Home Is Where the Bodies Are

by Amanda East

I didn’t fall in love with her all at once. It was over years of memories together. The way she throws her head back when she laughs. The kind things she does just because. Her brown hair shining in the sun. How she gets completely lost in the books she’s always reading. The supple fullness in all the curves of her body. The way she glows when she’s talking to a child. Everything about her is magic.

If I hadn’t known I was in love with her before, I did then. I knew life would never be complete without her in it.

“Listen, I love Shane, really and truly, but I don’t need him to complete me. He’s a wonderful man and beautiful addition to my life, but I can stand on my own. That man in the car out there is a phenomenal human being and would genuinely do anything in the world that you ever wanted, but you don’t need him to save you. You are plenty capable of saving yourself.”