The Other Side of Disappearing

by Kate Clayborn

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a face like hers—it’s like looking through a window at a storm. There’s rain, lightning, wind; there’re trees bending and shaking with the force of it. Part of you is glad to be separate from it. But part of you wants to press against the glass and get as close as you can.

He’s right here and he is not a convenient person to find handsome given he is part of something that is exploding my life.

For the next three weeks, I’ll be with Adam Hawkins every single day, and somehow, in this moment, that feels riskier than every other part of this trip. This entire situation.

But it’s funny, how he is. How he looks straight ahead and doesn’t offer anything else. It’s funny how he reminds me of me.

see the barest, most beautiful quirk at the corner of her mouth. It’s a syrup-drenched stack of pancakes. It’s nowhere near a laugh, but still. I could eat off that quirk for days and days.

It hurt to be reminded that she was still all of these things to other people after she left. That other people had always been able to catch her attention for longer than I ever had.

I’m confused and awkward and overwhelmed. I’m watching a play that’s been staged only for me. I’m the toughest crowd to ever show up for the performance.

“I know it makes me a shitty journalist. It probably makes me a shitty person, too. But this is the truth, Jess. I don’t want to know you for the story. I want to know you for myself.” Chapter 14 Adam “W

I realize, with a startling sort of clarity, that I’d cut out my own heart before I treated hers carelessly.

Other than that kiss in the hallway, every touch has been like the one on the couch—soft, sort of secret, something he makes an effort to ensure no one else notices. They stack up inside me, warm, smoldering coals that I want to feel ignite fully.

I was relieved to know I was capable of offering something of myself to someone other than my sister. Of being someone different than I’ve been all these years.

I can think of tons of things about Mom when I let myself, and the things I hate to think about the most are the things I didn’t hate about her at all.