by Joy Sullivan
I wiped out on my bike yesterday. My ex was with me and helped me up and it was romantic for a moment in the way romcoms are romantic when the love interest leaps to the rescue in the wounded aftermath and gently dabs their lover's lip and fixes them up with bandaids and kisses: oh, this might sting a little. Except that this is real life and he spills the hydrogen peroxide all over the couch as he tries to bathe my bloody elbow and my torn up knee and I'm crying but not in a sexy way and we're not lovers anymore but still there's love. Not the fireworks kind, but the familiar and sweaty and honest type that carries you home and slaps a bag of frozen broccoli on your bruised thigh and accidentally calls you baby again - as if you might not notice. As if your heart doesn't thump like the tail of an old hound at the sound of her name.
