Notes from a Breakup: A Field Guide through Heartbreak
A Story
by Ola Szczecinska1. Bifurcation
Cool drizzly night in July, standing by the Thompson River in Kamloops, downtown. They had just had a quick dinner at a local pub—fish-and-chips for him, Philly cheesesteak for her. She had left hers half eaten on her plate, fries grown cold and stiff.
Outside they continued to argue.
“Why didn’t you just let me pay?” she asked him sharply.
“Why can’t we just pay separate?” he countered, towering above her.
“My parents never split their bills,” she said. “I don’t see other couples splitting their bills.”
“Sure, they do,” he said.
“No, they don’t.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Why can’t we share?”
“You always interpret everything so negatively.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“It’s just the bartender.”
“I don’t care about the bartender!”
An argument as old as their relationship, continually settled and unsettled, suspended as though caught in a state of quantum superposition.
