It was a summer of trying not to think too deeply. A summer of pretending that the end wasn’t coming.
There is me and there is you and the snow has finished falling. Let’s just sit here.
There were always millions of things to talk about, each topic pressing in so that our conversations rarely began and ended but rather began and were interrupted and continued, strands of thoughts that got pushed aside and picked up later. If our past selves got a glimpse of us now, what would they make of us?
She’ll be the same as she’s always been – fearless and funny and whole. She’ll still be herself and I’ll be learning who I am now.
She steps toward me and hugs me tight. I close my eyes. There will come a time soon – any second – when she’ll pull away and this will be over. In my mind, we keep ending, ending. I try to stay here, now, for as long as we can.
I was afraid of the man who I’d loved, and how he had been a stranger. I was afraid of how I hated him. How I wanted him back.
These are all things that change a person. If we endure them and we aren’t changed, then something is wrong.
I never realized a what big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head.
There was so much going on under the top layer. It was quiet, maybe, but it wasn’t simple.
I understood how she’d feel stuck. What she had was so beautiful. How could she add something without taking something away?
Even the good places are haunted.
It’s possible that some of the rooms were occupied by regular people, down on their luck, but my wing was full of the broken, and I was at home among them.
She’d been a flower. Snipped from the root, quick to wilt, temporary. She’d existed to be lovely and to be chosen. No one had expected her to last.
I lost nearly everything, and then I built something better.
Here was the taste of it – a little bitter, a little sweet, some citrus brightness, maybe honey. And here was meaning. A home, hers alone.
And Emilie opened the door.
I smiled into my pillow, closed my eyes, wished for the feeling to last. I saw our futures unfolding, all pink clouds and cacti and bright sun and forever.
Hiding and denying and being afraid is no way to treat love. Love demands bravery. No matter the occasion, love expects us to rise.
So this was how it felt- to be dealt a blow, to pause, to keep going in spite of it. Not to start over but to continue.
It’s stunning,” she said. “It’s like... the best posisble thing art can do. It’s about you, but I see myself in it. I imagine everyone here does.