The Envelope That Changed Everything

words until the screen dimmed.

I did not answer.

Not because I didn’t love him.

Because loving him had become the excuse I used to let him hurt me.

I set the phone aside and picked up a brush instead. I squeezed blue onto a palette. Then gray. Then a small smear of white.

I meant to paint the sea.

What I painted, without intending to, was a horizon that continue reading …