Exercise #3

She blames herself for her hair falling out, for the bruises down her legs she doesn’t know the origin of, for feeling those same legs will crumble under her as she climbs up the stairs, for feeling as though there’s no way her lungs can pump air that quick, for being inadequate. She blames herself for every mistake. She turns on the hot water and plugs the sink. She slips dishes into the water as it rises. How did she ever get here? she wonders. How did she ever even manage life this far? She wonders how she got through childhood happy. Or was she happy? Maybe she wasn't. She tried to recall what happiness felt like. She was happy, she was sure of it, when she used to take riding lessons, when every week she got to sit on top of a horse, so much bigger, so much more powerful than she, and direct it. She was happy then, she thinks, and when the horse, Annabelle, nuzzled into her side while she groomed her.

When she thinks of this, the mug she is wiping clean slips from her grip. The handle strikes the bottom of the sink. It breaks in pieces. She cannot stop herself from making mistakes. She's tried over and over again, and always this happens. Something goes wrong. She doesn't know what's making her this way – and normally it's about more important things. Looking for jobs. Deciding where to move. What to do with her free time. Who to keep as friends. But screw the mug. The man who'd gifted it to her was long gone anyway.

She needs to know she has someone. Sometimes, she thinks, she picks people just so she can feel this way. The woman at the library, for example. They found themselves at the same instant reaching for a copy of The Time Traveler's Wife. It was a connection. If they did it – if they both read The Time Traveler's Wife at the same time, it would make the connection stronger, she was sure. And if she could strike up a conversation right now, standing in the stacks in the library, maybe they could even discuss it, and maybe after that they would read and discuss something else, and over and and over and over as the strings of connection grew longer and wound round themselves.

But she said nothing. Because why would this woman want to talk to her? she mused. She wouldn't. And anyway, it's not like having someone will make her feel better. It won't. She puts the broken mug in the drying rack, tosses the shards of handle into the tray with the silverware.