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May 22 - May 24, 2024
It’s not all that hard to keep yourself sane, so long as you’re flexible with your definition of the term.
Death was like a lost lover. We circled each other. I craved more with every brush of its touch. All I wanted was for it to take me to its bed and never let me leave.
“His heart is what truly lit the fires of war, and the fire burns because of you. The decision was for all of us, yes. But the vengeance? The vengeance is for you.”
“One hundred and eighty thousand days I have been at the mercy of human kings,” I snarled. “And if you think you are any better than any of them, you are a fool.”
“It was a gift, Max,” she murmured. “A gift to have known you. I hope that you have the most incredible, happy life. I hope you find a future worth forgetting your past. Make it worth it. Find joy. Do you understand?”
I picked up the stick with a trembling hand. Slowly, I drew a line—long, curved, encompassing all the frames, with a delicate point at the bottom. Then one in the middle, slightly upturned at the edges. And at last, I drew two more shapes near the top. Eyes. One green, in the center of the shape on the left. The other silver. The shapes weren’t a map, or an island, or a code. They were the boundaries where tan skin met white. They were a face. Tisaanah’s face.
A realization came to me, one that I had been grappling with for the last ten years. There was no single moment when everything changed. No single before and after. There was just… life. A million decisions and a million consequences.
She tasted like home. Like everything good about reclaiming where I had been.
“You want the truth? The memories are hard, yes. But none of that scared me as much as the prospect of exactly how close I came to never seeing you again. That’s what fucking terrifies me.”
If you ever have to guess what I want, or what is best for me, it is you. Alright? I have made that decision already. I do not make it lightly. Don’t disrespect that by claiming that you know better for me than I do. I have made bad decisions before. But you are not, never have been, and never will be one of them. It is always you.”
We all feel the same things, and we will still die trying to kill each other for it.”
“Do not fear death, my daughter. We all walk with one foot in each world. There is beauty in impermanence. And what sad lives we would live, if we never loved anything we would lose.”
“You are my home, Max.
“Max. For my first gift, I give you my future. Our future. I promise you that we will build it together. And I promise you that I will always fight for it, as hard as I need to.”
“I give you my partnership,” I said, at last. “I promise that whatever road you walk, I will walk it beside you. Whatever challenge you encounter, I will face it with you. You will never fight alone again.”
“I give you my heart,” Tisaanah said. The rest of the world had faded away—it was only us, and the flowers, and our words. “Fully and completely. There is no part of myself that I will hide or shield. I promise you my love, in good times and hard times. You will always have an embrace to return to.”
“I give you my soul. It’s not a perfect one. It’s a little messy. You inherit some scars. But… all the good parts are for you. From the minute you showed up at my door, all the good parts were for you.”
“That is the bravest act in this world. To feel.
It was hard not to, when Max swept me up in his arms again, when he kissed me and smiled against my mouth, when he laid me down in the garden where two broken souls had met and built a home in each other. Hope.
It ends with two souls who create a future together.
