Perspective
a break up short story
He told her they’d remain friends. So it was amicable; that’s what she’d been telling everyone, telling herself. But now she wondered if she’d been misremembering things, hearing what she wanted to? His last words had been rattling round her brain like a tiny pebble in her shoe, mostly harmless, but the source of occasional sharp pains. It had been three weeks. Everyone says time heals — her friends repeatedly told her that she was too good for him, that she’d get over it, that he never deserved her — but his last words, that little pebble, had been getting sharper, and harder to ignore. As time went on, with a little distance, what she had perceived as kind, complimentary final words, though admittedly trite, now felt more like a judgement.
‘No one will ever be good enough for you.’
this story was originally published in my collection heartbreak is a universal experience but there are so many ways in which things can fall apart, published by Scumbag Press– a DIY micro publisher of lo-fi punk rock literature run by the brilliant and badass poet Martin Appleby. the accompanying photo was taken on an old polaroid camera I have had since childhood, using early Impossible Film sometime in the mid-2010’s, and was also featured in the collection.