Talking at Night

by Claire Daverley

because she thinks she should be honest, and because he’s being strange, so perhaps she can be her strange, most honest self in return.

he wonders, fleetingly, why everyone expects the worst of him, when he is only ever telling the truth.

She laughs then, and it is like the trail behind a firework; it sparkles and fades, the silence that follows left crackling.

Rosie smiles at her, and it is like the sun breaking through the trees. Will feels something move inside him then, if it hadn’t already been shifting; like an anchor, catching in place.

Don’t miss out on something good, simply because it’s different.

How the worst thing, the most not-okay thing in both of their lives, occurred, because the world is cruel and unpredictable and things just happen, sometimes, and their understanding of this is what brings them back together, over and over, in spite of it.

I’d say you just love the idea of her, then, she says. You’re pinning everything on something you’ve never even had. Something that’s not real.

You’re a lot of things, Roe, he says. But sad? No. No way. Even after everything, you’re a light, Roe. A goddamn beam of light.

I wish I’d done everything on earth with you, she says. The street is quiet. No cars, or closing doors. Just them, and her voice, on the linen-dry wind. It’s not mine, she says. The quote. But it’s beautiful, isn’t it? He nods, but barely, because he is not used to such talk. And I feel it, Rosie says, still with that smile of hers. I was just thinking that I feel it.

I’m not saying choose between us, he says. You need to work out what you want out of life, Rosie. Not who.

the peace he’s made with the things he did and the people who left and the way the sun keeps rising, regardless.