Heart the Lover

by Lily King

‘The daisy? Please tell me not as in Daisy Buchanan.’ ‘In a good way,’ he says, and kisses me.

They laugh like I’m lying, like you could never remember a dress better than a guy.

Carson fades after that. Everything dims a bit. What happened? I went to the funeral. I met Sam. I met Yash. It got cold.

The feeling catches me off guard. Oh. Love.

I’m in your bed. Wake me up so I can apologize all night. — (the real) Heart the Lover

When we read The Aeneid he pauses on a line then reads it again: ‘Someday we will remember even these our hardships with pleasure.’

These scenes that didn’t happen concentrate and distill the emotion of what did.

I go to get us drinks and look back at him there with my new friends, elbows on the table, head tipped to the side, his rooster cowlick, his mischievous grin. He’s telling them a story. I have that familiar impatience to get back to the table so I don’t miss what he’s saying.

I laugh. The three dark heads on the beach search for more flat stones. ‘First time I’ve seen him in years.’ Twenty-one years. ‘Ah.’ ‘Yeah.’ I love how fast women get things.

Sometimes she comes to me, more a feeling than a vision, a warmth, not a regret. I worry about many things, but I never worry about Daisy. Somehow I know she is well.

What do you know about taking risks, I want to ask him. You played it so safe. Mr. Cautious. And I protected you the one time things went off the rails.

‘You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while you’re reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.’