Never Thought I'd End Up Here

by Ann Liang

On a bad day, books offer a language for your pain, and on a good day, books remind

you just how precious your life is.

Leah. You remind me of the greatest sculptors, who can turn marble into the impression of billowing silk, the coldest stone into something soft. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that everything you touch turns beautiful. The world becomes beautiful, as long as there’s you.

“I can stop talking about it if that’s what you want,” he goes on. “I can promise to never bring this up again. But I meant it when I said that I can be whatever you want me to be: whether that’s an enemy for you to curse and hold a grudge against for the rest of your life; a friend you can trust to accompany you anywhere and drive you safely back home, the one you can call at any hour of the night and tell all your secrets to; or the person you fall for, who will always wear a jacket so you don’t have to bring yours, who will be the first to find you when you’re lost and alone, who will remind you how heart-wrenchingly, unfathomably beautiful you are even on days when you don’t feel it. The only thing I ask is that we don’t ever become strangers, because I really—” He breaks off. Clenches his jaw, fighting against some ineffable emotion. “I don’t think I could bear it, Leah. I don’t think my heart would be able to survive it.”

And my heart swells at the silly, simple, human fact that when we stumble upon something beautiful, our first instinct is to show it to the people we love. It’s what we do with pretty seashells on a beach, a radiant sunset, a rare bird flitting through the trees, a herd of wild horses grazing in the countryside. Look, we say, saving these little pieces of beauty for each other. Do you see it too? Isn’t the world such a strange, lovely, breathtaking place?