Lotus

by Jennifer Hartmann

“I just…” He’s wide-eyed and broken. “I’m trying to understand you, Syd. I’m trying to learn why you pull away from me—why I can’t fully reach you. Why you run.” “Because I’m petrified of stripping away your progress and sending you back down into that hole!” I blurt, sorrow leaking out of my eyes, my throat stinging. “Feelings come with expectation, Oliver. I’m no good at that.” “You heal me. Every day you put another piece of me back together,” he insists, crossing the room, cautiously approaching. “Why do you associate attachment with suffering and loss?” I’m openly crying into my palm, shaking my head. “God, who hurt you, Sydney?” “You did!” I shriek, unplanned and untethered, my hysteria bubbling over. “Something inside of me fucking died the day I lost you!” Oliver freezes in place, his eyes flaring, his limbs going completely still. He stares at me, slack-jawed, with the most wounded, bewildered look upon his face. “I started building walls at only seven-years-old,” I continue, my voice ragged from the grief spilling out, a tsunami of bottled-up ghosts. I ambush him with my graveyard. “Day by day, those walls went up, made of stone and brick and steel and you. I couldn’t let anyone in because I couldn’t bear to feel the way I felt after you disappeared. Not again… not ever. You have no idea what you meant to me. What you mean to me.” The heel of my palm slams against my chest with clenched teeth. “Syd, I…” He trails off, lost for words. I keep going. “I’ve spent my ...