Poorna Bell

Bel Kumar wakes up in hospital surprised and confused.

Surprised to be told she had a near-fatal accident outside work. And confused as to why her ex-boyfriend is by her bedside.

Bel's HR record still lists her ex as her next of kin, but she can't think of a less appropriate person to nurse her back to health.

But who can she turn to in a crisis? Over-invested parents? A sister whose life has turned out perfectly? Friends she exchanges dating woes with over cocktails?

If this experience has taught Bel anything, it's that she should reconnect with the most important people from her past. But that's going to be easier said than done because Bel has never been good at asking for help.

And she's doing just fine on her own... Isn't she? 

In Case of Emergency

Victoria Justice

There are many parallels between romantic relationships and close friendships. Certainly when they break up, they look the same. The pain, the anguish, the hurt, the void. But the perfect knowledge of someone that comes only after a long-established friendship  the familiarity of who they really are, is something that never truly vanishes.

I didn't know how to explain it, that moment when something very small and new and fragile enters the world, a spark that could be extinguished in a breath, a something that could be a nothing, a thing that you didn't want the particles of reality to stick to, in case it became easier to see and then knock down.

When a friendship breaks, everyone looks at the big event that caused the final rupture. But more attention should be paid to the fault lines, the little stress fractures that form over time. That perhaps could have been reinforced or repaired with a loving conversation, but instead just grew wider.

In Case of Emergency quotes

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