Someone Else's Ocean

by Kate Stewart

“I mean, we are all just extras sipping coffee in the background of someone else’s life. But that could change at any second. If I wanted to, I could put my coffee down and become responsible for you. We are all responsible. We could all choose to take responsibility, couldn’t we? Human compassion. What the hell happened to that?”

“And what if… what if that person sipping coffee in the background of your life, what if they,” he said pausing to take another sip, “are the next chapter?”

And so, I’m here living someone else’s life, in someone else’s house staring at someone else’s ocean.”

“what’s inside of you is a heart that is dying to live, and your head is too afraid to let you do it fully, the way you deserve. It’s the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. You’re a prisoner of your own making.”

“Every time I see you, I feel so relieved. Like I’d been living in some sort of dream and then I come back and you’re here,” he put my hand over his chest, “and I can breathe again.”

She was my golden shore after the shipwreck that was my life and she’d loved me with her whole heart, only to let me break it.