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The idea of life as something I could choose, cultivate day by day, curate and nurture. Being mindful, instead of reactive.
I glance away, taking in the view. Which is so breathtaking, Conor’s Irish-accented financespeak fades into a remote corner of my brain.
It’s too much. Too beautiful. The turquoise waters and dark green trees are too bright, like some AI-generated postcard.
But this actually feels like…” “Like more than an afterthought?” I nod as he draws back. “Like I actually took time off to celebrate and publicly acknowledge the fact that I’m in love with Rue?”
I’ve always been stubborn, but this is twisted. Sclerotic. Toxic. My brain tripped on him when I was twenty, and here I am. Still. Despite all that has happened since. All those teachers telling my brother how smart I was, and here I am. So fucking dumb.
“Okay, first of all, your soul has never been anything but coal smeared. I bet you burned ants with magnifying lenses when you were a toddler, back during the Protestant Reformation.”
Each time, my stomach politely asks me if it could keel over. No, I say flatly. In this body, we endure.
Past the railing and cliff, I can count more lights dotting the shoreline—other villas, hotels, residences, parties. Other older brothers and unrequited crushes.
“What?” I ask over my shoulder. “I’d like to diversify my insult portfolio for the evening, and I have already sampled your offerings—”
“He had to rebuild his life for you, and I’m certain that comes with a healthy dose of resentment. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you more than anything in the world.”
I think about the men and women who built this theater. The Greeks who sailed all the way over here and found the place too beautiful to leave, the Romans who joined them, the Arabs and the Normans and the House of Bourbon. The world is so big, and we are just clumps of atoms. What’s a tiny little bit of heartbreak, when faced with the vastness of mankind? Does it matter that a love is unrequited, if the universe started with a hot fireball and will end the same way?
The one thing I can control is being kind to those who are kind to me.
But my heart, too, is nothing more than a clump of atoms.
“If you had to guesstimate, how often would you say Conor Harkness thinks about the Roman Empire?”
“You respect her, want the best for her, and cannot stand to see her hurt. For all you know, I’ll exploit her trust, and maybe even break her heart. And that would be so fucking callous of me, wouldn’t it?”
Just having a bit of a take-stock-of-your-life moment.”
This nagging feeling that…it didn’t feel natural, if you get my meaning. It’s so easy to mess up, if you’re not listening to yourself.
“You want me, Conor,” I repeat. It’s a statement. An axiom. We can fight over what to do about it, we can disagree on every letter of every word we say to each other, but I refuse to negotiate this simple truth.
Age is not always a proxy for power. It can be, sure, but I have absolutely nothing to gain from being with you, aside from being with you.
“He’s been a bit of a chronic issue for me.” I sigh. “I fear he might be terminal.”
The dad he knew wasn’t protective, but dictatorial. Mom, absent instead of nurturing. And I struggle to reconcile one simple truth: if they hadn’t died, Eli and I would still be strangers, and…I would hate that. It has to make me a terrible person, right?
You need to be with someone your age. Someone who doesn’t come with sets of issues that span generations. Someone who—” “Someone who’s in his original condition! Pristine! Someone who has never experienced suffering!
“Conor.” “Yes, Maya.” “Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart…Fuck off.” I hang up. We don’t talk for the following ten months.
“That sounds like a highly problematic fantasy,” I say, not sure whether I’m joking. “Am I older, in it? I don’t have the tragic past that makes me highly susceptible to the undue influence of father figures?” His hand closes around my knee, warm. “You’re not. You’re just you.”
Sometimes you give it your all, and things still don’t turn out well. Sometimes A for effort looks just like an F in a funhouse mirror.
I laugh. If someone came to me and pried my chest open, they would see light beaming out of it.
If I had a euro for every time I fell asleep after a sexual encounter with you and then woke up to find that you’d left for another country, I’d have two euros.
And then about what’s to come—new job, new life. New boyfriend, old love. I think about the little moments that are going to make up my near future. Sorting myself out. All the firsts ahead. Baby steps and races to the finish line. Building memories.
“Conor?” I cup his face. “Yeah?” I let myself smile. “You haven’t even asked me the question yet.” A short while later, I fall asleep with his ring on my finger.
