All This & More

by Peng Shepherd

What was a pesky thing like truth compared to happiness?

Almost like there’s no edge to where one’s life ends and the show begins.

That creeping dread that this life isn’t bad at all, by any measure—but it isn’t the one she’s supposed to have. She just ended up here. And now it’s too late.

She’s like the best supporting character in a movie ever. Especially her own.

Hearing him say it like that again—so quietly and intensely, while staring deep into young Marsh’s eyes—makes older Marsh soften. It was the first time she’d ever felt like, for once, being herself was actually kind of cool. Like she didn’t have to try to be edgier, or tougher, or more fashionable, or any of that. She could just be herself. And someone might like that self.

Marsh admits that sometimes, at night, she’d go into the living room to find him fast asleep on the couch, Harper dozing in his long arms with the exact same expression on her face, and she’d be so overwhelmed with happiness, such pure and engulfing joy, that she’d briefly worry she might be dying. Like the love was too much for her body to physically bear.

“Some doors slam loudly as they close on you, and others click shut so quietly that you don’t realize they’re gone for years,”

he was always going to move on faster than her. It’s easy to be first when the other person never moves at all.

It shouldn’t be a compliment, but it lands that way anyway for Marsh. She breathes a sigh of relief, perversely happy that her life is pathetic enough to please Talia. That she can see so many things wrong with it. So many things she could help her change.

“But it isn’t just your life,” Dylan argues. “It’s my life, too! It’s Harper’s life! Hell, it’s even Ren’s life. You’re changing things for all of us. And we don’t have a say.”

Marsh barely has time to appreciate that in this new life, marshmallow isn’t a comment on her sugary pushover sweetness, but rather her propensity to burst into adventurous flames at the slightest opportunity.

She hasn’t found her perfect forever path yet, but she’s starting to believe that when she finally does, she’s going to be brave enough to actually seize it.

That the point of these stories is always that your original life is the best one, after all. That’s the warm and fuzzy moral they want you to take away, right? The hero or heroine goes out and tries on all these new lives, but always comes back in the end, because they realize it’s not about the success, or the stuff, or the circumstances. It’s about the self. That you are the thing that makes your life special.

The only thing constant about Ren is that he’s always different. She sighs. It’s nearly too much for her to keep all his versions straight. She can’t imagine how confusing it would be for Ren if he could remember each of his incarnations.

No matter how far she runs, no matter what path she chooses, Chrysalis will still find her.