More Than This

by Patrick Ness

“She’s smarter than everyone thinks. That’s why she’s always so pissed off.

Fear was bearable when you could see an end to it, but there was no end in sight out in those freezing waves, those pitiless fists of ocean that cared nothing for you, that tipped you over and down in a kind of callous blindness, filling your lungs, smashing you against rocks –

Gudmund moved an arm underneath Seth and pulled him back into a full embrace, nuzzling his neck. “Hold on,” Seth whispered suddenly. Gudmund froze. “What?” “Just that.” “Just what?” Gudmund asked, still frozen. But how could Seth explain it? Just what? Just Gudmund’s arms around him, holding him there, holding him tightly and not letting him go. Holding him like it was the only place that could ever have existed. Just that. Yes, just that.

The ache of it. The ache of missing Gudmund is so great he can barely stand it. Of missing how safe being with him felt, how easy it was, how funny and relaxed. Of missing the physical stuff, of course, but more than that, the intimacy, the closeness. Of missing just being held like that, cared for. Maybe loved. But also the ache of missing something that was his own. His own private, secret thing that belonged to no one else,

“People ask for what they need in different ways. Sometimes by not even asking for it at all. What my mother always say.”

“People see stories everywhere,” Regine says. “That’s what my father used to say. We take random events and we put them together in a pattern so we can comfort ourselves with a story, no matter how much it obviously isn’t true.” She glances back at Seth. “We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we’d go crazy.”

“What I do know is that if you give a human being a chance to be stupid and violent, then they’re going to take it, every time. No matter where they are.”

“Those pictures,” she said. “They’re not . . . They’re not sex, you know? And sex, I could understand, I guess, but . . .” “But what?” She looked him in the eye. “But they were love, Seth.” She stopped, and he didn’t ask what she meant, why love was so much more painful to see.

“But there is a problem. Money, always wanting more money, always asking more from people who have none.”

He yawns, which makes him wonder what memory will come tonight when he finally goes back to sleep. He hopes it’s good, even if painful. Maybe the night he first found out Gudmund felt the same way. Or maybe the time they went camping and Gudmund’s parents were in the next tent over so they couldn’t do much more than talk and it was great, greater than anything, as they planned out a future together, with college and beyond.

“I wanted so badly for there to be more. I ached for there to be more than my crappy little life.” He shakes his head. “And there was more. I just couldn’t see it.”

“I don’t believe in guardian angels,” Regine says seriously. “Just people who are there for you and people who aren’t.” “Yes,” Tomasz says. “Yes, I agree with this.” “Just people,” Seth says, finding he agrees, too.

love and care have all kinds of different faces, and within them, there’s room for understanding, and for forgiveness, and for more.