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.

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.

Who knows what anyone would think of me. I’ve got medicine on the dresser, but a stack of academic recommendations. Bitten-down nails, but a neat and tidy wardrobe. A friend like Melanie and a friend like Theo. Maybe we’re all contradictions in the end.

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. I’ll never get fired. I’ll never get in a fistfight. When you stand me next to Theo, I’m the picture of mental health and stability. I’m not better than him, but I know I look like I am.

“You’re not looking for a ghost with a chip on his shoulder,” he says. “You’re looking for fingernail scratches on the walls of a gas chamber.”

We know how to fall apart better than anything.

“When are we ever ready to let go? The past feels safe.” “Sometimes you have to push past safe to get to healthy.”