Abigail M. Schilling

Guest blog by Elle

She hardly ever cries. At least not when anyone can see her. She feels far away, or like she’s scared to get too close to you. But all of a sudden, like the moment the tip of a match lights up, she calls you crying when he finally clears out his stuff. You are burned together after only the first sob on the other end of the telephone line, and you wonder why you ever felt a distance there at all.

She’ll lie if she feels justified, but won’t drink before her 21st birthday. She doesn’t “do” her hair (what would she “do” with it anyway?) and only paints her toenails maybe once a year. But she loved him in a way that surprised me with its elaborate root system, despite the dry weather. He had taken root in her, and to plunge the spade into the soil to dig up what you’ve planted, well, sometimes the world is just too much for us alone.

Sometimes I worry that she works so hard in order to avoid herself. But one choking sob on the telephone line after he’s gone, and it hangs in the air like the smell of bread in the morning: you both know why she’s been hiding.