Adelaide

by Genevieve Wheeler

The funny thing about hitting rock bottom is that you never quite know once you’ve reached it. That whooshing, falling feeling never ceases, and at every preceding level you’ve thought, This has to be it, right?

internally, mentally, she was a mess of jagged, disconnected pieces, and she didn’t believe she was capable of putting herself back together.

She didn’t want to die, per se, she just wanted to stop existing. Stop being.

God speaks through beauty,

beauty itself, be it natural or artificial, was evidence of a higher power,

Her name hadn’t even crossed his mind.

🤢🤢

He’d said it without thinking, without even realizing. But she wasn’t the best, not really. She couldn’t be. It was Nat; it would always be Nat. Not Adelaide.

🤢🤢🤮

I’m sure if Rory were awake, he’d not want you trudging through puddles and waiting for the bus so late. Adelaide nodded again; she didn’t correct him.

Bubs is the guy she should be dating Rory is a douche

But she was starting to fall short, as Rory often reminded her. Late again, he’d say. Can you be present for once and just watch a film with me? he’d ask. Nat was able to climb the ranks without letting work swallow every weekend. There’s no reason you can’t do the same.

I hate him 🤮

Oh, don’t do that, he said. Don’t make me feel like shit. I feel bad enough as it is. Nat’s in the ground now, and my stomach’s been acting up, and I don’t need your guilt trip, Adelaide.

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

He would not save Call Me By Your Name—in which the sappiest, most earnest love note Adelaide had ever written was jotted on the back of page 165. (Had he even read it? She didn’t know.) No, Rory would save the last piece of Nathalie he had, the last piece within reach. Of course he would.

We have to be here to hold each other’s broken pieces.

didn’t know how to explain why she wanted to decorate her flat with peonies and plants and color-coordinated stacks of books while simultaneously wanting her life to end.

And I’m no therapist. But maybe, the darkness isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it’s a reminder that you’re capable of turning the car around, you know? You’re capable of rerouting from a very dark, scary path back to the light. You

Remember, Adelaide. You’re allowed to take up space, too.

All she knows is that she’s alive and loved and breathing. She’s here. And everything is going to be okay.