The Broken Things We Could've Saved

“I just want you to know that this isn’t your fault in any way,” she tells me. I can’t remember the exact way that she said it, but she was just outside the kitchen, standing on the dark, wooden porch. I remember that he was standing next to her, that I could tell from the way that they were standing that they had something important to tell me, that something had shifted. I think we were going to head out to dinner. I don’t remember eating. I remember thinking that I had seen it coming, that after everything had changed, I thought it was, in a way, for the better for all of us. I never once saw it as my fault, just something that had been bending for so long finally snapping. Something that I saw coming. But I never thought it was my fault. Does that make me…

In books, people always seem to think it’s their fault. When anything goes wrong, it’s always a spiral of self blame. I can’t remember a character ever looking at something broken, and thinking that it might be better off this way, that it might have been inevitable. I can’t remember a character ever looking at the way their world has changed, and decided that it is not something to shoulder themselves, for better or worse.

“You did this,” he says, voice nearly steady. “You were the one who set this all into motion.”
“Yes I did, and I don’t regret a thing.” “No I didn’t. I was there, but it wasn’t my fault. Sometimes, the glass is going to fall and shatter, no matter how quick you are to notice its decent and try to catch it.”

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