Don't Be In Love

by Liana Cincotti

“Write something nice in my obituary while you’re at, will you?” “He had a lovely accent, terrible manners, and was always full of himself,” I recited. “You think I have a lovely accent?” he asked, only a small curve to the corner of his lips. “Don’t be fooled, everyone around here has a nice accent.”

settled for a simpler response that wouldn’t lead to my TedTalk: “It’s embarrassing.” “Of course it is.” His brows crinkled together. “It’s love. Everything about having love is embarrassing. You’re pining over someone who’s across the room hardly thinking of you. That’s incredibly embarrassing. But I also think there’s something romantic about being secretly fond of someone in a way that only you know.”

There was something cruel about your parents deciding to bring you into the world, and just choosing not to be with you in it.

“What are you thinking about?” His head had a slight tilt. The shape of your brow. The scar close to your scalp. The broadness of your shoulders. The way you say my name. The light that’s cupping the right side of your face. “The word for when artists depict light in a painting,” I responded. His brow rose. “Chiaroscuro.” “Of course you’d know that.”

I love them 🥹