The Infinite Pieces of Us

by Rebekah Crane

If I hold her drink hostage, maybe she won’t leave.

“Isn’t it weird that we know some things will hurt us, but we do them anyway?”

Color looks at me with her intense gray eyes. I’m mesmerized by the shade. In a place that never sees rain, Color’s eyes are the hue of storm clouds.

And it turns out you’re here. That’s like a sign or something.”

“The whole world is one big container. Everyone’s a hostage. That’s life.”

The earth will always hold you, even when other people won’t.

We lie there for a long time without saying anything. It’s comfortable. The centaur gallops away. I don’t want to move from this spot. I know what it feels like to be abandoned, to feel like no matter how hard you hold on to something, it all turns to sand in your grasp. And if Color is lonesome, I want to just lie here and make her feel full. Make her feel whole. I grab her hand. She flinches, but then she interlaces her fingers with mine.

“The symbolism is kind of perfect,” Color says. “The world is filled with desperate people seeking solace and acceptance, but it isn’t until they pass behind a protective curtain that they can finally admit who they are. And they can be free.”

Beth told me last week that the air in a room can weigh up to one hundred pounds. Maybe that’s why I feel so heavy when I’m in my house. All of that emptiness weighs a lot.

He was the opposite of every male I had ever met. He didn’t want to control me like Tom, or make me love him and then leave me, like my dad. Amit was just there. Always. With no ulterior motive. I think simply being there is the most loving thing a person can do.

“The universe never says anything it doesn’t mean.” And then her finger is up in the air. “Truth—the universe is always speaking, but people are too consumed with their own voices to hear her.”

You think something is there to save you, but it turns out it’s broken, just like you are.”

“And it’s just so hard all the time. It’s like walking around with an extra arm in an uncomfortable place.”

look at the back seat. A few of the turkeys wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so now Beth and I have dead passengers taking up the rear.

And me—I’m held together by strings. My pieces would fall apart if someone cut me in the right place.

Love isn’t abundant. If there were people out in the world who could love me, and they had a way of finding me, I’d want them to do it.”

Everyone knows why the caged bird sings. It wants to get the hell out of there.

He says we’ll call it “The Cup of Life,” since coffee brought me back to life.

“Imagine you have a best friend who talks to you the way you talk to yourself. Raise your hand if you would be friends with that person?”

“Isn’t it crazy that another country is so close, and yet we can never go there because we’re not allowed? But it’s all land. I mean, men created the border, not nature. Nature doesn’t discriminate. Men do. It’s like we’re boxed in, but we do it to ourselves. We imprison each other with lines and boundaries instead of just letting people be free.”

But when I look down at the hand closest to mine, it’s not Amit’s I’m imagining anymore. My memories of him are finding their way back to where they belong . . . in the past.

Love is like water. Sometimes it’s as solid as a kiss. Sometimes it’s as changing as the Rio Grande. And sometimes it’s as invisible as the steam that disappears from a cup of coffee.

Some walls can hold you together when no one else does.

“Who said life should be easy?” Color asks. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Heaven isn’t what’s held on the walls anyway. It’s inside the person who holds the paintbrush.

“No! No, please stay. Love each other. There isn’t enough love in the world.” And now I see why Color loves her mom, because she sounds really nice and genuine. I would never say this to Color, but she sounds just like her.

“You don’t know that. And we’re here if it hurts too much. We’ll make it better. That’s what friends do.”

Forget my theory about lying. Everyone is still lying, but here’s a more important statement—you can’t experience truth without paying the consequence.

It is unavoidable. That is why people lie. They lie for love, and they lie because in most cases, the truth hurts more.

Why are we so concerned about how we look to other people? It’s all a bunch of lies anyway.”

guess I’ll have to live with it. But contrary to what you think, it’s easier than living without it.”

“So what? You just need some proverbial superglue in your life.” Color plays with my hair, her fingers light on my scalp. It’s deeply soothing. “You put the pieces back together. It will never be how it was, and it doesn’t make it any less broken, but it’s new. People can be whole and broken at the same time, Esther.”

“Look, Esther, going back to the beginning is impossible. There is no beginning and no end. What was never born can never die. The present is the only place.”

Because the truth is that the best kind of love is simple.

But because we’re not perfect humans, we mess it up.

“No way,” Color says. “It’s a puzzle. Without all the pieces, it can’t be complete. We are needed.”

Here’s the thing about truth—it can be defined and redefined for eternity. Truth is like infinity. It isn’t an answer. It’s just an undefined idea that goes on forever. And in this infinite moment, my truth is defined—she is part me and part Amit, but she is not my baby. She is her adoptive father’s.