Seven Days in June

by Tia Williams

“No matter how perilous the journey, it’s never over for true soul mates. Who doesn’t want a connection that burns forever, despite distance, time, and curses?”

I’m an alien, Eva thought. She’d always felt as if she were impersonating a human, and she accepted it. But she’d never stop fantasizing about being unsick.

She loved her books at first. She wrote to tickle herself, the ideas sparking like wildfire. Then she wrote for her readers.

No man, no help, no problem. The Single-Mom Superhero myth, thought Eva, and it’s a trap.

Alone doesn’t care that I don’t shave my legs in the winter. Alone never gets disappointed by me.” Eva sighed. “It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in.”

named Sincere. One never knows.” “I like being single,” Eva continued quietly. “I don’t want anyone to have to really see me.”

“When you wanna fight, recite them in your head. It’s called a mantra. A mantra’s like a magic spell for your brain, telling it to chill.”

She was a fire he’d started ages ago—and for too long, he’d just let it smolder. It was time to put it out.

nowhere to put it down. The power and magic born in that struggle? It’s so terrifying to men that we invented reasons to burn y’all at the stake, just to keep our dicks hard.”

“You made Gia’s magic broom ten times stronger than Sebastian’s fangs. Witch trumps monster. Tells me everything I need to know about why men are scared of women.”

You don’t know me anymore.” “I know too much,” he said, his words weighted with old pain. The kind that makes a home on the fringes of your thoughts forever. “You don’t,” she sighed. “I’m not who I was. And when I look back, I’m horrified.” “You were just trying to survive,” said Shane. “When you’re drowning, you’ll do anything to get air.”

“We have unfinished business,”

“Eight’s lovable because you were.” His voice was firm, definite. “You can’t imagine what you were like then.” “I know what I was like.” “You don’t.” Shane went dead serious. “You burst into my solitude, demanding to be seen. You were overwhelming. Just wild and weird and brilliant, and I never had a choice. I liked everything about you. Even the scary parts. I wanted to drown in your fucking bathwater.”

“I wrote my books like you were the only one who’d ever read them,” he continued carefully. “My books did what I couldn’t.”

Back in the dark ages, when his loneliness was like quicksand, when he’d ruin himself to make it stop—and the only bright spot in all of this was loving a beautiful girl with demons ferocious enough to slay his own. For seven days, a million Junes ago.

Oh, he realized. I’m a person who’ll do anything for this girl.

Then he met Eva, and she breathed the same air. She stuck to his bones, imprinted herself on his brain—and thoroughly rearranged his world, in the best way.

“I don’t even know you,” murmured Genevieve, tracing an old scar on his chest with her index finger. “Why don’t we feel like strangers?” “Don’t ask,” said Shane. “You pull a loose thread and the whole shit unravels.”

“Hey. Wanna go somewhere and be bad?” “Youthful-indiscretion bad? Or arrested bad?”

They never said purposefully hurtful things to each other. Other moms and daughters did. But not them.

“If you have the opportunity to make a moment meaningful, why not take it?”

“The full-circle symbolism? Well, we’re sitting on bleachers again, fifteen Junes later, so I’d say it’s going pretty well.”

“It’s like those cases where people suffer major head trauma, slip into a coma, and wake up speaking a different language. I’d imagine that’s what it’s like. Writing sober for the first time.”

“Shane Hall, you’re not scary anymore.” “I know. I put the ‘hug’ in ‘thug.’”

“No, you’re funny,” he said. “Look, you could have hair down to the floor. You could be bald. I could be blind. You’d still be pretty, Genevieve.”

“I won’t let it happen,” she promised. “What do you like to do? Besides fight?” “Write.” “Don’t fight. Write.” She cuddled closer. “There. A mantra, to keep you out of trouble.” “Don’t fight. Write.” “Right.” She kissed him to bless it.

High school relationships aren’t supposed to be meaningful, he reasoned. Our frontal lobes weren’t even developed. How did we know it was real? Teenagers didn’t know how to distinguish between a crush and something deeper—let alone be right about it. At seventeen, Shane hadn’t been right about anything. But her.

“I love you,” said Shane. “Dramatically, violently, and forever.” She kissed the top of his head, smiling brighter than the sun. “I’ve always loved you,” he whispered. “What a coincidence,” she whispered back. “I’ve always loved you, too.”

“Ugh, I have this effect on people. But it’s okay to cry,” she said, handing him a cocktail napkin. “Destigmatizing male vulnerability is the first step toward rebuilding the absolute ruin that straight men have left the world in.”

“You know what I read?” asked Eva through her pasted-on smile. “A tree grows its branches out until it touches the tips of the next closest tree. And they’re linked forever. Because if they’re really close, their roots grow together. They’re so intertwined underneath that no matter what happens above ground, they stay connected.” Shane pressed her a little closer to him. Under his breath, he asked, “Do you think our roots are connected?” “More than,” she said.

Feels like family.

I come from a long line of weirdos, outsiders, and misfits. I’m a misfit. And my purpose is to give us all a voice. I’m going to write their story, which is mine, too.

There once was a girl named Eva I liked her the moment I see’d her Wish I could live in her dimple If only life were that simple I was a fool to ever leave her There once was a boy named Shane Who’d kill to ease her pain If only he could change the past If only this poem didn’t suck ass But Eva has only herself to blame EVA: This is my favorite poem of all time. SHANE: It could’ve been better, but nothing rhymes with Genevieve.

And maybe that was what real, adult love was. Being fearless enough to hold each other close no matter how catastrophic the world became. Loving each other with enough ferocity to quell the fears of the past. Just fucking being there.

“It never ends, does it? Loving you never ends. Whether you’re Genevieve or Eva. Whether I lose you for years or wake up to your face every morning. I love you. You’re my home. And I want you forever.”