By Sylvia Schwartz

You ask if the “she” in the manuscript is me. I tell you, she is not. But, of course, parts of me spill onto the pages. How can it not? 

You say her eventual suicide, along with the last chapter, when she disappears for days, not responding to texts or calls or emails or even knocks on her door, is the basis of your fear. However, I respond to you, don’t I? Yes, I turn off my phone, don’t listen to messages, want to be alone. But I’m fine. When I eventually call, you hear me. Hear my laugh. No need to worry. Really.

You must realize the character who slips into “a blissful forever where the last brilliant light severed and seared her into constellations” is merely lofty imagery painted with plain letter-making words—nothing more. You ask where these dark thoughts come from, and I tell you everyone has them. Okay. Not you. But most people, will you grant me that? 

I tell you, feelings are slippery, a hard thing to wrangle. Getting caught in the throat, constricting the gut, and terrorizing the brain when on a mind-numbing loop. So how can you expect them not to be tangled and twisted when they finally escape, bursting out in fits and spurts—like my conflicted feelings for you?

I know you just want one thing: me to be happy. And you’re afraid when I’m not. But putting pen to pain is my panacea. The brooding girl you espied our first night, proving opposites attract, didn’t prove attachments last.

You ask why I don’t write comedy. You tell me I can be funny. That funny is sexy, too. I say, don’t dig too far beneath a standup’s surface unless you’re willing to uncover trauma.

When I tell you my next book is a love story, you are ecstatic. Thankful the unsteady dark side “you put up with”—your phrase, not mine—will finally lift. You stay excited until you learn my novel is also a tragedy. While neither lover dies, they won’t get what they want. 

I wish life were simpler. Do I love you? I do. Is it enough? I think not. Someday, when you read the last page where the lovers part, I hope you’ll understand we each got what we needed.

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Sylvia Schwartz’s stories have appeared in several anthologies and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has been published in LitBreak, Five on the Fifth, The Write Launch, Bright Flash Literary Review, Ariel Chart International Literary Journal, Bluebird’s Scribe Review, and more. She is an assistant editor at Narrative Magazine. http://www.sylviaschwartz.com, @Aivlys99