Fiction

She didn't look back at all, while I stood there watching her drive away. I should have been crying. The light misting in the air seemed to mirror this intent, this inability to let the downpour unfold. Her tailllights winked out of existence as she turned the corner, out of sight, out of my world, out of my life.

This time last week she blew me a kiss when she drove away.

This time last month she wasn't driving away.

This time last year the world made perfect sense, and the future seemed distant, but plausible.

But now, I was standing in my driveway, watching as the last piece of my life that had made any sense stopped making sense. Everything looked trivial now-insubstantial, inconsequential, as if the veneer that had been there for so long finally had melted off.

Days later, I'm wondering why I can't even feel anger. It fits, and everyone tells me it would be perfectly acceptable. Some of them even feel anger on my behalf. The few things I managed to let slip about what happened fuel their rage, but to me these things only add to my confusion.

There was no substantial change. The universe just keeps on ticking away. It feels like someone died. Nobody makes eye contact, they just shuffle around, refusing to look at the elephant in the room. Not that my behavior has ever encouraged them to help me tackle it.

It's called internalizing.

I don't know how to let things out, to let things go.

When I see something I don't understand, my natural instinct is to solve it, to figure it out. But this time there is no answer. There is no solution. There is nothing out there that can fix this, make this right. I'm looking at a chunk of non-Euclidean geometry planted right in the middle of my soul.

I've done the math, checked my steps, worked it through every way I can, and it doesn't add up.

How can you do everything right and still fail? Well, boys and girls,look no farther. The answer is right here, in this terrible figure.

It's the only time in my life I've wanted to feel angry, but all I feel is hollow.

---

Months later and the wind is absolutely roaring. I have three superpowers, and they'll never save the universe: I always know the exact distance between my shoulder and your nose, I can tell immediately upon meeting a person whether or not they like armadillos, and when I really need it to, I can make the weather reflect my mood.

Beat that, spy girl.