Adelaide

by Genevieve Wheeler

It was normal to feel hurt when a boy you liked disappeared, Adelaide knew. She’d felt that before. But this was different; it sank into her bones. It was proof, she thought, that she really was damaged beyond repair. And as five days of silence turned into six, into seven, into eight, Adelaide plunged deeper into this belief.

But thank you, you’re sweet. She read it aloud, deflating.

The hardest part about falling deeply, knowingly in love for the first time—the first time outside of hormonal, teenage love, that is—is suddenly realizing you’re alone in this place. That you’re sitting in the most spectacular setting and no one is there to admire it with you.

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.

Still, absence bears weight. Loss is heavy—oxymoronically heavy. And it sits on our hearts completely unforgivingly.

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

The thing about Adelaide is that she felt everything. Truly, everything—except the things she most needed to feel.

She needed more books, she thought. And she needed more happy memories.

With the reminder that no matter how fervently she’d fought for a place in his heart, how desperately she worked to win him over, it was never going to be enough.

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

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.)