The Fiancé Dilemma

by Elena Armas

I’ll marry you with paper rings.

Hey. No TS slander, you know the rules.

Beautiful things shouldn’t be boxed. It eventually dims their light.

“Perfection is subjective.” “That’s a beautiful thing to say.”

“Excuse me, Andrew, but you don’t know shit,” Matthew answered. “You haven’t made the effort to know. You haven’t earned the right to reassure anyone. So move aside.”

And I loved him, I loved Matthew in a way that made me wonder if I’d ever known how love felt before him. It was so scary, it made me feel so vulnerable, so frail, and perhaps… perhaps that was how this was supposed to feel. Perhaps that was fine. Perhaps, I love yous were meant to feel this big. To make you feel this naked. This exposed. So big you were terrified to hurt. So safe no one could touch you. Perhaps to love was to leave a mark.

And Josie had always been Technicolor in my head. Not white.

“I’d like you to put it back on my finger, facing the right way. Knowing it’s there for us. Not for anybody else.”