Savor It

by Tarah DeWitt

And yes. I would love to find a person of my own, but I refuse to let not having a partner preclude me from enjoying my life. It’d just be nice to share it with someone who appreciates and loves me as is.

I busy my body and my mind until there’s no room for anything but the small joys in all the present.

It’s everything I need to slip back into my happy place. It’s a beautiful life, and though I am alone, between the people I love and the pets I continue to collect, I am rarely lonely.

Has something ever been so good that you wanted to push it away? Maybe you’ve seen a film, read a book, or even had a vacation that was so incredible, you didn’t want it to end. You wanted to hit Pause and stave off the inevitable.

I was trying to just get here while I avoided my anxiety in the present.

An accident. What a harmless-sounding word to describe something that wiped away someone’s existence and changed the trajectory of all her loved ones’ lives.

also that same quality about Sage that makes it impossible to be anything but fully present when she’s around.

doubt I could let my consciousness go blurry around her if I tried.

“You’re trouble,” she whispers conspiratorially. I think I might be. Trouble or in trouble—one of the two. But it does rankle a bit that it’s so easy for her to turn me down. Nah. I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that she’s so virtuous that she doesn’t want to do something selfish for a moment, that she doesn’t need a little win.

“I promise I’ll make it quick,” she says. And because my pride is still a little wounded, I decide to do an experiment. “What if I don’t like it quick, Sage?” I ask, rapt on her reaction. “What if I prefer to savor things. Want it good and slow and drawn out?”

want to make sure you like everything.”

“Whenever you think too little of the world, try to remember that somewhere, something, or someone is always waiting to be known.”

I’ve known plenty of people who wear their hearts on their sleeves, but a handful of interactions is all it’s taken for me to determine that this woman carries hers in her fist, ready to hand it off at any given time.

I just like knowing how your mind works, that’s all.”

“Just because it’s something you love doing doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be honored or recognized for it, too. Sometimes that comes in the form of compensation.”

“Sagebyrd,” he says, like bluebird or blackbird or like I’m some exotic, rare species he’s just discovered and named. Just like that, it’s officially the only nickname I’ve ever loved.

I’m going to say what I think and let myself sound as pathetic as I feel. “I mean,” I say, “that is exactly why I have no reason to be this goddamn miserable. I got what I wanted. I accomplished a dream, and it felt completely fucking empty. And then I went and fucked it up, anyway.”

“Just knew you’d find me.” His eyes dip to my mouth before they glance over the rest of my face in a way that would normally have me flustered but only makes awareness sizzle beneath my skin right now. My scalp burns hot in spite of the freezing water. Aside from the sounds of our breaths and the water gently lapping, the noise from the outside world is cut off here. It feels like its own pocket in the universe, like we can say what we want, do what we want, and we might be able to forget the rest of it. Forget all the noise—maybe even the internal clamor. “I did find you,” I say,

just barely above a whisper. I don’t say that I’m glad I found him that night he showed up here or that I’m glad he found me in the library that day, but something tells me he knows what I mean. We both can’t seem to stop finding one another.

“Don’t do that,” he says harshly. “‘Can’t let it get to you if you own it first,’ right? That’s what you said to me the other day.” His expression softens. “As your friend, I don’t like when you try to make yourself seem small. And I’m sorry I ever belittled you before, I was wrong.” He huffs out a frustrated sound. “I don’t know how to defend you from yourself, though, Sage.”

I guess. This is me trying, and I’m still this much of a mess.” His eyes dart back and forth between mine. “Sometimes I get so lost in my head that I have to remember to breathe, Sage. I … Until I started spending time with you, it was like I forgot how to just be present.” He lets out the saddest laugh. “But I think you make it hard to be anywhere else.” I’m openly gaping at him, I’m sure, but he keeps going. “So, it’s not that it’s a bad idea for us to become friends,” he says. “I’m happy we’ve got each other, and I’m glad we’re doing this. Criminally early mornings and all.”

“Sweetheart, I’m finding when it comes to you, I don’t know what I’m capable of, but I’m happy to test those limits.” He breathes into a smile. “I’ll follow your lead. And our deal stands no matter what you decide.”

“I think finding the right people—finding your people—can be the thing that makes anywhere feel like home,” I say.

“Or,” she says, “you learn quickly that no other person has that kind of power, anyway. The kind to make you happy. So you figure out what you want and where you want it, and you go after it. Like you did.” Another zap of pain before she adds, “And maybe anyone that fits into that is who your people are meant to be.”

People can’t follow your rules if you don’t make them clear. This applies in all your relationships: parenting, love, and friendships alike. If you don’t tell people what is and isn’t okay with you, they have no way of knowing.

“No,” he gruffly whispers, but he smiles back. “No, I just mean it’s okay. We’ll have time, Sage.” His throat bounces on a swallow. “I want to take my time.”

Don’t worry so much about the clouds that you miss the flowers at your feet. Flowers might fade, but I think I’ll enjoy them while they’re here.

I want to be the one to make her favorite meal, I think. Actually, I know I want that so badly it makes my ribs ache. And I know it’s because I want to impress her. Admittedly, yeah, I’d like to seduce her, too. But I want to cook her something.

“I like mastering something, I think,” I admit. “I struggle when I don’t feel like I’m good at it, or struggle to jump into something when I don’t feel like I can see and control the outcome.”

“I don’t think so,” she replies. “Not if you can accept the impermanence of it. Sometimes people will write things that they’re worried about and carry with them into the maze, and it’s sort of therapeutic to leave it there—leave it behind. Other times it’s about learning to enjoy the journey in a way that’s more tangible than on some pithy sound bite. Even…” She looks across everything I’ve traced and meets my eyes. “Even though it takes you in circles that don’t lead anywhere in particular. Even if it can’t really go somewhere in the end. Once you accept the impermanence of it, you give yourself permission to enjoy it now.”

“I love your smile,” he abruptly states, like the words were pulled from him. I love so many parts of him. His lopsided smile, his sort-of-big ears, his unruly hair, the ego that asserts itself now and then. I love the way he tries. How he tried to understand and see me from the moment we met, even when he was still trying to buy his own assumptions, how he’s been trying to get better, how he always tries for honesty and to do what he says he will. How he owns it when he hasn’t or can’t.

“I’ve been paying attention,” he says, shrugging like it’s the easiest thing in the world to him and like he hasn’t just given me a glimpse of what it would be like to truly have a partner in life. I feel like I’m a fizzy drink of emotion about to uncork. “I’ll make you something to eat if you’ll go back to bed,” he urges. I shake my head like a toddler.

still feel like crying when I lay myself down. I’ve spent so much of my life observing others, trying to learn the things I was missing, trying to make myself significant to them, but this man who has known me a month has made himself feel crucial to me.

“I’m in too deep, Sage,”

And I’m so sorry, Sage, I know you didn’t ask for this. I know we were supposed to accept the impermanence of this thing with you and me, and enjoy it in the meantime,

but I just keep digging in, and now I’m drowning in you, Sage.”

His eyes are swimming with tears. “Fisher,” I say, the first tear escaping, more following each of my unsteady strokes along his face. “It’s too late for me. I’ve been too far dug,” I confess. His trembling hand comes around to cradle the back of my neck. “Just love me until then, anyway,” I say. “Please.” He dives for...

Love is this. Love is breathing. A sweet, deep, aching relief. And it’s somehow even more disorienting.

I know I’m in that spot early in love where everyone is in the beginning. You think that no one has ever felt as much or as strongly as you have before. You convince yourself it would be different with you, you could make the distance or the obstacles work. Because it’s her, everything in me says. It’s Sage.

She’s too full of grace, my lovely girl. I decide to treat her actions like her advice and offer him my hand, too.

spend the rest of the day in my dirty, smelly, salty-wet clothes, enjoying garbage carnival foods like corn dogs and funnel cakes with my Michelin-starred love. I indulge myself with him and all the little favorite things I’ve loved to partake in over the years, and some I’ve never been able to before. I do my first photo booth session with a man that I love. I dance barefoot on the blacktop with him that night, under the lights strung up around the new restaurant patio.

She’s always surrounded by so much life. Her garden and her creatures and just … her. Like some sort of mythical thing. Except she’s also real, which makes it so much worse. My fantasy and the reality I’ll likely always dream of wrapped up in one. I feel like the life she breathed into me is leaving already. “I wanted to give you something,” she says, and all I can think is, More?

“It’s been a privilege to fall in love with you, Sage,” I tell her helplessly. Her expression shatters, and I kiss the tears from her cheeks before I have to wrench myself

I thought being with Fisher would be like cut flowers in a vase. Something lovely I let in, even knowing it couldn’t last forever. The problem is, I messed up and planted him here in all my places. I gave him my dirt, my heart, my home, and now he’s been uprooted again and I’m left with the upturned mess of it all.

think it’s those words he used that shred at me the most, when he said it had been a privilege. Because it was, wasn’t it? Even feeling how I do now, I would do it all again for the privilege of loving him, of being loved by him. He didn’t fix me, and I didn’t heal him, but we loved each other wholly.

That same night, Indy opens up to me a tiny bit about Sam and summer. She tells me she had feelings for him but that she knew they were incompatible in the long run. Indy wants to see the world, Sam wants to end up in Spunes. She worries about falling for someone at her age, because back in Nebraska, that’s all she saw, time and time again. Young people falling young, getting stuck, and cutting their lives’ adventures short. I stumble with the right thing to say, but I end up telling her that I’m proud of her for having her priorities and for having her head on straight. It feels like a lie. I desperately wish I could talk to Sage about it. The

worst times are when I just want to hear what Sage would have to say about something. Or when I’m suddenly distraught when I think of something I don’t know about her. Like, why didn’t I ever ask her what her favorite color was or her favorite song? Has she ever been to a concert? What’s her go-to ice cream?

“But I think you were right. I think finding your people is what makes the difference,” she says with another heartbreaking cry. “Or finding your bird?”

“What I mean is that, yes, some people feel called to do huge things, and yes, many of them are important and great and they have a great deal of money or great titles and see great things. And if you want that, I will support you getting all of it, however I can. But you know what the bravest thing of all is? The most extraordinary thing?” I let out a relieving breath I feel to my very soul, because I also know the truth in what I’m saying. “To live by your own standards and no one else’s. To be happy by your own measure. You want your own flock of geese and a garden in Spunes? You want to make the same people you’ve known your entire life a little happier just by being in it? By doing the small things? Maybe it’s that you see your flowers in their stores and on their tables and in their hands, like Sage. Maybe you love passing knowledge on to your community through books, like Venus and Athena do. Maybe you sign up for all the things around town, like your mom always did.” Tears stream silently down my face, but I laugh. “Remember when she petitioned to save that town rock? How proud she was?” She tearfully nods. “So. So what if you happen to meet the love of your life in some tiny town, and so what if you get stuck there? If it’s a life that’s filled with joy, by your standards? I can’t imagine a bigger, more fulfilling feeling.”

Life’s short. Go to the library. Live a million different stories and see a million different places in one. You might not have control over some things, but you can always foster your imagination.