When We Were Magic

by Sarah Gailey

“It’s gonna be okay,” she says. “I know it doesn’t feel like it’s gonna be okay, but it is.” “But what if it’s not?” I ask, burying my face in Handsome’s fur. He smells like pine and dog and wind. I feel Marcelina’s footsteps behind me, soft and patient in the grass. “Then you won’t be alone with it,” she says. “We’ll all be not-okay with you.”

It’s like every adult I talk to has some weird combination of expectations. They want me to be living in the now and enjoying “the best years of my life,” sure—but at the same time, I’m supposed to know what income I’ll need to afford the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage I’ll be signing up for in ten years.