How to Talk to a Broken Woman

Someone you love is going to break.

Perhaps she already has.

It happens quietly, most of the time. A woman sits across from you with the tears finally rising, or the silence gone strange, or three small words she has never said out loud before, and the whole room narrows to a single question you were never taught how to answer: what do I say now?

We learn a thousand things in this life. We are never taught the one that matters most, which is how to be there for someone in pain. So we reach for the phrases we inherited, be strong, look on the bright side, everything happens for a reason, and we watch, helpless, as our best intentions leave the people we love a little more alone than they were before we spoke.

This is a book about that moment, and about the words it asks of you. It is not about fixing her, because she cannot be fixed, only accompanied. It is about seeing past the bright I’m fine that women learn to wear from girlhood, about the words that open a door instead of closing it, and about the quiet, unglamorous courage of staying when there is nothing at all to say.

For every woman who was ever told she was too much, and for everyone who has sat beside her, longing to help, and not known how.