The Pairing

by Casey McQuiston

My little sister was twelve the first time she sent script notes so harsh the screenwriter left LA altogether. I can handle an ice queen with an expensive manicure.

When we arrived in Sicily, Fabrizio told us the myth of its creation. How three nymphs danced across the earth, gathering the best of everything, the most fertile soil and the most fragrant flora, the ripest fruit and the smoothest stones. They met at the bluest part of the Mediterranean, where the heavens overhead were brightest, and they danced there, casting their treasures into the sea, and so the island was formed.

I’d had the gift of being loved to the center of my soul twice in my life, and even if both of those people were gone, the love had been there. It was still there, in the shape it had made me into.

Sometimes I think the only way to keep something forever is to lose it and let it haunt you.

I miss them so badly already. But I’ve learned to love that ache.

I’m kissing them like we’re twenty-two again, courageous and astonished and pushing our luck. I’m kissing them like we’re twenty-four, full of dreams and fears, and like we’re twenty-six, lost in each other’s memory. I kiss them like now, twenty-eight, wiser and steadier and evolved and still so fucking gone for each other.