What is the primary conflict in "An Ounce of Cure"? Why?

“An Ounce of Cure” is a short story that centers on an unnamed girl (the narrator of the story) who lives with her family in a small, highly conservative town. She falls in love with a boy called Martin Collingwood, who is a senior at her school. The relationship lasts two months only, after which Martin starts a new relationship with a girl called Mary Bishop, who acts alongside Martin in the school’s Christmas play....

“An Ounce of Cure” is a short story that centers on an unnamed girl (the narrator of the story) who lives with her family in a small, highly conservative town. She falls in love with a boy called Martin Collingwood, who is a senior at her school. The relationship lasts two months only, after which Martin starts a new relationship with a girl called Mary Bishop, who acts alongside Martin in the school’s Christmas play. The end of the relationship presents the beginning of the narrator’s problems as she tries to survive her first heartbreak.

The narrator struggles internally with Martin’s rejection. She “hangs around the places where he can be seen, and then pretends not to see him,” “she pines and weeps for him endlessly.” She tries to take all the aspirins in the bathroom cabinet but stops at six. Even her mother notices that something is the matter with her. She is “mortally depressed.” It is in this state of mind that she goes to babysit at the Berrymans’ home and eventually pours herself two glasses of whiskey, even though her own parents and most people she knows in the town do not drink. She must think that the aspirin tablets or whiskey could put an end to her misery. She is an adolescent who is struggling to make the right decisions, to find a footing in a largely conservative environment. The main conflict in the story is thus to be found within the narrator herself as she fights against feelings of helplessness and unworthiness.

Note that drinking the whiskey at the Berryman’s home makes her quite the outcast in her town. It earns her “the most sinful reputation in her school” until many months later when another girl commits a worse “sin” that steals the limelight. However, it also helps her to heal from the heartbreak by allowing her to face “the terrible and fascinating reality of her problems.”