The Vice

The narrator, asked to set down the facts of their life on paper, begins with the basics. A mother who stays emotionally out of reach and a father who has died shape a past the narrator has kept hidden. Anxiety has been present for as long as they can remember, and one course of treatment for depression did not help. Because of this need for secrecy, anyone who tries to get close is met with lies.

Their love life follows a pattern of turning away from the men who would suit them and drifting toward the ones who would not. The most recent example is an affair with a married man, which ran alongside a growing distance from the man they truly love.

The account is written with the knowledge that no one will ever read it. The narrator expects to numb themselves with the contents of a bottle, tear the pages from the journal, and carry on pretending they still recognize the face in the mirror.