Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

This won’t be enough for her, and I understand it. There’s barely enough of me left to make a complete human. Why would I be able to hold her together when she’s becoming the one keeping me intact?

It’s easier this way: to pretend to be who I was before that game, to be the same team player and leader who earned the C on my jersey sophomore year. It’s who I am, who I should be—just lost beneath the dark cloud insistent on following me everywhere.

“I know you like to have control,” I whisper, crushing my lips against her cheek. “But I’m not some boy you’re using to try to feel nothing. You’re going to feel everything with me.”

And I want to be hers, almost more than I want her to be mine.

“The entire hockey team is in my kitchen,”

“So maybe I should let you scream as loud as you want, Gray. Then there’ll be no mistaking who exactly you belong to.”

“She thinks I can’t take care of them—” “No. She thinks the same thing we all do. That you shouldn’t have to.”

I selfishly want him, always, no matter that I’ll always be pulling him down or holding him back.

“Only a million,” I want to say. Rhys Koteskiy could never be confined to just one song—he’s a symphony, a never-ending playlist that I want to repeat forever.

He’s burned into me, I think, like a brand. I’ll never recover from him.

I love Rhys Koteskiy. And I’m learning that I do deserve him. I’m never letting go of his hand again.