The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

And it’s there, all thick in the air, us trying to learn about the other. It feels like we’re cramming for an exam, studying like maniacs the night before a test on a subject we’ve half-listened to all year. The content isn’t unfamiliar when you read it; it’s like you’ve read it before. Sam feels like I’ve read him before, but I haven’t.

He feels like the kind of memories I wish I had but don’t. He’s like déjà vu.

Because Sam should be a stranger to me, but he isn’t. Like I’ve dreamt of him all my life and I’ve just woken up and it’s bleeding through, and I know him… I know I don’t know him, but I know him. And I hope he knows me too.

Silence with him is silence. Silence with him is five fifteen in the morning before the sun’s up and it’s still dark but the birds are singing. He’s the heavy quilt you pull over your head when it’s too cold and too early to wake up. He’s the song no parent ever loved me enough to sing. He’s the way water runs and bubbles over stones in a stream. He’s a quiet mind.

I take a photo in my mind, let history rewrite itself for a second. It doesn’t erase it, but it scribbles over it a bit in a louder color.

Then there was a guy called Henry.

HEHE

I nod at him approvingly, and our eyes catch and my heart sparks, and it feels conflicted with this swirly mix of excitement and frustration to be in love with him but then to have to pretend I’m not. Rooftops were invented so I could shout off of them about Sam Penny, and here I am barely able to look at him in the eye.