How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

I held him beneath all those glittering constellations, and as the tide rolled in, I wished on every shooting star I saw that this little moment could grow into forever.

there was this: everyone I’d ever loved had left me. Everybody grew weary of me. My parents. My exes. My friends, who fell further and further out of touch. You’re just… a lot, one of my coworkers had told me one night, drunk off her ass and airing out her many complaints. You’re a lot, Noël. I knew that. Everybody who ever met me knew that. Didn’t Wyatt remember meeting me a week ago when I’d been dumped and thrown away? There was a reason for that. Surely he had to understand he was scooping up someone else’s trash. I’d thought, with Jenna— But I’d been wrong, and history had been right.

“We’ve got so much to do, but can we take a nap first?” Noël sounded like a first-grader. “Yeah, a nap sounds good. C’mon.” I took his hand and led him upstairs.

“You know, when people get to know me, they don’t actually like me.”

I’m just me, but me isn’t what other people want. Everyone gets tired of me. I wish I knew what to change—”

Texas, as it turned out, was fucking massive. Another five hours passed, and I cried at a truck stop outside Houston into a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. This state was endless, just unbearably endless. I’d never make it. I’d never get to him.