Savor It

by Tarah DeWitt

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.

“Would you like to come in for some tea or anything while you wait?” “Tea?” “Coffee, maybe?” “Coffee?” “Café au lait?”

I grimace and mutter to myself when I cover the rest of the distance and she’s still got her tongue down that Timothée Chalamet doppelgänger’s throat, and they’re still mauling each other like animals in a Nat Geo documentary.

Coffee tastes slightly off in the morning? Dump it down the sink. Relationships that aren’t convenient, comfortable, or easy? The ones that are never end up that way in the long run, so why get invested to begin with?

“More sage advice, huh?”

I’m a chef that can’t cook,

“You mean Spunes isn’t like all the other girls?”

“You’re the too-nice one, aren’t you? The town golden girl. That’s your thing.” He pins me with an arch look. “The rescued animals, the rescuing me, all the free advice. The compulsive robe buying.”

“When people say that life’s too short, I know that philosophy tends to be synonymous with indulgence or with hurrying to accomplish or chase something. Like ‘life’s too short, so you gotta make a name for yourself or see the world now’ sort of thing. But in my case, life’s already reminded me enough times that it’s fleeting.”

“And I decided a long time ago that life being too short and too beyond my control meant that I’d let the small stuff feel big. To me, at least. If it’s something that doesn’t matter to most, I think that means someone’s gotta care a little more, right? Discarded pets, pretty flowers”—I look pointedly toward Patty’s clothing section—“some raggedy kid that won’t go on to do anything that changes the world.” Our gazes clash, and I don’t let myself blink away. “So don’t think I choose those things just because I’m too nice. I’m not. I’m fully capable of deciding I want to do something because of how it makes me feel.”

“I believe it’s either that, or … or you decide that everything matters. All of it, all that little shit. Everything in the present and how it makes you feel in those tiny moments, because you can’t possibly know when it’ll all go away. If the result of that sort of caring is what makes me too nice, then fine,” I say. “But I’m not weak for that.”

She’s recovered more swiftly from that kiss than I did from that bite of berry scone this morning.

“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?”

I’ve finally figured out the whole heart skips a beat expression. It doesn’t miss a beat, it actually starts skipping like Dorothy down the yellow brick road, possibly on Red Bull.

“Who’d you piss off?” she asks. I take a wild guess. “Uhhh, you? By the sound of it?”

“Just curious about you, is all.”

Why is it that someone hugging you and holding you together can make you feel like you’re about to shatter?