There Are Things of Which I May Not Speak -The Toast

There is a certain point in your 20s when you become an adult, if you haven’t done so already. Not turning 21, not graduating from school. Some event–an arrest, a disaster, a revelation, getting fired, getting humbled, getting an abortion, or some other legitimate voyage out of your well-traveled comfort zone. Nobody actually told me that when I started my 20s, and I didn’t know it was coming until years after it had passed and left a scar I trace with my memory every day. I thought the world would always be mine, along with everyone I loved in it. I was wrong. In short: my ex-boyfriend was killed in the war. I don’t know how else to put it, and I’ve tried different ways of phrasing it to make it sound less blunt, but it’s difficult. He was my first love and first true despair, he was the best person I knew and, for very a brief period of time, the worst. I toyed with his heart; I drove him crazy. He was the most significant figure in my life, the most pivotal. He was handsome, Tom Cru

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• anne g