Yerba buena

by Nina LaCour

It was the most fascinating part of academia, Emilie thought, that even trashy television could be significant if you looked at it through a certain lens.

She answered her phone each time he called, and she was home each time he wanted to stop by. From time to time, she went to the site and scrolled through the pictures. Sometimes because she was sure she’d find it—the detail that would give them away—and sometimes just for the pain of it.

Girl. Been there.

“How does it feel?” She wanted him so badly. “It feels like you,” she said. By which she meant it felt like something miraculous but tenuous. Something too precious to be hers forever, but something she would hold onto as long as she could.

“You guys know that feeling, where it’s like … you’re moving through fog? Except it has more mass than fog? You can barely get out of bed. Forming words is hard.”

She drove to Yerba Buena feeling as though she were visiting an old friend who loved her. Time had passed and they hadn’t called each other as much as they should have, but they still knew each other well.

Sara had been right to be afraid. Right to distrust something that felt so good. As punishment: her old life, the old heartbreaks, following her into this one, here to drag her back.

Emilie knew that things could be good—beautiful, even—and then, without warning, they could be over.

She waited for a message to come, but nothing else followed. And still. She recognized a love letter when she saw one.

sometimes a love letter is a photo to show you were thinking of them.