We Are Not Ourselves, by Matthew Thomas

Sometimes, she thought, life makes you grow up early. And some people never grow up at all. ______________________________________________________________

 There was something romantic about that, but living with him made his eccentricities curdle into pathologies. What had been charmingly independent became fussy and self-defeating. ______________________________________________________________

 “I’m tired. I can’t tell you how tired I am. I’m tired of standing in front of a bunch of people and being the center of attention. Do you have any idea how much energy that takes? You’re never off. Never. You can never have a bad day. I feel like I’ve been trying to keep all these juggling balls in the air, and I can’t let them hit the ground or something bad will happen. I’d love to just lie down right now.” ______________________________________________________________

 She wanted not so much to be alone as to be left alone. ______________________________________________________________

 He thought with a pang of the many afternoons they’d spent on different floors of the house. He wanted, one day, to be a person who went out of his way to find out what made other people happy. ______________________________________________________________

 He went looking for some tape in his father’s study and found him sitting there staring up at his diplomas. Some books on the ends of shelves had fallen over, and Connell stood them up. A fine layer of dust covered everything. A couple of hours later, he brought the tape back and found his father in the same position. At first he thought his father must have fallen asleep, but then he saw that he was awake and staring at the wall. Connell asked him what he was thinking about. “It must have taken a lot of work to get these,” his father said.
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 That was the first time you ever did that.”
“Did what?”
“Hugged me first.”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible,” she said.
“In my memory, anyway.”
She shook it again. “There’s more that’s happened than what’s in your memory.”