On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

“Is it what you expected?” “It’s more.” I shook my head. “It’s like I can’t open my eyes wide enough.” “I love the way you see life,”

“It’s like nothing has ever disappointed you, like you don’t have a reason to believe it ever would.”

“I’ve been disappointed before,” I argued. “But that doesn’t mean I have to expect to be let down again. Every day is a new day, you know? A new chance.”

She’s the sun and I’m a black hole. I want to swallow her up and lose myself in her, but if I do, I’ll destroy her.

“If you wrap these perfect lips around me,” he husked, sucking my bottom one between his teeth. “I might actually fucking die.”

It was strange, that I felt so much power. I was on my knees in front of him, smaller in every way, but power radiated through me at the sight of him bending to my touch, succumbing to the feel of me.

“You liked that,”

“It turned you on, being on your knees for me.”

It was like that kiss brought him back to life, back to me,

He felt like mine, that lost boy, but he wasn’t

I was giving myself to a boy who never promised to keep me, pretending I didn’t need that affirmation, that I was okay.

And then one night, I overheard my parents in the kitchen. They were talking about the accident, about my leg, and my mom said it would be so embarrassing to be in a wheelchair or to have a prosthetic leg. She said it was such a shame, because I was so pretty before. Before,”

But you know, it was what my dad said next that really kicked me in the chest.” I swallowed, remembering the sound of his voice as it carried from the kitchen down the hall to my bedroom where they thought I was sleeping. “He said he didn’t know how I could even live with myself. He said if he was me, he would just end it all.” I couldn’t look at Emery when I said the next sentence. “My own father said my life wasn’t worth living anymore.”

Nothing like hearing someone say you shouldn’t live anymore to make you want to do just that to spite them. He lit the fire in me, the one I’ve had burning ever since.

“All I can say right now is that I know where I’m going, but I don’t know what I’ll find when I get there. And until I figure that out, I can’t answer your question,”

I nodded, swallowing down the nerves and latching onto his words. They weren’t a promise for more, but they were an honest plea for understanding, and they were enough.

“I want you tonight. All of you.” My voice was a breath on the breeze. “Take me.”

“I don’t deserve to touch you like this,” he whispered, fingers brushing my hair behind one ear. It broke me, the way his face cracked under the weight of his words, the words he believed to be true.

That night, Emery didn’t kiss me like we had forever. He kissed me like it was our last night on Earth, like he had mere moments to fill me, to touch me, to take all he could before we both faded into nonexistence.

“Usually when I have a bad day, people push me,” he said, swallowing. “My parents, my therapist. No one ever understands that I can’t talk about it when I don’t have anything to say. Even Grams, she wanted me to write, and for the longest time I couldn’t.

“I can’t tell you how much it meant to me that you didn’t leave, didn’t get mad, didn’t look at me like I was broken or sad or like you pitied me. I gave you nothing, but you understood.”

“You’re the first person to do that. You’re the first person to make me feel alive, Cooper. In a long time.” He shrugged. “Maybe ever.”

I thought I couldn’t lose him. But I could, and I would, in a way I never even imagined.

I swallowed back the hurt I felt, trying to understand he couldn’t help it, but his coldness stung more than the snow on my bare cheeks.

It isn’t death that’s scary. It’s living without actually living at all, breathing without purpose, existing without essence.

We weren’t perfect. We didn’t mean to hurt each other, and yet it was all we’d done.

He left just the same as he’d come, all at once, never expected, a tide that washed me clean before leaving me raw and bare in its wake.

I didn’t want to speak for fear of interrupting such a perfect sight, but under the peaceful tranquility of the scenery, a storm raged on inside of him — and I wanted to be his shelter.

All I can tell you is that I’m sorry, that I never meant to hurt you, and that when I met you, before I even got in your car, I felt a connection to you that I’ve never felt before in my entire life. It was kismet, it was a soul awakening. It was the first day of my life.”

“We’ve only spent weeks together, but it feels like a lifetime to me. It feels like every moment before you pulled into that diner parking lot was practice. I practiced breathing, practiced laughing, practiced existing in every moment on the way to you so that when you found me, I’d know how to live.”

“You asked me that first day we met what made me happy,” I reminded him. “And I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t happy. I was breathing, and that was all. But then I got in your car, and I took my first breath, and I lived. I saw things I’d never seen before, laughed harder than I knew I could, questioned things I’d believed my entire life and more than anything,” I said, catching my breath. “I fell in love with you. I fell in love with every dark shadow, with every scar, every flaw, every smile and every scowl. Your journal had nothing to do with that. I fell in love with you.”

Please, Emery. Don’t leave. Ask me what makes me happy now. Ask me. I’ll tell you over and over and over again that it’s you. It’s you. You are loved, you are understood, and you are needed. I don’t need you to explain why you feel the way you feel because I already know. I have never judged you, and I never will. Please,” I begged again. “Stay. Stay with me. Live with me.”

I’d said all I could say, and yet it somehow didn’t feel like enough.

“Living is hard, it’s the more difficult choice, but I can’t not choose it,”

“My grandmother told me if I took this trip and didn’t find anything that made me feel alive, I could join her, I could choose to leave this world and she would understand. But I can’t,”

“Because I fou...

“Even before you got here, I knew. I watched the sun rise over these canyons and I knew it wasn’t the sun rising on my last day, because I wanted more sun rises. With you.”

I wasn’t going to leave you. I’m sorry I ever made you feel like I could.”

Thousands of minutes and seconds discovering more of who she is, who she was, who we both are now — together.

There are still bad days. But there are less of them now.

I may not look to the universe for answers the way Cooper does, but I believe now. I believe in the power of being quiet, of being still, of addressing my thoughts instead of hiding from them.

and the way she loves me — completely, with everything that she is, without a single fear of being hurt.

One year. Every day of it filled with moments like that, with the two of us holding onto each other for dear life, trying to figure everything out together.

the me who existed this time last year would have sworn it wasn’t possible, a year of love, too.

But, for others, this one will hit home. Some of you will read Emery’s story, his thoughts in the pages of his journal, and you’ll understand.

I know too well how alone you can feel when you’re in the depths of it, when the shadows are so dark they feel like an all-encompassing night. I know how it feels to not find sleep, to fake a happiness that doesn’t actually exist. But, I know what it feels like to be truly happy, too.

There were times when I couldn’t see the light, when I didn’t think a brighter day existed, but it does.

So, I guess the biggest thing I want you to take from this is that you are not alone — and you will be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.

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