Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

Author:Gabrielle Korn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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And now, so many years after she’d left Ava, too many years to count anymore—Orchid was alone, and the world was ending, or changing, and there was nothing to do but try to survive.

Wasn’t this what she had wanted? Wasn’t this the apocalyptic scenario she’d daydreamed about on the way to work so long ago? Shouldn’t she feel as though she’d accomplished something by dreaming it into existence? The feeling of waiting for something awful to happen had turned out to be the common denominator, a base-level dread that didn’t go away even though she had changed every single detail of her life. The worst had yet to happen, and they were just preparing for it. She might be preparing for it forever. She would likely die not seeing the end of the world. She knew other people might think that was a good thing. But Orchid found it extremely anticlimactic. She wished she had a crystal ball. The curiosity and the uncertainty were the hardest parts.

So when it came time to visit a neighboring community, Orchid generally nominated herself, searching the faces as they emerged from their own homes for a spark of familiarity. Sometimes she thought she saw Ava in a face that was turned away from her; other times the back of a strange woman’s head would be tilted at an angle that was so like Ava, Orchid had to stop herself from calling out.

Once Orchid was able to admit to herself that she had indeed made a mistake, the feeling never left, like a side cramp from running without breathing deeply enough, sharp and painful and inescapable. There was nothing to do but feel it.

It seemed to her that her life had been more shaped by the things she hadn’t said to Ava than the things she had. Perhaps if she had been able to tell Ava how she was feeling when she was feeling it, Ava could have changed the behaviors that were pushing Orchid away. But by not saying anything at all, Orchid hadn’t even given her a chance to try.

And what was more—when she broke up with Ava, it had never occurred to Orchid that no one would ever love her again, but here she was. She had squandered her last chance of romantic stability. There was no one after Ava, not really, and probably never would be. She’d die alone. She supposed she had incidentally arranged it that way. Her newfound self-awareness made everything feel worse. What was the point of self-actualization if you had no one to share that self with?

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