I Could Live Here Forever

by Hanna Halperin

Everybody was far more complicated and vulnerable than they’d seemed that first night.

It wasn’t that his laughter or his smiles were fake. The things that he saw humor in were the same things that made him sad.

And now, walking to the bar with the five of them. I was quiet, still. But I was a part of it. Part of the group.

The part I liked most about teaching was that mysterious moment in the semester when the class no longer felt like a random group of strangers in a room. There was always a point when it occurred to me that everybody knew everybody else, and the classes, in a sense, began to run themselves.

She had a blasé demeanor, as though going to a random family’s Thanksgiving dinner were par for the course.

There are certain memories I’d never write down or tell anyone. I know what happens when you write things down. They change shape. Some of the feeling goes away. Things on the page are never as rich as they are in your head, as they were in real life.

My mother’s presence was bigger than my father’s. She talked more, hugged tighter, cried harder, laughed louder, yelled scarier.

Home looked the same but I didn’t recognize it anymore. It was just a group of people.

It was a delusion. Everything he was saying. But that’s what this entire relationship had been. What was the point of being truthful about it now?

“A relationship isn’t supposed to make you happy. You find happiness on your own. A partner is there to support you and build with you. It seems as though you’re looking for some magic person who’s going to solve all your problems, but you have to do that yourself. What we have together is complicated, but it’s good and real.”

The cold in the Midwest was different than the cold on the East Coast.