Adelaide

by Genevieve Wheeler

For now, though, Adelaide was young and in love, and so what if her boyfriend was kind of an asshole sometimes?

Felt her up one afternoon as she lay there, silent, then said she had the tits of a chubby, preteen boy.

She felt like prey. Her body was his, her interest was known, the thrill of the chase was over—he’d consumed her and discarded the scraps and now, that was all she was. A mangled carcass of a girl.

It’s funny, she continued. I never really thought about my dream wedding growing up. I thought more about my funeral.

The truth existed somewhere in the middle: She didn’t say this because she liked having cum on her body, but because she liked the response these words would elicit. It made her feel as though she was in control.

That he was beautiful and maybe her soul mate and also that she kind of hated him?

It was pathetic and pitiful and yes, foolish, but she just wanted to hear from Rory. An acknowledgment, a question, a word, even—anything from Rory.

She’d never really known love. Not like this, not like Elio and Oliver’s. Nothing full, unconditional, romantic, apodictic.

What if she’d been broken as a teenager and was now incapable of eliciting adoration, affection?

She had fallen in love the same way one slips at the grocery store, despite the CAUTION: WET signs lining any given aisle—quickly, accidentally, and fully aware of the mess into which she was getting herself.

It wasn’t meant to feel like this, was it?

In five years, Adelaide would be thirty, which she used to assume meant she would be married with adopted children, a house, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel named something like Fitz or Willoughby.

(There were very few things about herself in which Adelaide took pride. Her gift-giving skills were among the few.)

She was also afraid, secretly and selfishly, that perhaps she would never be loved like that.

Adelaide Williams loved birthdays. All birthdays. She knew this was partly because of capitalism, sure. But more than gifts and Mylar balloons, Adelaide loved the idea of celebrating the day a person entered the world.

How wonderful, she thought, that once a year, we had an opportunity to look at the people we love and say, I’m so glad you’re here. On this earth. Right this minute.

To Adelaide, birthdays were a time for celebration, for reflection, for saying the kindest things you could possi...

How does one so consistently fail to show up?

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.

This was not how the evening was meant to go—this was not how anything was meant to go, really.

Adelaide had been overwhelmingly kind, patient, caring. Yet, she continued to feel as though she was not enough, as though she would never be enough to earn the love and respect of this prince,

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. And once we do—once we fall in love, against our better judgment, with something or someone—we never want to let go.

Her name hadn’t even crossed his mind.

you’ll never forget this pain. But I want you to remember that you can still feel joy, too.

The best, Rory said. The best. 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.

Just remember, she said. You run yourself ragged for other people, Adelaide. You deserve someone who’s going to show up for you, too. Yeah?

Your mark on my life, on so many people’s lives, has been nothing short of profound, okay?

And also, holy shit, I’m sorry that all I’ve been able to talk about for the last year and a half is how desperately I want some boy to love me and how sad I am when he doesn’t.

Her brain was going a million miles an hour, but she was thinking that sometimes, actually, it’s quite nice to be alive.

Tone it down, Adelaide, she told herself. Don’t be too much.

But it felt like such a waste. All of those words, those books, that love. All of it felt wasted on someone who didn’t want it, someone who would let it all burn.

He doesn’t fucking love you, Adelaide. He doesn’t show up for you. She was tying a knot in the garbage bag, still avoiding eye contact, but her words knocked the wind out of Adelaide. A gut punch. I know that’s hard to accept, she continued. I know that’s a tough pill to swallow, but you’ve got to stop putting him above everything else in your life, okay? Enough already. It’s enough.

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.

Adelaide had all but accepted the fact that her life would be full of lukewarm celebrations and successes.

she would never be extraordinary. Never special. Her memory would fade with friends and relatives,

The only way to bypass having to be extraordinary, Adelaide knew, was to die young. To leave others with the impression that you would have made the most beautiful bride, the most loving mother, the most adorable neighbor with a garden full of peonies … had you only had the chance to live.

You completely emptied your tank on someone who fucked you over and that is a horrible feeling that you are absolutely allowed to feel.

Later, she will forget. She’ll forget what it was like to be this heartbroken, this unwell. To sit on her floor with her back against the charcoal couch, wiping her eyes with freshly laundered shirts, then cursing again when, stupidly, she’d smudged them with mascara. 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.)

But my brain has been to this incredibly dark place now. And that darkness is always kind of lingering at the periphery. No matter what. No matter how much light is in my life.