All through my chest and my stomach is this regret over what I’m doing to Dylan, in my hands and my feet is this electricity at the thought of Taylor leaning close to me, and all over my whole body, way, deep inside it, is this hurting over Ingrid. I could scream at the top of my lungs and the sound I would make wouldn’t be half as loud as I’d need it to be.
There are many ways of being alone.
We were innocent enough to think that our lives were what we thought they were, that if we pieced all of the facts about ourselves together they’d form an image that made sense – that looked like us when we looked in the mirror, that looked like our living rooms and our kitchens and the people who raised us – instead of revealing all the things we didn’t know.
I face away from her for a long time so that she won’t see my sadness. To be held like that, to be let go.
And I understand what this is. It’s the opposite of the collapse of the fantasy. It’s what happens when the illusion pales in comparison to the truth.
People talk about coming out as though it’s this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I’m only eighteen and it already exhausts me.
One of the first lectures my history professor gave us was about this guy William Morris. He said that everything you own should be either useful or beautiful. It’s a lot to aspire to, but I figured why not try? I saw these in a potter’s studio a couple days afterward and I bought them.
I was afraid of my loneliness. And how I’d been tricked. And the way I’d convinced myself of so much: that I wasn’t sad, that I wasn’t alone.
Something in me is cracking open, the light coming through is so bright it hurts, and the rest of me is still here, wounded, even though I know it’s all for the best.
It’s a good-bye, so I hug her back, breathing in the tangerine shampoo that I will associate with her forever, remembering how we used to shower together in her tiny blue-tiled bathroom after days spent by the pool, and how in the beginning, when things still felt easy and right, holding her close like this – underwater, in the sunlight in the quietest nighttime hours – was the best feeling in my life.
I almost expect to see the shoe box rising and falling with journal’s breath.
All the things we could be doing now if she weren’t busy wondering if the world holds better things for her than me.
Her hand presses hard and insistant on my back, her breasts press against mine.
It may be difficult to believe,” he said. “I know it may have come across as... romantic, because of how I act when I get her letters. Because of that dress she sent me. But sometimes two people have a deep connection. It makes romance seem trivial. It isn’t about anything carnal. It’s about souls. About the deepest part of who you are as a person.
If our past selves got a glimpse of us now, what would they make of us?
Things I need: The Californian sunshine. A more convincing smile.
That before all of us there was something else. Eventually, something will take our place. I learn that I am a tiny piece of a miraculous world.
I know it’s mean of me, but I have this feeling that if I let her touch me, I would shatter into pieces.
I want a love like that. I want pure and true. I want it with you.
I breathe deep. I look into her eyes. I wish I could take her face in my hands and kiss her, but I know she needs more than that right now. Even though I want to give her everything, I’ve learned enough in the last few days to only promise what I know I can deliver.