The Conditions of Will

by Jessa Hastings

and I wonder if he hates his life or whether I’m just projecting that on to him.

The memory of pain flashes across him, and the way it splays on his face makes my bones sting, which I find strange because my bones never sting for other people, and I begin to wonder whether perhaps Sam Penny isn’t “other people.” Maybe Sam Penny isn’t “people” to me at all.

Startled in my heart, maybe? 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…

But Sam is different. 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 nod, thinking of Anatole fondly, because it’s impossible for me not to even now.

“You want to get over someone quickly?” I stare over at him. “Feel everything. Every shred of loss, everything you’re missing now that they’re gone. On lonely nights, be lonely. When you’re sad, look it in the eye.

This is it. This is what music exists for. This is why the birds sing. This is why the tide pulls and the water falls. It’s why the sun rises and it’s why the moon hangs there all ghosty white.

It’s been seven days today since I first met Sam Penny and I can confirm with absolute certainty that I am completely in love with him.

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.

The nicest thing you can ever do for another human being is see them, and really see them, at that. To be understood is one of most base desires we as people have,

Reading a book next to him—

I ignore the fact that my heart flutters when he calls me that, because it’s so familiar and I want him to be familiar with me so badly.

And I think to myself, wouldn’t it be so lovely if we viewed ourselves through the same lens as the people who love us?