Breathless

by Jennifer Niven

It’s funny how the bad things stay with you and the good things sometimes get lost.

All I can think is how one minute the floor was there and now it’s not. How you could go through an entire day, every day, not thinking about the floor or the ground because you just assume it will always be there. Until it isn’t.

It was one of those tragedies that my mom the writer refers to as a defining moment: that moment when life suddenly changes and you’re left picking up the pieces. She says it’s actually how you pick up the pieces that defines you.

He takes my hand. “When did that get there?” And somehow I know he is talking about the ceiling, which until fifteen seconds ago was shrouded in smoke from the fire we created, and beyond that a sky of stars. The brightest stars.

“Recycled love. Now, that’s something to think about. I don’t know. Maybe it’s even stronger because it’s forged from all these different types of love, all the parts that survived.”