A KID
A kid.
That’s all I am to him: Trapped in my ¬under-developed body. I want to scream, but my mouth is dry.
His words drown together, lost somewhere between his mouth and my ear, until she nudges me.
“… However, Ms. Lock, we are concerned about her low attendance, failing grades, and frankly, her overall well-being.” He pauses to glance at the montage of papers spewed across his desk and scribble, presumably, nonsense. “Many of Rachel’s teachers and superiors have expressed great concern and brought it to my attention numerous times. Now I understand the circumstances, but Ms. Lock–”
“Don’t be silly; call me Kari,” she interrupts as she lends him a closed smile. She tucks her chemical blond hair behind her ear, which is visibly weighed down by her faux diamond earring. She scoots closer to him.
Words no longer retain form, accompanying the hum of the heater. My eyes are engrossed in the carpet’s pattern, following each zig and zag, until finally I end where I began.
He hands her an official Harper High pen and points to the line on which she is to provide a signature, as he summarizes five pages of legal information. He claims he’s found the perfect program for me. He says lots of other youth who have faced similar obstacles as me have been very responsive. He says he thinks that I will be too.
I silently wish him luck with that.
No, I am not going.
I’m a lot of things but not a charity project. Nope. Never. No, thank you. She can’t make me go. Can she? She makes me go, despite my pleas.
I step outside into the unwelcomingly brisk morning and begin to unwrap a granola bar. Kicking a small pebble, hands safely tucked in pockets, I watch my breath, like smoke, exiting my body, vaporizing into air. Maybe this is as close as I’ll ever get to proof of my existence.
I enter the building which he claims will save me. Taking my time to roam this unfamiliar territory in search of room 201, I find the hallway to be unusually narrow, almost as if its walls are closing in on me.
I take two deep breaths before entering the room. The door creaks open, and I get the uneasy sensation that I’m not only late but intruding on an exclusive moment. I am greeted by blank stares and a middle-aged woman sporting blond pigtails and a feigned smile, complete with a coral pink lipstick smudge across one tooth.
She leaps from a plastic chair and shrieks a welcoming serenade, assuring me that my tardiness is excusable because it is my first day, but to never let it happen again. She looks me straight in the eye and gives me the firmest handshake I’ve ever received.
I enter the circle of chairs. However, it seems to have taken the shape of a blob. I find myself in the middle of a mousy freshman dressed in head-to-toe purple and a boy who reeks of Indian food.
I look around from chair to chair, searching for a familiar face. Some look like they’ve been messed up. Most look completely normal, but they don’t fool me. No, I see past the pink eye shadow, the beat-up jeans paired with punk-band T-shirts, and the brand new team jerseys. If I were religious, I’d find myself right here, in this very room, praying to God that I’m not that easily read.
Pigtails hands each of us a journal. She tells us that anything is fair game, just as long as we write each day. She says it’s important to get our thoughts onto paper, even when they seem miniscule. Miniscule – I know what that feels like.
I am scared to open the journal. Words are dangerous, especially when we write them down. If I’m not careful, they might betray me.
The next morning, Pigtails asks if I will read my first journal entry aloud. I shake my head no. She doesn’t push me and quickly moves on, telling us that the visitors in the room are our new counselors, here to meet with us individually. I feel terrible for mine.
I am paired with a Mr. E. Tear, as he formally introduces himself, but says that I should call him Emmitt. In return, I tell him my name is Rachel, and that that was probably as much as he’d ever get to know about me. I make sure he knows it’s nothing personal.
“I agree, I’m not much for talking,” Emmitt replies with a wink. “If you keep it between you and me, I want to be here just about as much as you do. This counseling gig is only temporary.”
I nod in acknowledgment.
Once I arrive home, I smell the foreign scents of a home-cooked dinner. I make my way into the kitchen to find my mother in his lap.
“Rachel, honey, you remember Daniel, your principal, right?” she asks, almost as if she’s mocking me.
He shifts her from his knee onto a separate seat, standing as he brushes the wrinkles out of his suit. “Rachel, it’s wonderful to see you,” he states.
I laugh out of despair, pivoting in the direction of my room, leaving her to apologize for me.
Sometimes I play a game. I let my alarm clock sound, without shutting it off, as I lie in bed, counting the hours until someone, anyone, notices.
Emmitt looks surprised to see me, but he never asks me why I haven’t been showing up. I sit down and he hands me a photograph of a woman. She isn’t beautiful by society’s standards. However, the more I contemplate her crooked nose and the way her freckles mask her face, the more she begins to grow on me.
Emmitt tells me how sorry he is he never took his own passion for photography more seriously. He says it’s the only thing that makes him feel worthy of occupying a life, that in his mind, capturing beauty and humor on a five-by-seven sheet of paper, is the biggest miracle he’ll ever perform. That maybe his art could change anothers’. He says that for the most part he hates people. All they do is care about themselves.
“We’re just too single-minded!” he keeps exclaiming, as he grabs what little hair he has in frustration. At the end, I’ll ask that he bring another picture next time.
I fumble through my journal until I find a fresh sheet of paper. Sometime after learning of Emmitt’s fire for photography, I lost my fear of words. And suddenly, I’ve become addicted to them, to thinking that my words are important enough for paper. In some ways, I blame Emmitt.
Pigtails asks me to read a journal entry aloud again. I lower my head until my eyes reach the piercing white of the paper.


The Daisy

Has Faith departed
Love departed
Both stand in Blank’s shadow
She stands the same as yesterday
Peeling the Daisy’s petals
Each descends slowly
Kissing the grass beneath
Aging into ivy
“Blank made me do it!” she exclaims to
Boy
Boy stands the same as her
Only three states away
Daisy in hand
Feet covered in petals

I raise my head to the class.
“Roses are red,
Violets are blue.”

Emmitt says he has what no one else has: A third eye. He believes the lens of his camera allows him to see things his own two eyes can’t. I map my finger around the fiery red curls of the girl in his photograph as I just listen, soaking in his truth.
I enter my house. The lights are dim and the atmosphere cold. The sound of rain pattering against the rooftop is accompanied by sniffles from the kitchen where she sits, cupping a cold coffee mug.
The telephone base flashes, indicating missed calls. Once she sees me, she lifts her hand to her mouth as tears stream down her face, hitting the blanket that lies upon her lap.
Once I sit down across from her, she slides what seems to be my journal across the table. I open it, scanning my words and my thoughts, confirming my assumption. I stand up, heartbeat increasing. My mind goes blank as I grab my journal, holding it as close to my chest as possible, as if somehow this can flood the words back into my heart and off these public pages.
“What are you doing with this?” I ask, and my words wobble and hands shake.
“Rachel, I just want you to let me in again. I want to know you like you used to let me.”
I am no longer in control. I cry. I cry so hard I start to heave. I cry about her and about me, but mostly out of humiliation.
“You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to say something to me,” she sighs, defeated, like a balloon whose air is slowly let out. “I liked your poems,” she tries again.
“You had no right to read them. These,” I point to my notebook, “these were private.”
“Oh, Rachel, don’t be a drama queen,” she chuckles.
“I hate you,” I spit.
“Damn it, you will not speak to your mother that way. I raised you better than that.”
“My mother? You haven’t been my mother in four years. Four years. You let man after man into your life, and put me second behind loser after loser.”
She rolls her eyes. “Rachel, don’t make it about that. This has nothing to do with that.”
“THAT? For that, I’ll always hate you – for ¬bringing him into my life, for letting him touch me the way you let him. That has everything to do with this.”
I go to bed with complete intentions never to wake up, but when I do, I grab my journal and begin to write. I write about love, deception, hope, and mostly about myself.

Mirror

I reflect the woman
Who sighs as I let her down
The uncertain, the reserved woman
She is calm, a hesitance inside her
Squinting to see her soul
The more I stare
The more I see
I reflect the child
Who laughs and dances
The innocent, the carefree child
She is bright, a sparkle in her eye
Her soul clear as crystal
Intertwined these two beings
Like deep black coal that woman
Aged into a diamond this child

Once I enter room 201, I search for Emmitt. I think today I might show him what I’ve written. “Rachel?” Pigtails get my attention. “I’d like you to meet Mrs. Price, your new counselor.” She places her hand upon the small of my back in an effort to guide me toward her, but I don’t move. “New counselor? What?” I ask in confusion. “Mrs. Price will be replacing Mr. Tear. I really think you’ll enjoy her,” she tries to convince me by wrinkling her nose and flashing a blindingly white smile. Pigtails grab the arm of a woman dressed in a men’s forest green pantsuit and points in my direction. The woman furrows her eyebrows before her hand reaches for mine. I shake it as she introduces herself. I am not impressed. She isn’t Emmitt. I don’t last long under the instruction of Mrs. Price. I turn to walk away from room 201, most likely for the last time. My pace increases as I enter the hallway. I push the door open, and as the blistering breeze hits my face, I begin to run. I am running because I don’t know what else to do. I run for freedom, for security, but more for answers. My eyes scout out a payphone along the sidewalk. I thumb through the battered, hanging telephone book. My eyes reach Tear and my finger finds Emmitt. I dial his number, and am greeted by a chorus of rings. “You’ve reached Emmitt …” I smile. “And Lindsey!” a woman’s voice interrupts.
I hang up because I feel like I’ve just spied on him, like I’ve just imposed. Of course he has a life of his own. I knew I wasn’t the only part of him. In fact, who am I to say I was a part of him at all? Not once had I talked. He knew hardly anything about me. Frankly, he knew nothing about me. So why had I expected him to stay? I wasted his time. He lasted longer than he should have.
“Emmitt stopped by,” my mom calls from the living room. “He dropped off a letter. It’s on the kitchen table.” I take it to my bedroom, where I stare at it for a long time. Placing it inside my weathered journal, I decide not to open it. I like to imagine what the letter says sometimes. Maybe he tells me he’ll be coming back, that Mrs. Price was only a substitute, and that it was just a big misunderstanding. Or possibly, he writes of how he wants to take a photograph of me, and the letter describes a time I was to meet him. Maybe, it wasn’t a letter at all, but a newspaper clipping he thought might make me smile. Tonight I can’t sleep. The noise beyond my window¬sill awakens me. I switch on my bedside lamp, and open the drawer where my journal lies. I click the pen and begin to write a note I know I will never send.
Emmitt,

I don’t think you know this about me, but I have learned to love writing. In a way, it has become my third eye, letting me see the world beyond the capacity of my own. I think you gave that to me. Thanks for letting me listen.

Rachel

MOLLY

Our daily jogs together. At least I like to think of it as our jog. It’s not like we actually run together, but in close proximity in separate universes. It is hard to remember the days when we did not run together. My elliptical jogs right behind his treadmill and always keep up. It would have been so easy to say hi the first time. But with each passing day, it has gotten harder and harder, and now impossible. We have had occasional looks back and forth, but those were probably coincidences. Of course I ¬always look at him. As for the times his glance met mine, perhaps something else called his gaze. And I’m way too shy to budge from my routine to approach confirmed rejection. Why can’t he just make the move? I know, that’s a funny one. Look at him and then look at me – especially without makeup! I don’t turn red from exercising, but I do blush when I’m nervous or embarrassed. So my cover story would be that my redness is from my heavy-duty workouts. After all, I am at the gym. I’m struggling to keep up with myself.
My mind is going faster than the elliptical. My fervent fears, my neurotic nerves, my taxing trepidations, my angry anxieties whirling through my brain. Now I’m really dizzy. Even he has flaws. It’s not like I think he’s perfect or anything. How could he be perfect with shoes that smell like that? He comes close to perfection. And his feet come close to me as he lifts them on the treadmill upwind of my elliptical. Just as my iPod advances to the next song, a wave of toxic air per¬meates my nostrils. “Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air? Can’t live, can’t breathe with no air … If you ain’t here I just can’t breathe. There’s no air, no air,” sings Jordin Sparks. Whew, how can I breathe in this air? Deep breathe in. Deep breathe out. Ahh. How can toxic air be refreshing? But amid these toxins, there is some sweetness. I can just sense it; I have that tingling feeling in my nostrils. It’s hard for me to hold back a little smile. I can’t get away from it this time. It draws me closer. The occasional silent connection I have with him is worth the foul air I endure. I must be high on either the stench or endorphins, because I don’t believe in drugs.
I am exercising longer than usual. I am pumped. I am not getting tired. Exercise is a healthy form of procrastination for what I might do next. The elliptical bars are sandwiched ¬between my palms and my fingers. I am pushing on them with all my strength. Just as I alternately push and pull on the levers – left, right, left, right – my strength to contact him alternates with my fear of rejection. Our closeness has been on a meta¬phorical treadmill – no matter how hard I try, no ¬matter how fast I run, we don’t get any closer. The counteracting forces of acceptance and rejection are pulling on me equally. I am in equilibrium. I am moving at a constant velocity on the elliptical, but I can’t get myself to move toward him. Physics. Echhh! I try to look cute in my gym clothes, but it’s hard. The mirror tells me I look fat and ugly. Those are the only things the mirror ever tells me, besides red hair, freckles, Raggedy Anne. My pink good-luck sweatband hasn’t brought me any luck. I’m going to go buy some new colored ones.
I’m getting kind of sick of pink. People must think I wear the same sweaty headband every day, but I have dozens of them from that sale at Costco. I know that’s what he’s thinking when he turns around: freak, loser. Droplets of sweat drip down my face, ravaging my pores and burning the roots of my confidence. But he gives me a feeling all over my body just by looking at him. So I know it’s worth it. The odor burns my nostrils, but I can’t resist. I tiptoe into the hallway outside the men’s locker room; one hand holding the heart-shaped Post-It, the other plugging my nose. I see them resting on the wooden bench, right where he left them after “our” jog, laces untied and tongues forming obtuse angles. Why are they here? My hands are shaking and my legs are trembling, but I bite the corner of my lip and stick the note face up in the heel of his right shoe. I am leaving the gym and I can’t stop thinking about him. Still. I hope he feels the same. But he won’t. I hope he will call. But he won’t. It’s been seven minutes since I put my note in his shoe and put my heart on the waiting list for rejection.

I enter my apartment and begin pacing. It’s been an hour and three minutes. I shouldn’t have done it. He doesn’t like me. It’s ¬going to be awkward. No way. I’m not giving in. I’m not going to change my workout routine. But it will be hard to look at him tomorrow. I hope he saw the note before he put his shoes on. If not, I hope the ink doesn’t smear. There she is. I could set my watch by her if I had one. Same gym. Same time. Same workout. Same as me. She never misses a day. I don’t think I ever will either. My mom and dad are both kind of, I don’t want to say chubby, but yeah, they are. I can’t let that happen to me. But I have another reason too. Crack. Crack. My neck always cracks when I turn my head swiftly to check the clock behind me. At first this was a pain, but then I saw her. When I realized I got to look at her every time I turned to check the time, my neck strain didn’t bother me. I must be discreet. I love looking at her, but I don’t want her to know that her beauty keeps me staring. At least not quite yet. I’m not a stalker, just shy. I want to talk to her. I want to go up to her. But what if she thinks I’m just hitting on her? I’m really interested in knowing her. How is she supposed to tell the difference? What a cutie. She’s just my type: tall, slender, and I can tell her skin is smooth. The cutest freckles. Milk chocolate eyes. Her gorgeous, wavy red hair is tied is back in a ponytail and she wears a pink headband. She must love pink. She should, it’s her color. Her hair sways with every step. Thank you, pink headband – not a hair is blocking my view of her face. What I like most is that she doesn’t act like she is beautiful.
She doesn’t know how nervous she makes me. She doesn’t know the grace she exudes. She has a story to tell. I want to hear it. But I’m afraid to ask her. Wimpy, maybe. Intimidated, definitely. I feel like I’ve watched the same Candid Camera episode 5,500 times. My failed attempt keeps replaying in my head. With every day that I say nothing, she’s more and more likely to think I’m either gay or I need a watch. I want to know her name. Seeing her every day for weeks, I refer to her as Pink Headband. How pathetic. I have to know her name. At least for now, it would be easier to ask the receptionist for Pink Headband’s name than to ask her. At least if she refuses, it won’t be as humiliating as a no from Pink Headband. So I make my way to the desk. I say excuse me to the nerdy girl behind the counter. I have caught her staring at me in the past, but the one time I actually want her attention, she’s preoccupied. I’m the only person here. The phone is resting comfortably on its hook. But she is talking to someone or something nonetheless. I sigh. I’m getting impatient. I feel like I’m hailing a taxi. Waving and waving, and they just drive by. Same with her. I’m waving and that freak seems to be talking to her stapler. Finally I get her ¬attention. I ask. She answers. I write “Molly” on the envelope containing my note to the woman I used to know as Pink Headband. I ask the ¬receptionist to please give it to her. As I sit on the bench outside the men’s locker room, I fight my urge to chicken out and retrieve the envelope. I bolt into the locker room to take a shower. The hot water is soothing. Shoot! I left my shoes on the bench. Not to worry. Who would want to steal those smelly old things? Realizing I must have left my cell phone in my car, I get dressed quickly, jump into my shoes, and leave. I don’t want to miss her call.
I hate working at this place. Why do I work here? I need out. I need a work out. I’m so funny. I always laugh at my own jokes. Ha ha ha, snort, snort. All day I inhale air tainted with the smell of sweat. And no, it’s not me doing the sweating. Oh, here comes Mr. “I’m so much better than you that I won’t respond when you greet me.” I scrunch my nose to push up my glasses, the way I always do when my hands are busy. He’s headed right toward me. It seems like he needs to ask me something. This will be a first. How will he do this and still keep his perfect record of never saying a word to me? Of course, it must be so hard to say “good evening” to someone who has just said it to you. I can feel my nervous twitch starting up again. My top lip is moving diagonally; my invisible enemy has strung a thread through my lip with his needle. I try to yank it in the other direction, back into place, but it won’t budge. The name of the girl in the pink headband? Uhhh. The girl in the pink headband! If she’s wearing her pink one today, it must be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Gross. But apparently he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. How sweet. For once he is nice and it is hard to hate him. He writes “Molly” on the envelope and hands it to me. Sure I’ll give it to Molly, all right. He heads for the locker room; he is out of sight, but he sure isn’t out of my mind. Neither is the favor he asked of me. He wants me to give the envelope to Molly. Sure I will. I’ll be as good at giving this to Molly as he is at responding when I say hello. Actually, better because now my paper shredder’s name is Molly. Molly loves envelopes. She’ll fall bin over wheels! Is there something in my shoe?


Eternity
It’s strange that I never noticed how fast clouds move before. It was sort of frightening. I almost felt like running for cover, as though they might lose control and tumble from the sky and crush me. I might have done just that had I not been so comfortable where I was, lying in the sun in a lush meadow.
I turned to look at the beautiful, ageless being stretched on the grass beside me. His looks were deceiving, for while he appeared to be a normal teenage boy, I knew he was well over 300 years old and not human at all.
“Nathaniel,” I said, my voice sounding loud in the calm of the clearing.
“Mm?” was his only reply. His eyes were closed and a lazy smile graced his lips as he soaked up the sun.
“I want to see you.”
He opened his violet eyes a fraction, peering at me with a look of amusement and adoration. Then, he closed them again and let out a long breath. Slowly, he started to change. The color in his skin faded until he was all white, except for his lips which remained a pale rose, and his hair became an impossible shade of black. He sat up and a set of filmy, sparkling wings sprouted from his back, the light bouncing off, sending rainbows dancing around the meadow.
I pushed myself into a sitting position and grinned when he opened his eyes, now a deep purple.
“Much better,” I said, and his lips parted in a breathtaking smile.
He lowered himself onto the grass, holding his head up with his hand, his face turned toward the sun. He looked so perfectly at ease and so easily perfect that it was hard to believe he was even real. He was so lovely that it hurt to think of what he saw in me. The ordinariness of my humanity couldn’t possibly be endearing compared to the fantastical beauty of this faerie boy.
Yet there he was, utterly content to be with me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand, but I didn’t mind. Having him was more than enough. To ask for an explanation would be greedy. Still, I had to wonder if there had been others before me. After all, he’d been alive for three centuries. Certainly he hadn’t spent those years alone. It hurt to think of others holding his heart, and that others would, because, of course, I wouldn’t be around forever. I would grow old and die, and he would go on.
But if he loved me as he said he did, would he be able to go on? Would he survive after I was gone? Were our positions switched, I knew I wouldn’t be able to exist. Now that I knew what it was to be with him, I don’t think I’d be able to live without him. So, did the thought of being without me frighten him? Did it scare him to think he would live forever?
“What are you thinking?” he asked softly, looking at me with curious eyes.
“Well,” I said, mirroring his position and propping my head on my elbow. I took his hand and flipped it so his palm was facing up. Running my fingers lightly up and down the inside of his arm, I looked at him. “I was wondering if it ever scares you, the thought of living forever.” I saw him frown.
“That’s a strange thing to think about.”
I shrugged. We’d long ago established the fact that my mind didn’t work the same way as everyone else’s.
“Does it?” I prodded.
With a sigh, he wrapped his arms around me.
“Sometimes, yes, the thought frightens me, mostly because of how inconceivable it is. When does forever stop? Does it stop? How do you measure an eternity? “He paused, I assumed, in thought. I saw his lovely face tighten with anguish and confusion and sorrow. “No one can even say for sure when it began. Some say billions of years; others say millions, and others believe thousands. If we don’t know where it started, how can we know where it ends?”
I’d never heard him voice his thoughts so freely. He growled in frustration and the sound was loud in my ear, sending shivers down my spine.
“Or if it ends at all! What if I just go on infinitely? What if my family and others like us never truly die? What if I am doomed to walk this Earth, to exist in this universe ...” His eyes closed with some ancient emotion I could not comprehend.
“Forever?” I whispered.
His gaze came to rest on me and I propped my head upon my forearm, which was folded over his chest. And then his eyes met mine. The sorrow, the pain, the turmoil, the deep, heavy woe in his eyes broke my heart several times in that fraction of a second. The emotions were so strong, so inconsolable, that they shook me to my core and before I knew it, tears rolled down my cheeks. It wasn’t until I felt him wipe one away, his fingers as light as a moth’s wing that I even realized I was crying.
I felt it, though. I felt the emotions reflected in his eyes. I felt them deep in my chest, weighing heavily on my heart, choking me. I felt the total impossibility of his existence. The uncertainty and the forlorn question of what his purpose was. I felt it all, and I nearly exploded with grief. All of the heartache bubbled over and my body shook with sobs.
I felt his arms form a loving shield around me, although the anguish was his, and not mine. I should have been protecting him, consoling him, but I couldn’t hold myself together.
A soft, soothing melody came and I realized Nathaniel was humming. My heart swelled with love and a wave of ease flooded me. I clung to his shirt, wanting to be as close as possible. I wanted him to know I was there with him. His hold on me tightened and I felt him press his face into my hair.
“My lovely Delilah,” he whispered. My name on his tongue sounded wonderful, and I wanted him to say it again and again. Reluctantly, I lifted my head from his chest and the sad smile on his perfect lips brought fresh tears to my eyes. “So absurd,” he muttered, stroking my cheek with his thumb.
“Nathaniel,” I sighed his name and my voice cracked. “I -”
His exquisite lavender eyes softened and he pulled me up so that my face was level with his. He pressed his cheek to mine and said softly in my ear, “What is it?”
I pulled back to gaze at his sinfully gorgeous face. Hesitantly, I traced its contours, his smooth brow, his lavender eyelids and the circles beneath them, the bridge of his nose, the planes of his cheeks, the angles of his jaw, his soft, soft lips. I heard his sharp intake of breath and the way my name floated from his lips.
“Delilah.”
In his eyes I saw are flection of my own longings and it made my stomach flip.
“Nathaniel,” I whispered. “The thought of you ... alone forever ...” my voice trembled and I buried my face in his neck. I forced back sobs as his hands traced soothing circles on my back. I shook my head, unable to finish my sentence. I hoped he understood.
His arms enclosed me completely and he held me so tightly that I was sure I’d fall into him. Except it wasn’t tight enough. It never seemed to be. I could never be close enough to him. He pressed his cheek to my hair and I heard him inhale deeply. He sat up and I stretched my arms as far as they could go around his chest, my fingers splayed across his back, making sure not to disturb his wings.
I wasn’t sure why, but my eyes were shut tight. Maybe I was afraid that when I opened them he wouldn’t be there. How would I live without him? He’d have to move on in a few years for people would notice that he never aged, and then what would I do?
I breathed in his sweet scent and tried to commit it to memory. The thought of him having to go through infinite lifetimes in pain was unbearable. I’d only have one life without him; he’d go on eternally.
“Delilah,” his voice washed over me and warmed my heart. “Look at me.” I couldn’t disobey and leaned back to gaze at him. His eyes were full of such intensity that I melted in his arms. I leaned in and his lips met mine. He kissed me hard, harder than he’d ever kissed me, and I knew he was pouring his heart into it. I was, too.
I smiled against his mouth and felt him do the same. My grin broadened and I leaned back to look at him. His mouth spread into one of his glorious crooked smiles and I brought my hands to my face, my cheeks hurting from the strain of smiling. I laughed breathily and shook my head.
“What?” he asked, his voice husky, his lips still stretched in a smile.
I shook my head again. “It’s embarrassing.” What was I supposed to tell him? That his smile made my insides turn to mush?
He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and said, “Everything with you is embarrassing.” He grabbed my chin and drew my face closer to his.
“Tell me,” he breathed, and I was temporarily dazed.
I also totally lost all of my resolve. “Your smile,” I started.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“I love it.”
His grin grew into one of triumph and I pouted at having given in. He placed a kiss on my forehead and then on my mouth.
“I love you,” he whispered against my ear. I brushed his obsidian hair away from his forehead and smiled down on him, my face no doubt glowing bright red.
For some reason I laughed, and then said quietly, “I love you, too.”
If possible, he smiled more breathtakingly than ever and pulled me to him.
“Those words from you will bring me happiness forever. No matter how long forever may be.”



Intensity
The tears poured off her eyelids; slid down her cheeks; fell to the floor. Slowly she sank to the ground, trembling slightly. Her breath came in deep sobs, wracking her chest. She barely had enough air. She did not hear the soft footfalls coming ever closer. She did not see him as he sat down next to her. She did, however, feel as his arm wrapped around her shoulders. Turning slightly, the girl buried her face in his shoulder. Her friend held her tighter, resting his head in her soft chestnut curls.
The two of them sat that way for what felt like hours; the girl sobbing loudly on the boy’s shoulder, the boy holding her quietly, steadfastly. Finally, the girl released her last tear. She looked up at the boy, eyes red from crying, cheeks flushed. He turned to her, a small crooked smile on his lips. To the girl’s surprise, tears were slipping down his face as well. “Why are you crying?” she asked softly, voice cracking. The boy considered the question for a second.
“I am crying because you are crying,” he replied truthfully as yet another tear trickled down his handsome face. His smile was still there, unwavering.
The girl stared at him with wide eyes. He stared back at her. A chill like an electric current flowed through both of them. The air around them tingled with static. Slowly, as if pulled by some invisible force, the two teenagers moved closer. Their faces were within a hair’s breath of each other’s. “Why me?” she whispered. “Why did you choose me?” Her eyes darted back and forth, looking for an answer written on his face. “You are the only one who’s real. The only one out of all those girls who knows what it means to truly love someone. Even though he broke your heart, you just keep going. I like that. I think… I think I may even love that.”
His eyes gleamed with a passion long suppressed. “I think I may love you.” His sweet breath lingered on her lips. The girl’s heart began to beat frantically, as if trying to keep up with her rapidly changing emotions. “I think I may love you too,” she admitted.
Without meaning to, the girl shut her eyes. The two leaned even closer, closing the gap between them. His soft lips pressed against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his arms coiled around her waist. The kiss deepened.
Gently, they pulled apart. Both were smiling softly. “Thank you,” the girl said under her breath, so quiet that the boy sitting right next to her wasn’t sure he had heard her at first.
“For what?” She stared deeply into his eyes. He held her gaze, reciprocating the intensity. “For giving me a reason to live again. For saving me from falling.”
“Anytime. Thank you, too. Thanks for letting me in. Thanks for not pushing me away.”
At the same time, the two teenagers said, “I love you,” sealing their fate.
The two leaned in closer, their foreheads, then lips, pressing against the others.


Used to
“It feels wrong, being back here,” Jeremy remarks, his tone casual, as though we are strangers on a subway car, discussing the weather. “You know, after everything.”
I nod, even though I know he's not looking, letting the breeze carry my agreement away. In all honesty, what I have to say to him about us doesn't matter. Hasn't mattered for the past five months, not since the last time we were here. I slant my eyes toward Jeremy, categorize his appearance. Torn jeans and a faded Stanford sweatshirt, the embroidered letters frayed around the edges, washed-out, just like his college career. Almost like he knows what I'm thinking, his arms cross across his thin chest, unconsciously protective. Looking away from him makes the bittersweet ache behind my ribs just a little less painful.
Shaking from a combination of nerves and the cold, I step toward the hand-constructed 7-by-8-foot cabin before us. The sharp lines of its childish architecture and wide, staring windows are all the same, the gray paint has not changed, not even by a shade. But the place feels different, cold, as though the owners have gone on a permanent vacation.
Despite his words and probably against his better judgment, Jeremy ambles toward the cabin's porch, legs awkward and weak like a toddler learning its first steps. The shaking in his hands, the tightness of his jaw – every inch of him screams for me to go to him, take that trembling hand in mine, hold him close and whisper quiet nothings meant to soothe.
I don't move, don't say anything, don't offer assistance as Jeremy struggles to get the key in the padlock. Finally, there is a twist of his hand, the awkward grating of metal, fingers slipping ever-so-slightly. And then the shining metal chain falls into his hands, the place unlocks, opens, and the door squeaks as he pushes. Just like it used to.
“Ladies first,” he says, feigning gallantry and forcing a smile as he gestures for me to proceed. I don't buy the act. I know this, know him; I know that the look in his eyes means he's scared to go first, afraid of what we'll find. If, indeed, we find anything.
My feet move without my conscious instruction, a puppet tied to strings. The door is five steps away, three steps, then one. Crossing the threshold is easy. It's what's on the other side that's hard.
So hard. Because I remember.
This house is a monument to our relationship, a microcosm of every good thing we had – friendship, love, lust, all those summers spent burning the midnight oil and talking ourselves to death. We were a work of art, he and I, all complementary colors and harsh brushstrokes, I with my icy calm and Jeremy with his firecracker backtalk. We had it all – mutual respect, kinship, history. Our stories tangled for as far back as I could remember. I know him like I know the hours of the day, like the turning of the seasons; after so long, he's become predictable.

Like now. I hear him behind me. Three steps across the grass outside, two more past the threshold. Cue soft sigh – now, an uncomfortable shuffle of his feet, the clearing of his throat.
I know this cabin like I know him. Hardly needing to look, I know, know the sturdy wood floor, sandpapered smooth by our footsteps, constant moving-in and moving-out and rearranging furniture. The broken chair in the corner, indestructible when we were young, weakening every year until it finally buckled under the weight of his newfound teenage muscle and long limbs. Like Goldilocks and the three bears, nothing is ever just right anymore.
I turn around, sweeping the cramped space with my eyes. Posters of long-forgotten bands plaster the walls, and a time-frozen Tiger Woods stares down from next to the window. The fireplace is full of cold gray ashes and half-burned paper hearts, leftover from our Anti-Valentine's Day celebration. Half a chess set, a lonely white queen surrounded by enemy pawns. One of Jeremy's old sweatshirts, the one from that night, the night that changed everything. I glaze over the last item, afraid of the memories it brings dangerously close to the forefront of my mind.
Every inch of the place breathes him, is layered with the smell of his hair and ivory soap, and I inhale, closing my eyes, reaching for the fuzzy edges of that younger Jeremy, the innocent one who taught me to play chess on this same floor. But the memory slips away like water through cupped hands, and I look at him, real-life, solid Jeremy, standing across the room in a square of light cast through the window.
“This was our first kiss,” he mutters, a bitter edge leaking into his voice like acid. “Right here. I was 14, just a kid, and you were so … pretty.” his voice breaks, and he cuts himself off, looking down. I watch him while he's not looking, let my eyes trace the furrowed lines of his forehead, the darkness under his eyes that speaks of little sleep and lots of worry.
The past months have been hell for me. But in all my self-pitying ¬diatribes and crying fits, did I ever once stop to think about him? Jeremy, by my side, holding my hand while we sat together on white-papered hospital cots, strong and stoic and so very serious for the first time in his life. The light in his eyes had shattered at the first solid evidence that this was real – heartbeat monitors throbbing to the pulse of something small and vulnerable, something that should have made us ecstatic, on top of the world. But timing is everything, and ours is all wrong. I feel like we're running a marathon and trying to step backwards, reverse-ordering our relationship like inexperienced fools.
I look up at the four letters spray-painted on the ceiling two years ago, when being young was our A-card rather than a burden. Love, the plywood ceiling reads, clumsily written in all capitals, bleeding red paint like an open wound. Internal scoff, look away and down, try to hide the tears in my eyes. We were just kids; we are still just kids. What did he know – what did I know – about love? About anything?
“Jeremy?” My voice fades like thunder under high-pressure clouds, smothered by the tension in the room until his name sounds tenuous on my lips, like this could be the last time I say it. Here, on the very same floor where we built and destroyed bridges between our teenage hearts. “Yeah?”
“I-I don't regret it,” I stutter, tongue-tied, nervous, and pathetic. I want to say so much more: It isn't your fault. We can get through this, together. I'm terrified, so please just hold me, like you used to.
But the words don't come, sticking inside my chest like unfinished letters to a former lover, and Jeremy doesn't speak, eyes still on the floor, black hair hanging limply in his face. His expression is blank, unreadable, and the silence speaks more than every word he's ever said to me.
“Jeremy?”
He looks up, and in a half a moment, a heartbeat, I realize how different this Jeremy is from the shy boy who kissed me so nervously that first time. The spark in those green eyes is gone; the fire in his expression has burnt itself out. The 17 minutes it took me to tell him he was going to be a father stole the last years of his innocence, of his youth. I remember the look on his face, terrified and blinded by some glaring light, like a three-day-old kitten that’s just opened his eyes, just seen the world for the first time.
And now all that's left behind in those empty eyes is a desolate sort of resignation, the grim realization that this is all there will be for me and him. Just ourselves, each other, tied together by an invisible thread of duty and obligation. The children who learned to love in this cabin are gone, ghosts swept under our aged feet like dust under a rug. Out of sight, out of mind.
“I love you. I always have,” I say, half to convince him, half to convince myself. The assurance is empty, falling flat on our deaf ears, the concept as foreign as explaining physics 10 years after one has studied it. “I love you, too,” Jeremy mutters, like it's shameful. Maybe it is.
Later, we trudge back to his parents' house, through the woods and across a field of shin-high grass that clings to our legs like Saran Wrap. Months ago, we would have held hands. Now our arms hang limp at our sides like plants that someone has forgotten to water.
“Not what it used to be, huh?” Jeremy asks with a half-hearted smile and a thumb hooked over his shoulder, in the general direction of what was once everything to me, to both of us. His 18-year-old shoulders hunch like an old man's against the unseasonably cool summer air.
“No.” I wrap my arms around my convex stomach, imagining that I can feel that second heartbeat. “We're not what we used to be.”