If You Don't Love Me We Both Die

by C.M. Stunich

The tree is blooming; the sky is filled with stars during the day; the Heart Nebula is so close to us that it takes up most of the sky. This is magic. I am seeing magic.

For eleven minutes, Lakelynn Frost is legally dead. The love of my life is dead. The love of my life. My heart.

He’s laughing, but he’s also crying. That’s life, laughing while crying. Crying while laughing.

Maybe Tam’s music is just pop, and maybe it doesn’t mean anything when compared to stars and redbud trees and Heart Nebulas, but it brings people happiness. It draws them together. It’s a light in a sometimes-dark world.

Maybe there isn’t a lot of magic in this place, but there’s a little bit, and if we learn to listen and look for it, we can find it. In the pattern of a snowflake. In a sunset. In the stars on a clear night. In Tam’s eyes as he gazes down at me.