Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This made no sense at all. Vanessa was the one who had come up to her and said hello. But now, somehow, it was Joan leaning toward her, as Vanessa sat there, cool in every sense of the world. Detached. Effortless.

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

If Joan could have been pressed harder into the Earth, if gravity was variable, this would have flattened her. Did Vanessa know that, on some level, Joan could not resist the idea that to go up there would be to touch God? That Joan could not help but wonder if, among the stars, there would be answers to questions no human had yet found?

Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

Did Vanessa know how beautiful she was? Her beauty seemed so obvious to Joan, but no one ever reacted to Vanessa the way they reacted to most beautiful women.

Joan knew that she would not need to find a way to tell Vanessa how she felt. Vanessa would understand it. Which meant Joan would not need to learn how to be anything other than who she already was.

No matter how easy it was for Joan to lose herself in this new life, she was constantly aware of the cold, hard borders of it. The world would not care for her and Vanessa as they cared for each other.

In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn’t picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very center of everything. And even though you knew better, you’d allow yourself a moment to believe you were worthy of being revolved around, too.

God is the universe. The unfolding of the universe is God in action.

Just the act of falling in love was to agree to a broken heart.

But she did believe in a God that had led them here. That led their lives to intersect. That led Vanessa to need what Joan had to give. That led Joan to have what she needed.

This wasn’t romance—Joan was sure of it. It was something much deeper. Something that, unlike every other thing in the known universe, Joan suspected, could last forever.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”

“I would give you anything,” Vanessa said, “if it wasn’t going to cost us everything.”