Every time I haven’t heard from this man for a while, six or eight months, a year, I know he’s in jail again. Inevitably every time he gets out he calls me, asks about my romantic life, says he always will love me, says if he had known how things would end up he would have chosen me instead of my best friend. Every time this happens I remind him that I chose to not be with him, that I love him the way you love a toxic family member (at a distance and with apprehension and pity), but he’ll never remember it this way.





















