We All Fall Down

by Natalie D. Richards

Because I love him, and in his own twisted way, he loves me back. Then. And now. Maybe always.

It should feel terrible and scary seeing him here. Mostly, it feels like coming home.

Can you go to the darkest imaginable places with a person and still walk with them in the light?

I love him. Then. Now. Always. In a movie, it would be enough to undo every bad thing. Out here in the real world, though, love isn’t enough.

We’re both tainted water, but Theo’s bubbles up on the surface like an oil spill. Mine is invisible. Arsenic hiding in plain sight.

But it’s not just me holding on—it’s both of us. All wrapped up in who we were and what we did, but there’s no controlling what happens next. All we control is how we deal with it.

“When are we ever ready to let go? The past feels safe.”

“Sometimes you have to push past safe to get to healthy.”