Adelaide

by Genevieve Wheeler

She was always going to jump into this lake, no matter how dark or dangerous it might turn out to be; she was too intrigued by its shimmering surface to even consider turning away. There was no world in which she wouldn’t dive headfirst in love with Rory Hughes. This was the only way.

How lucky she was to exist in this reality. How terrified she was of this luck running out.

Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place.

You have to love fiercely, and unselfishly, and with intention, her mom said. It’s the only way.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? How easy it is to care for something once it’s no longer ours.

Her sister Izzy had a mantra, one Adelaide had learned decades earlier: Pain is pain is pain. It was important to recognize your privilege, yes. To show gratitude, to count your blessings. But it was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain, to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds—they are yours. And you’re allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention.

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were, how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull. But not yet.)

Sickness feels different when it takes place inside your head, Adelaide thought. When the illness flows through the chemicals of your mind rather than clogged sinuses or broken bones. No illness is ever really linear. But the thing is, once you’ve gotten so sick you nearly

kill yourself, your mind knows where it can go. It knows that no recesses are out of bounds or off-limits.

There are parts of our hearts we give away. Not lend, but sacrifice entirely. And there are some people to whom we give these pieces, knowing we’ll never really get them back. It felt like Adelaide had been holding on, with all her might, to the chunk of her heart she’d given to Rory. No, she said. I still need it, she said. But there was no use. It was his now. It would always be his. And, with the gentle thunk by which her letter landed in the postbox, Adelaide felt like she’d finally let it go.