Kiss Her Once for Me

by Alison Cochrun

Grass, sidewalk, and street have all become one smooth, fluid thing—a world that looks sugar-spun and impossibly sweet.

Homesickness sluices through me, but there is no home to be sick for, nothing waiting for me here or anywhere.

I like my men like I like my life goals: unattainable.

there isn’t enough alcohol in the world to make me forget her.

When Meredith makes declarative statements, there is never a misplaced question mark. You can almost feel the universe bending to her will.

The truth is: the world is full of selfish people who become selfish parents. It’s hard to explain to anyone who grew up with stability and safety and guaranteed love what it’s like to both hate your parents and desperately want their love at the same time. To still, at twenty-five, get sucked into little fantasies where they show up one day, sober and sorry, and finally acknowledge all the times you had to tuck yourself into bed. All I’ve ever wanted is to make sure I don’t become them. A fuck-up. A failure. A mess.

I will draw this place like a fucking Norman Rockwell painting. It makes me oddly nostalgic for something I’ve never had.

My pockets are full of pieces of Jack, and I want to spend the rest of this snowstorm begging for the rest of her story, putting it all together until I can draw her accurately on a sketchbook page, figure out all the lines of her.

I would give anything for her to be less beautiful than I remember.

The good parts of the time you spent with a person don’t go away simply because the relationship ends.”

I have four extra ribs, three hearts, and a fullness climbing into my throat as Jack continues to chart a path down the slope of my thumb, inward across the soft flesh of my palm.

“Some of us are born into families that deserve us and some of us have to spend our lives searching for them.

I guess maybe that’s how it works in families who love each other unconditionally: you can fight without fear of losing them and be honest without consequences or repercussions.

“Did you sleep at all?” I shake my head. It felt like if I closed my eyes, I would wake up to find the snow had melted, that the magic between us had dissolved, too.

Jack’s voice cracks again, and I crack right along with it.

“Sorry?” She sits down on the edge of the bathtub and passes me a mug. “I won’t have any apologizing in this bathroom, and I especially won’t tolerate any apologies for having emotions.”

Sweetheart, we can always schedule in time for a good cry.

Jack is wild horses and rainstorms and driving with your arm out the window on a warm day. But she’s also quiet moments: she’s your first mug of coffee in the morning; she’s watching that rainstorm through a window, wrapped up in your favorite blanket.

Jack kisses me into a knot that only she can untangle. She folds her body into mine, and time folds itself in half, until last Christmas feels like it was yesterday, like we’re picking things up exactly where we left them.

“We all have seasons of needing and seasons of giving.”

But your trauma is something that happened to you; it’s not who you are.

“Jed and Linds don’t love you,” Meredith says bluntly, cutting me off at the emotional knees. “But that doesn’t mean you have to be perfect to deserve love.”

I take a deep breath and try to hold it in my lungs, try to press it into the aching hole inside of me. The hole that can’t be filled by another person; it can only be filled by me.

“How are you feeling?” “Like my stomach is going to fall out of my ass.”

I used to think letting more people in would mean having more people who could ultimately disappoint me. Hurt me. Walk out of my life. But having more people means there are more arms at the ready to catch me when I fall. And I fall a lot.

“I don’t think I could stop drawing you if I tried. You… you’re the best parts of every character I create.”

I have eight hearts, thirty ribs, and no idea what’s happening.