monday night
In between staring at the wall and crying, I talk to H on the phone. At some point I ask, “Aren’t there, like, five steps of grief or something?” I start typing as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“Yeah, I think so. Anger, depression, denial, acceptance an–”
“Bargaining,” I cut him off. “The web says it’s denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance — is it always in that order?”
“Probably not.”
“Yeah…” I trail off and we’re quiet.
“I’m angry and depressed. Can you have two at once? I did the denial thing all day,” I blurt out. I realize I’m basically making H listen to my thoughts out loud and interact with them. Play with them like he’d play with a sick kid — not so much for his own enjoyment, but just to make the sad thing not so sad for a while. But I can’t stop. “I don’t know about the bargaining part though.”
“What, you trying to knock them all out before bed?” He laughs. “It takes time.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know it takes time…” I sigh, but not deep enough — it feels like I can only breathe from the top of my lungs — and go quiet again.
“I just want some part of it to make sense,” I say finally.
“It doesn’t.”
