I avoid her like eye contact; like a sore spot; like an unwanted conversation or the incongruous hulk and heft and odor of an elephant in the middle of a crowded room.
I avoid her like water avoids oil: a frantic, repulsed, jerking reversal. Like the reaction to a slap.
That is how it feels. Walking around with cheek stinging, a red palm print that appears on smarting skin without any contact.
This is what its like, living with her. The haunt of what was and what if and what could have or should have or maybe, may be, may have been. Trapped in past imperfect.
Where all the ghosts are her.