“I’ve wasted enough time like this. Falling down, staying down, thinking what’s the point, picking myself up, stumbling through that no-man’s-land where I’m neither sick nor well. Now I’m buckling down.” I press Send before I can soften the text with lies. I begin a to-do list. So much to do. One thing a day. Beep. “That’s a good idea,” he replies, then a smiley face. Why did I text him, of all people? Why didn’t he reply, “You’re perfect as you are”? He doesn’t know how hard it is. On my to-do list I scribble, “Stop craving Bro’s approval.”
Amita Basu's fiction has appeared in The Penn Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Funicular. She has a PhD in cognitive science and lives in Bangalore, India. amitabasu.com/portfolio/