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May 27 - May 28, 2025
because once I returned downstairs, I’d be placed in front of my husband and the first man I’d ever loved.
because once I returned downstairs, I’d be placed in front of my husband and the first man I’d ever loved.
A first love who didn’t even remember my name.
A first love who didn’t even remember my name.
I just know it’s true. That’s why you dress like a toad.” I gasped. “I don’t dress like a toad!”
can call you whatever I want! Now get out of my tree house, Penguin!” I ordered. “I’ll leave when I want to, Toad!”
didn’t know why, but over the past week, whenever I saw Gabriel cry, I’d start crying. It was like his tears sparked something in me that made my chest hurt so much that I was forced to cry, too. Before that, I didn’t know my tears could match another’s.
“The only problem is I think you’re standing in two places at once. Your left foot is in the family room, while your right is in the dining hall.” “I always wanted to be in two places at once.” “That’s very A Walk to Remember of you,”
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be for me to reengage with a person from my past who completely lost his memory of me, even though he was the biggest part of my life until I was almost twenty years old? And then he randomly showed up to my husband’s dinner party as the architect building our new house? And he felt like we knew each other, but he didn’t remember, even though a big part of me wishes he remembered, but I don’t want him to remember everything because everything wasn’t good, but it also wasn’t all bad.” Joseph snickered, added too much sweetener to his coffee, and
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Do you know that he has a robot that brings everyone drinks and cleans up messes? It’s very Disney Channel Smart House style.” “I just think you showed your age there, old man,”
Fictional men will always do better by me than real boys. Men written by women are just better.”
“It means the idea of boys is actually better than the reality of them.”
“I know you’re probably pissed about what happened, and I get it, but you should’ve seen how he backed me up. It was just like in those books. I think he was written by a woman.”
Just make me a promise, all right? If you ever need me, you’ll call me. I don’t care if we’re in some kind of fight over something big or little. No matter what, we have to be there for one another, all right? We have to look out for each other.
We never talked about that party again. Yet, I figured that was when it began to happen for me. That was the moment I’d begun to fall in love with my best friend.
“Are you happy, Kierra?” “No,” she quickly replied. “But maybe some people aren’t meant to be happy. Maybe some people are just meant to be heartbroken.” “Maybe that’s true. But I don’t think those people are you.”
“You feel me?” she asked, slightly perplexed. “Yes,” I told her. “I feel you sometimes even when you aren’t around.” “Gabriel?” “Yes?” “I feel you, too,” she whispered. Fuck my heart… It just did a million somersaults in my chest.
“You really dream of me?” “Often,” I stated, staring down at my sketchbook. “What are the dreams about?” I paused my pencil strokes and looked up toward her. “About me loving you.”
At least he never yells around Ava. At least he apologizes. At least he never hits me.
But that’s the issue with advice: it’s easier to give it to others than to give it to yourself.
“But it will be warm.” “How can you be sure?” “Because you’ll be there.” I smiled at him. He smiled back at me.
That was the exact moment I began to fall in love again with a man who could never be mine. Then again, I didn’t think I’d ever stopped loving Gabriel. That love for him always sat quietly in my heart and would stay there for the rest of time. Loving him wasn’t simply a choice; it was my destiny. I was born to love him, and for a short period of time, I thought he was born to love me, too.
Kierra, you didn’t tell me Gabriel got hot. Like supercharged hot!”
“Do you want to be friends or something?” He scratched his chin and shrugged. “Okay.” He made me oatmeal cookies every month after that. With raisins.
“Then what do you mean you’re going to cross it off?” “My list only had three words on them.” “And what were the words?” “Kiss Kierra someday.”
“You know the difference? Between you and Henry?” “What’s that?” “He only speaks kind things of Kierra when they are in crowds. He’s loud about it around other people. You speak so kindly of her quietly, sincerely. And if I’m good at reading people, which I believe I am, I bet you speak that kindly of her within your thoughts, too.”
“If I lost my memory every single day for the rest of my life, I would still find my way back to loving you. I’d love every version of you. I’d love the young version of you. I’d love the current version, and I’d love the gray-hair version, because loving you doesn’t take time. Loving you just is. It’s a constant in an unstable world. I’d fall in love with you over and over again, without hesitation.
It wouldn’t even take years to fall in love with you, Kierra. It merely takes seconds. I think that’s why I ended up doing the architect project for Henry. Somehow my soul knew it would bring me to you.”
“When two souls are tangled in forever…” I whispered. “Then forever is what they’l...
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am in love with you, Kierra. Not the kind of friendship love. Not the we’ve-known-each-other-forever kind of love. But the kind of love where I want to kiss you more than anything else in the world. The kind of love where I dream about you and then wake up in my bed mad that you’re not there.
Love wasn’t always perfect. It often came with bends and cracks. The greatest heartbreaks always came from love more than they came from hatred.
“Kierra…my son’s in love with you. He’s been in love with you for a very long time. And I’m sorry that I interrupted your love story. But if you give him a chance…I know he’d love you, and love you right, for the rest of your life.”
That was the thing about love, real love, that is. One had to be willing to let it go in order to not hold the other back from finding their joy.
“Every version of you is the best version,” I told her, and meant it. “And no offense, Kierra, but I’ve waited long enough to have you back with me, and I don’t want to wait any longer. I just want you. In every way, in every fashion, in every season.
“Kierra, you are my penguin, and I want to build my nest with you. You’re my everything. You’ve been the planet that I’ve been orbiting my whole life, even when my mind became foggy. My soul always knew you, and it called out your name
For my future baby boy, Elijah Gabriel Sinclair. Named after two of the best men I’d ever known.
I was finally home again, because of Gabriel Ayodele Sinclair. My joy had come home.
