Everything, Everything

by Nicola Yoon

I stifle the urge to go back to the window and assess my competition. But it’s not a competition if one person can’t even show up for the event. And it doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter if she’s long- or short-legged. It doesn’t matter if she’s pale or tanned, if her hair is black or brown or red or blond. It doesn’t matter if she’s pretty or not.

It matters that she feels the sun on her skin. She breathes unfiltered air. It matters that she lives in the same world that Olly does, and I don’t. I never will.

I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.

Because there’s no denying it now. I’m in the world. And, too, the world is in me.

In the beginning there was nothing. And then there was everything.

“When will you come back home?” she asked. And I told her the truth. “I don’t know if this is home anymore.”