On the Way to You

by Kandi Steiner

he looked up at me, like he’d asked a question I hadn’t heard, like he’d been asking questions his entire life without finding a single answer.

He asked me what made me happy, but that’s not what he really asked. What he really asked was — are you happy? And I couldn’t speak.

“Life isn’t supposed to be safe,” she added with a laugh. “If it was, they wouldn’t call it living. They’d just call it existing. And you’ve existed long enough, baby girl. It’s time to live.”

This is life calling.” She shrugged. “Are you going to answer, or just let it ring?”

I think I knew, even then, that the greatest adventure of my life was about to begin.

“And I don’t want to die before I’ve even had the chance to live.”

But the point is she didn’t look at me like the question was absurd, or like there were plenty of things in the world that made her happy, or like I was weird for asking. She looked at me like she couldn’t answer because in order to list what made her happy, she had to know she was happy in the first place.

It was the first time in a long time, maybe ever, that I was alone with my negative thoughts.

don’t know. I want someone I can laugh with, and go on adventures with. Someone who will challenge me to be better but also support me when I’m weak. I want someone who shares their deepest fears with me, shows me their scars willingly — someone who trusts me to heal them, just as I trust them.” I bit my lip. “And I want to feel a rush every time our skin touches. I want to lose entire afternoons with them under the covers. I want someone who I can’t wait to share good news with, and someone who I know will hold me when the bad news comes.”

“I want that kind of love that leaves you breathless when it hits you, and makes you want to throw up at the thought of losing it. The kind that makes you so happy that it hurts at the same time, like it’s painful to think that out of all the people in the world, you somehow found the one meant for you.”

“Kalos is a Greek term for astounding beauty, inside and out. I read once that there isn’t an English word that can be used as a synonym, because of the level of beauty the word is said to describe. I liked that, a word that didn’t have an equivalent. I liked that only one culture took the time to give that kind of beauty a name.”

He kissed me like it was a privilege, like he didn’t want to rush, like we had forever.

“Sometimes, we have to trust the ones we love, the ones who love us, even when it’s hard to do.” Her eyes skirted to my tent, to the journal, before they found mine. “Because even though marriage brings us together as a unit, there are still two individuals who make that whole. And they need to be able to have their own things, their own time, their own privacy.”

“There may be things he hasn’t told you yet. Hell, there may be things he will never tell you. But you don’t get to decide which thoughts are which, or when you get to learn more about him, or when that trust goes deeper than where it is already. You only get to be there for the ride, holding on, showing him you’re not going anywhere. And every now and then, you’ll get to see inside him — really see inside him — and you’ll cherish it. And your love will grow. And you’ll realize why you waited.”

I wasn’t exactly an expert in depression, but I knew enough to understand that whatever he was going through today, it wasn’t because of me. There was a war raging inside that head of his tonight, and only he could see it. Only he could fight. But only if he wanted to.

All I wanted was to help, to make everything better, but I knew I couldn’t. The battle was inside his head, and I couldn’t help fight from the outside.

It’s like they did just enough to get by as what they considered decent parents, just enough to keep me in their household. But they resented me, they think I stole their life away.” “Right. Because you asked to be born,” Emery said, lips flat.

“You don’t look like a psychic,” he said, giving her a once-over. “And you don’t look like an asshole, but appearances can be deceiving, can’t they?” Melina smiled sarcastically, shuffling the cards between her hands as I stifled a laugh.

Receiving a message from the universe is a purposeful thing. If he comes into a reading with a closed mind and heart, he’ll receive nothing, and in turn feed his belief that nothing is all that exists.”

But this time, and for the first time, my dreams weren’t better than my reality. Emery was real, the way I felt was real, and every ounce of fatigue I had washed out of me at that realization. I was wide awake, and I never wanted to sleepwalk through life again.

Sometimes we’d talk about something I’d never discussed before and I’d find new beliefs, ones I didn’t even know I had. He made me think before I answered, before I chimed in with how I felt about whatever topic we had on the table.

It was every fantasy I’d ever had answered in a language I didn’t know, one I was learning to speak with every new touch.

He’d asked me that first day what made me happy, but I couldn’t answer him. Now that I finally could, he was too far away to hear. “You,” I whispered, the truth of it cracking the last whole piece of my heart, and then everything went dark.

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.”