Lilac

by B.B. Reid

“I can run circles around your demons, Braxton. Just let me in, and I’ll handle the rest.”

“Perfection isn’t real. There’s only us. We’ll make each other laugh, and we’ll make each other scream. Bad days will find us again. We will be tested, and sometimes we’ll falter. We’ll wonder if this time we make it through.” I lifted my head to look at him. “Love isn’t an illusion that requires silence to maintain. It only needs our memory of what it was like without each other.”

Lilac. Love smells like lilac. Love is lilac. My head may have forgotten that field, but my heart hadn’t. It had been trying to tell me all along. I’d found my haven all over again in three broken rock gods. When the world wrote off my pain, I could run to them and forget. They’d be my shelter, my peace, and my solace. I could sing, I could sleep, I could laugh, I could cry. In their arms, I could just be. All I needed to know was why they weren’t here now.