In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

Life is too short not to kiss the one you want.

Isn’t that the essence of love? Find someone worth killing for? Someone with the power to ruin you?”

“That was a minute ago. It’s time to move on. Don’t let the little things in life bother you, yeah?”

“Do what makes you happy. The world will understand. If it doesn’t, it’s the world’s problem, not yours.”

“For no doubt disrupting your life and tearing it apart next time I meet you. All’s fair in love and war, yeah?”

Moral of the story: clutching something desperately doesn’t mean you’re going to keep it. You might just kill it.

Yes, I kept the truth from you. About you. About me. But none of it was because I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to protect you. To shield you from the past. It’s called past because it passed! We have a present, Rory. A future.”

“Want to know if you love someone? Watch them suffer and see how much it tears you apart. Because when you were down, when you hurt, Rory, every fiber of me burned right along with you. You leaving without listening to what I have to say simply solidifies my suspicion all along:

We come from dust and return to dust. But while I’m here, on this planet, breathing, living, I want to do this alongside the person who makes me laugh. Who loves me unconditionally.

They said that love was beautiful, I asked them if they were high, Because when you barged into my life, you made me taste the sky, But then you left me here, and the ashes on my tongue turned blue, Darlin’, what more can I say? It ain’t easy loving you. I know we said forever, a promise born a lie, Though I really want to do it the right way before I die. Marry me right, and true, and in all the colors you injected into my life. My Disney princess, my shiny savior, my sharp, bleeding knife.

And I promise to be your shelter in the winter. To bask in you in the summer. To crash into love with you in spring like it’s the first time we’ve met. And when you fall? I promise to always pick you up.”