Annette: So you know when your heart is first broken, and it feels like throwing your back out? You’re stiff, and unnatural, and you can’t move without that jolt of pain? Then it turns into more of a toothache, one that gives you a sudden sharp stab when you bite wrong? And after that it’s like an ugly bruise — it hurts when you touch it and is grotesquely green and purple-yellow, so you try to keep it covered up? Then like a paper cut, that stings when you get lemon juice in it? Finally you just have a scar, and maybe a long time after that, if you’re lucky, you have to actually stop and think about it, like when you’re trying to remember if that ankle you sprained when you were six was your left or your right? Well, I’m probably in the bruise stage right now.

Glenda: Annette, honestly, it’s okay to answer “Fine, and you?” when someone asks, “How are you?”

[Today’s pattern courtesy of the Vintage Fashion Library.]