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“Nurture might be the thing that makes or breaks us, but just because we break, doesn’t mean we stay broken,”
“Why are you telling me this?” I say, my voice nearly inaudible. But I already know, I already know. I see it now. I see what I was missing. He releases a short sigh. “Isn’t it obvious?” He cocks his head. “He wasn’t just terrified I’d hurt him for it, Will…” My vision blurs. “...he was terrified I’d hurt you.”
It was easier to miss him and tell myself what we had was… perfect.
We settled for what was in front of us, rather than brave trying to find someone new. Someone who lit our souls on fire, rather than just keeping them warm.
My eyes slide shut, and my lungs fill with so much air I feel like I might burst. Like I might float away. This. This right here, I think. This is what I’ve always been waiting for. Fast-paced music blares from the speakers, but all I hear is that haunting, twinkling melody from before. All I hear is the heavy heart in my chest snapping free from its constraints, as it finally flies unburdened.
“And I’d rather feel this burden of knowing and loving you than go even a second without you existing somewhere on this planet.”
“You’re a ticking time bomb,” I hear myself say, my voice distant even to my own ears. “One that just keeps fucking rebuilding itself after every explosion, over and over and over again. But I don’t. I don’t rebuild. I don’t heal. I just keep taking it. But I can’t anymore. There’s not enough left of me to take any more shrapnel and walk out alive.”
The music picks up with the chorus—the heavy, pulsing beat vibrating the doors, tickling at my throat. It wars with the heart thundering in my ears as the tension grows between us once more, becoming this living, combustible thing. Until all it would take is a single spark for this to go up in flames.
I don’t know a lot about love, not personally, but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be this heavy and suffocating and filled with so much ugliness.
“...shit’s not always black and white. Don’t make what happened into something it’s not.” —and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to believe I’m not a monster.
I get that I can’t outrun grief, but I can be grateful for what I do have. For what I still have. I know now just how easily it can all be taken away from me.
If this last month taught me anything, it’s that healing is about more than letting go. You can’t fall forever and expect to never land. Eventually you’ll have to learn how to make peace with the ground. Find your legs and keep on keepin’ on.
It’s not fair, I think. It’s still not fair. And it isn’t. It never will be. Sweat it out. Just sweat it out, baby. But grief isn’t a fever, is it? That was just one of those silly, nonsensical things parents tell their kids when they don’t know how else to help them. When their kids are still too young for the truth, and you want to keep them innocent just a little longer. It might get easier to withstand over time, but that pain? That soul-deep loss that can never be un-lost? It’s forever. It will fade to the background over time, sure. Become a little less raw, a little less tender to the
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“What-ifs are the devil’s candy.” There’s no use dwelling on hindsight. We’ll never be able to go back, so all we can do is… live with it. Learn from it. Carry it with us, and pray that something like that never happens again.
“That’s my burden, okay?” Exhaustion weighs down every word. “My burden is loving you, but not letting myself have you, because I’m fucking petrified nothing will ever be enough to keep you. And I can’t live with that. I literally cannot live with the idea of losing you, Waylon. So there you fucking have it. I’m not just scared, I’m petrified. Happy?”
She shifts and manages to pull me down so I’m curled up against her chest. Her hand smooths over my back, drawing soothing circles through my t-shirt. “Oh, how I wish he could,” she tells me, rubbing her cheek against my hair. “It really isn’t fair. You know I’d stay if I could.” “But it hurts?” I whisper in a small voice. “Yes. And I’m very, very tired.” “And you miss Grandpa,” I say, hiccupping. “I do. Very much so.” She tips my chin up with her fingers so she can meet my gaze. “But you guys have made the wait to see him again far, far better than I could’ve ever hoped for.”
Even the sun needs a break sometimes—it’s why it has the moon to help out every night.”
“It’s like every time something good happens in my life, the universe has a way of ricocheting back at me in the worst way possible.”
“It’s always the ones who condemn it the loudest that have something to hide, right?”
My mom and I have always butted heads, ever since I was a kid. We’re both stubborn to a fault—brash and pushy and just all around hot-headed when we’re passionate about something. And my dad’s always been the cool, calm center, ready to step in and referee if shit starts getting out of hand.
“It’s not your job to love who brought you into this world unconditionally. It’s the other way around. You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s the burden of motherhood. One we happily carry with us.”
Shit’s not perfect—far fucking from it. But if there’s anything I’ve learned these last few months, it’s that we don’t need perfect. We just need each other.
While I’ll never be free of the grief and pain that led me to this moment, I can’t help but feel grateful for where I ended up.
No one loses when the only objective is to out-love the other.
