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.

No praise on Earth meant as much to me as hearing that I was a good uncle to Jason or a good brother to Liam. Good uncle, good brother, good son to my father and mother. Good family. That’s all I wanted in this life—to be good for the people I loved.

I’d felt microscopic and alone and so staggeringly afraid of the future that I hadn’t known how I was going to make it through that night and all the way to dawn. I had, though. And I'd gotten through the next night, somehow, and the next one, and all the others, each terrible, lonely, forlorn night, until the pain blunted and the broken edges of my world scarred over.