Our Infinite Fates

by Laura Steven

In a futile attempt at self-preservation, my mind rehearsed loss before death closed its fingers, as though practicing it would lessen the blow. It never did.

Whatever unnatural cord bound our souls together wouldn’t allow one to survive without the other.

And so, in the absence of any abiding religious convictions, this was the one blind faith I had: that love was a physical force, and it was never wasted. Once it was called out into the universe, it would echo back to us forever.

There was a kinship between us, our shared secret a fortress that could never be breached from the outside.

“I hope you never lose that bottomless capacity for love. I hope you hold on to what makes you human.”

every parent we have ever loved walked this glorious earth gathering nectar from the flowers of their lives, kissing it into the mouths of their children, and now the honey is ours.

Nabokov described it as ‘a dull ache of the soul, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning.’ And, in particular cases, ‘the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness.’

Ya’aburnee was a favourite. It means ‘may you bury me.’ It’s the idea that one person in a pairing longs to die before the other, because living without them would be too excruciating.

“It’s impossible to have bravery without fear. Bravery is picking up the fear and carrying it alongside you, rather than allowing it to block the path.”

When things didn’t work out the way you hoped, the way you believed they would, there was also the genuine shock to contend with. A subtle rearranging of your worldview. Unwanted evidence against the faith you held so dear.

“Love can make a villain of anyone,”

will always be yours. But I gave up the right to call you mine a long time ago.

Confelicity— an English word with Latin roots—means a kind of vicarious happiness. You’ve always been so good at that. When you see other people happy, it makes you happy. Doesn’t matter who those people are, whether loved ones or perfect strangers. You just let their joy radiate through you, and it’s miraculous.

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

Then again, I had always found a way to live with the grief of the loves I had lost—to carry them inside me like candles that never blew out, until the slow tide of time eventually extinguished the memories.