Summer Romance

by Annabel Monaghan

“Pull the weeds and let God do the rest.”

I myself am a ball of unfocused longing. When I’m quiet I can hear my heart yearning for impossible things. I want a perfectly pared-down home, and I want to hang on to every scrap of the past.

I long for a partnership, and I long for freedom. I long to be enmeshed with someone without losing myself. I want all of it.

“You’re the architect of your own experience.”

“I’m going swimming.” It’s a dare, and I wonder if he knows that right now I would follow him anywhere.

“You can’t just keep doing what you’re doing and wait for it to turn into something happy. You kind of have to look for the happy things along the way.”

This is not a man I need to pretend for. He is the impossible thing, the one who wants me more when I’m myself.

Everything about us together feels so right that I’m glad we’ve waited to be back in my reality, in the light of day. I would not want to miss a second of this.