Love isn’t something you take. It’s something you receive. You can’t steal it. You can’t force it. I know how to love. Why doesn’t he?
I toss the suit jacket into the pile and wipe the tears from my face. I feel lost. Tired. I try to slow my breathing, but the anxiety is still there. It’s like I’m in a freefall, but the ground never comes. The therapist called it fight-or-flight. The reason I feel panicky. Said my body is just reacting to stress. Past trauma. The kind that never really goes away. Causes physical symptoms. Psychological, too. That’s all I remember. I barely listened to her in those sessions.
I press my hand to my chest. My heart is out of control. Maybe this is what fight looks like. But I’m not fighting. Not right now. I’m destroying his closet.
Clothes and hangers are everywhere. What kind of person does this? I do, apparently.
Continue reading the opening
Sometimes I wonder how my life would look if I’d married someone else. The therapist said every choice matters. And I chose him. Why didn’t the flight part kick in? Maybe I don’t understand fight-or-flight. I should have listened to her instead of sitting there, half-focused, thinking about all the things I needed to get done. Picking up Rowan’s dry cleaning. Getting to Harbor & Vine Market before the bakery runs out of our favorite bread.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about regret. Actually, I think about it all the time. She did say I have obsessive thoughts. That I think too much. That I need to find ways to calm my mind. Not in those words, but she wasn’t wrong.
I back away, step into the bedroom, and trudge to the window, fixing my eyes on the black iron gates at the end of the driveway.
Where the hell is he?
Excerpt from Dandelion © 2026 E.K. Speer.