Eight Perfect Hours

by Lia Louis

It’s amazing how quickly an hour and a half passes when you’re having one of those conversations—the unexpected effortless kind that makes you feel as though you can’t get the words out of your mouth quick enough.

And I’d forgotten the fizz of it, I think—of meeting a fresh, new person, and that purging you can do when you’re clean slates to each other and everything shared is new and interesting and a little bit of universe-expanding.

Routines mean having something to look forward to.

she has in fact every idea but is too frightened to look it in the eye—this person who loves her for everything she is—not everything she was, or the idea of who she could become.

But his bluntness often felt like heartlessness.

An iPad still plays, quietly, with the sound of white noise. An artistic representation of a parent who’s tried everything.

But regardless of how “done” a relationship is, there’ll always be a small part of you—a small, whimsical part—that wonders what would’ve happened if things had been different.

“I hate weak hugs,” she used to say. “I’d rather they didn’t bother, if they don’t mean it. What’s the point? Hug me or don’t at all.

the only way to live forever is to leave parts of yourself behind.