Katie Taylor's Guide to Heartbreak

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Hi,

You'd laugh at me for starting like that. I think it's what I said the first time we met. But I don't know how to write letters any more than I know how to talk to girls. Or how to grieve.

How do you move on when your heart feels like sand? Every time I think I've hardened it enough to last, a wave of you slices it into shreds in my chest.

I think you'd laugh at my metaphors, too.

God, I miss you.

–Katie

Report Title: Katie Taylor's Guide to Heartbreak.

Subtitle: Featuring grief and gin and minimal moving on.

Foreword:

The dingy bar secreted away on 17th Street isn't the one you'd thought you would end up in tonight. It's only open till 3am, for one thing, and there's really nothing about the décor or clientele that could be classified as respectable. The drinks are relatively cheap though, and that's what you care about, especially since you haven't bothered with any pre-gaming tonight. So you go in sober, sink onto a stool at the far end of the bar, and rest your chin on your hand as you wait for the bartender.

You order a shot of the strongest liquor he's got. The bartender is more than six feet tall and he hulks over the glasses when he mixes, but the look he gives you when he sets the first down in front of you is characterised by pity.

You look away. The alcohol scalds your throat, but you down it in one gulp.