Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

if I was going to be proud of myself for being generous, that I had to do it even when it meant I might lose something.

The space between you and the star is time.

She was happy, in some ways, to know that her body would decompose. That she would give back to the Earth all she had taken from it.

She didn’t know how to be the person she knew she was.

The world would not care for her and Vanessa as they cared for each other.

I don’t want to believe in any being who would judge and punish like that. And I’ll pay the price if I’m wrong and God does exist. Because I will not submit to a God like that willingly.”

But our atoms were many things before, and they will be many things after.

My life is tied to yours, and to everyone’s on this planet. How does that not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?”

Joan wanted to love Vanessa in a way that never made her give up what she wanted. That never changed her.

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

Even if Joan had never fallen in love, she would still matter.

Through it all, babies are born from stardust and grow taller. They begin to walk and talk and learn the days of the week, the months, the seasons. Then they look up at the sky, to see where they came from.

Humans had figured out how to put a satellite up there. Humans had gone to the moon.

Intelligent life was her meaning. People were her meaning.

“I was circling two hundred miles above the Earth, and all I wanted was to get home and see you. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don’t care how big or small this world is, that you are the center of mine? Do you understand that, to someone, you are everything that matters on this entire planet?”

Are you insane, Joan? I want you. Forever. I told you that. I don’t care what it takes.”

Because I do not know how to live my life without you. Because I don’t even recognize the person I was before I loved you.

“What an awful thing to do to a person! To make them believe they can have the things they never believed they deserved. And then take it away. What an awful thing.”

“Then I’ll lose it,” Vanessa said. “Let them take it. Just don’t let them take you.”

Joan understands that God gave her something spectacular. A love, and a life, beyond the confines of her imagination.

Joan is so insignificant and yet, look what God had given her. Look at all that God had given her. Look at what no one will ever be able to take away. Vanessa has gone into the ether. And it will make Joan even more eager to take each breath. What a world.

Maybe they had not asked for too much. Maybe they would get everything they wanted.