Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

She was overwhelmed with love for him. Love in the sense that she trusted him, and saw all the good in his heart, and cared about him and wanted only good things to ever happen to him. Love in the sense that she would always be on his side, even if he was wrong, in the sense that he was one of the people on this Earth she believed in. And in that moment, the swelling in her heart was unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.

But Vanessa did look at it, and then she smiled. “Oh, I do know you,” she said. “I know you so well. I know you exactly, Joan Goodwin.”

“Good. So finish unpacking and take me on a date tonight,” Vanessa said.

No one had ever touched Joan so delicately there, and Joan knew that, while she could not predict what would happen to them, for the rest of her life she would think of that area of her body as belonging only to Vanessa.

But trying to explain that fire I feel to leave the planet, the one you’re talking about? It is like trying to describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it. And then you come along and it’s like you are describing the color blue to me and I feel such…relief. I’d have followed you anywhere just for that.”

“I don’t know but I…I want to show you every good thing I’ve ever found,” Joan said.

They pulled over on the side of a dark road and, urgently, recklessly, Joan let Vanessa cure what ached her.

Joan was shocked at herself, how quickly she had learned to shed decades of inhibitions.