This Time It's Real

by Ann Liang

Sometimes I think loneliness is my default setting.

principle: Don’t insult the person you’re trying to loop into a deal.

I guess my point is that I do believe in love. Really. I’m just not convinced that kind of love could ever happen to me.

“I’m kidding, by the way,” he says evenly. “You’re still way hotter than my manager.”

Writing is simply a form of lying; I’ve always known this to be true. But to tell a good lie, a convincing lie, one that is both logically constructed and consistent and emotionally resonant—that takes time and effort. Attention to detail. And in this particular case, it also takes cooperation.

“Caz,” I say. “I know there are people who’ll literally worship you for drinking water, but you realize you don’t actually have to be perfect all the time. I mean, I’d probably like you a lot more if you weren’t so perfect. You’d be way more—I don’t know, human. Not just some shiny product of the entertainment industry.”

He waits for me to say more, but I’m too busy trying to act normal, like I’m not hyperaware of how close we are, how his hand is still moving slowly over my skin, his touch warmer and lighter than the summer air.

I once heard this theory that when you dread something, time moves faster, as if the universe is determined to conspire against you.

“It’s the smile,” he says, eyes flickering to me. “You two have the same smile.”

I don’t know. Sometimes it just gets really exhausting

I know there’s this popular mindset of “I’m strong and independent and I don’t need anyone,” but the truth is: We do need people. People who’ll laugh with us and cry with us and make the bad days bearable and the good days better; people who’ll remember what we forget and listen even when they don’t completely understand; people who’ll need us back. It has nothing to do with strength at all, and everything to do with being human.

And this, I think, is my ultimate fatal flaw. Missing people who don’t miss me back. Clinging on to strands of string that shouldn’t mean half as much as they do. It takes so little for me to love someone, yet so long for me to move on.

When you care about someone, you want to be inconvenienced—you wouldn’t mind being inconvenienced by them every day for the rest of your life. That’s what love is. That’s all love really is.”

He only seems to relax when I scoot forward, bring my hand lower down to his arm, and tell him what I’ve wanted someone to say to me for as long as I can remember. What I’m still waiting for someone to say. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

“That thing about … being there for me. I want to be that for you too.”

shrugs. “Most sincere things feel at least a little embarrassing. It’s part of our defense mechanisms. Our heart’s way of protecting us from potential hurt.”

Writing is a means of telling the truth. Both the beautiful and the ugly.

“Caz, I’d love to be inconvenienced by you. I wouldn’t mind being inconvenienced by you for the rest of my life.”