The woman stared down at the coin like she wanted to kiss it. Or throw it across the room. The coin, like its owner, had chased away her sanity, her grace.
She had to consciously remind herself not to romanticize objects. Objects aren't love. People are love. Focus on the ones you actually have, then fall through the cracks of clouded dreams.
But despite her compartmentalizing, she resisted, she held on. Her fondest inside joke was internalized in her nervous system. She never laughed harder at anything than at the mess of her life reflected in the pity of someone else's eyes.
She went through the motions every night. The routine game where she told herself she was better than wistful, better than needy. She saw in herself an inevitable punch-line, falling victim to the allure of the coin. Every night, she scrutinized it, tracing the ribbed edges with nimble fingers. Sometimes, she stripped out of her thin camisole and ran the coin down the length of her underarms, the interruption of collarbone on her battle-scarred skin, imagining, mind reeling with the texture and pattern of his lips, seeking purchase anywhere, everywhere. She'd been naked for many men afterwards, but she had only ever bared her soul to him.
She only liked mirrors when she could physically see the damage of his memory, etched into her skin, a new language of red lines.