Left of Forever (Spunes, OR, #2)

by Tarah DeWitt

I’ve seen other people lose that romantic, soul-rending sort of love, whether through death or betrayal or … whatever life dealt them that made it impossible to keep the thing. It was like watching someone try to function with half a heart when it was taken away. I genuinely don’t know if I want to risk that again—having to survive something like that.

I want to love without restraint. I want to say the good things without reservation and not be afraid to say the bad or difficult things, too.

But here’s the truth I’ve been discovering. I’m actually just scared all the fucking time. I’m scared to get things wrong. I’m scared to let people down. I am so scared to fail to the point that it prevents me from acting, let alone taking a risk, or it makes me try to control everything that poses a potential risk around me. I’ve been living and loving in half-measures for years. Living my life in pencil, because I don’t think I can get shit right the first time. Maybe because I think it’ll save me some pain. So far, I’ve been wrong.

We’re not the kids who loved each other as friends or the teenagers who were overwhelmed by want. And we’re not the bright-eyed optimists who thought we were the exception when it came to young love, who thought our love and marriage could conquer all. We’re the war-torn adults who loved each other fully and still didn’t make it together in the end.

Hope is cruel in its persistence.

“People are the sum of their experiences, and we all have free will, but even if it is all made up, I think it’s nice to understand a little bit of why we all handle shit differently.”

Because you make up half of my soul. Because as desperate as I am to be near you, to be inside you, I’m terrified that having you this close again will also remind you of all the parts of me you wanted to leave.

Hoping with one another is how you two got so brave in the first place. After all, what is bravery if not hope in action?

We’ll make plans and we’ll tease. We’ll flirt and we’ll fight. One day, when we’re very old and gray, one of us will open our eyes to a day that the other won’t, but we’ll smile knowing how full life has been, knowing how we spent forever. Everything left of it, together.