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Every time she goes to see her mother she is walking on eggshells. There are certain topics that cannot be mentioned, that should be avoided at all costs.
Her mother has eyes that are sharp, beady and bird-like. Today her mother breaks the unspoken rule, uttering the one question she has the least right to ask:
“So why did you and your husband separate?”

They were wadded up at the bottom of his suitcase, almost wrinkled beyond recognition. He pulled them out, scrunching his nose. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had washed them, but now that he was completely out of clean pairs of socks, they would do. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

The cap-sleeved white blouse lay forgotten on the floor of her otherwise immaculate bedroom.

Of course, she should have hung it up in the closet when she got home, or even put it with her other dirty clothes for washing.

She excused herself, thinking, “I was much too tired.”

The next day, she woke up, saw the blouse staring, accusatory, up at her, and marched outside. She shredded the pearly silk reminders of last night, and let the pieces float away on the breeze.

The pixels had blurred the familiar features of her face. But was inarguably her. It felt strange to him, seeing her after so many years apart—and finding her as the background of his roommate’s cellphone.

All she can do now is gather her things and flee.
Severing ties has never before been so appealing.

All he does is coach me from the sidelines, eternally condescending. Even after years of proving otherwise, he still thinks I don’t know how to play this game.

Her smile is shark-like, carnivorous. She fools them with her charming laughter and bouncy blonde curls, her little pink dresses and affinity for anything pretty. She’s just waiting to lure them in close enough so she can take a bite.

She crept around the corner, then peeked out to spy on the octet as they played the first bars of their Mendelssohn. Letting only a fraction of her face show, she watched their eyebrows as they leaned in for a piano section.

In the next room, she heard the unpretending joy of her own Beethoven quartet as the other three effortlessly passed around their quick, lively melodies. The music seemed not even to miss its fourth player.

She stared up at the screen as the ending montage swam lazily by. The music sunk and swelled, and his musician’s fingertips on her arm tapped out the counter melody hiding in the background.

Tap tap, taaaaaaap, taptaptap.

She grabbed the restless fingers and squeezed. He squeezed back.

My life is a tattered collage of embarrassing events, held together tenuously by fraying red threat. After years and years of trying to simply throw it away or change it so it becomes slightly more appealing, I’ve simply given up. I accept my fate.