery and self-pity. What saved me was the time that passed, although at the time I didn’t know it.

I think back at that grim couple of days right after, and I think it made me sick: headaches and hot skin, sleepless in the dark next to John’s snoring then not being able to stay awake daytimes, starving for Will’s love and eating a bag of sweet sugar. I cried under my covers, in the shower, and in my car while I drove, hiding under dark glasses. Those days turned into weeks and months and even though the sadness didn’t go away it turned from pain into numbness and weakened until I could see some color again.