How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

It was enough, I thought, to fall in love, even though he wouldn’t fall, too. It was enough to go a little crazy inside myself, and to feel like the world had lit on fire, and for these few days, to pretend that anything was possible.

Now, as I stared out of the cold windows of my room, I spotted the discordant spaces. The jagged edges. Waves crashed too loudly. The light was too bright. Condensation clung to my windows. I watched a single drop of water make a slow run from the top of a pane to the bottom, and I felt like I was fracturing somewhere critical and irreparable.

I settled in on the porch steps with a cup of coffee and stretched out my legs. It was that time of day when I sat and thought about Noël’s smile. I should have put all these memories away, but I didn’t want to yet. Not yet. Not when I could still hear his laugh sometimes on the breeze, or when I swore I felt his fingertips running along the outside of my thigh when I was groggy and trying to wake up in the morning.

You don’t know how dark the night is until you’re lost in it, or how deep the heart can fracture until you’re plumbing the crevasse left behind.