Crushing

by Genevieve Novak

‘Can you resist the urge to slip into a falling-in-love-whilebaking montage?’ ‘Sam.’ He grinned. ‘That’s the last one, I promise.’ ‘Give me the knife, moron.’ I paused. ‘Last one, I promise.’

‘I’m going to put some real clothes on,’ he said. ‘Make me a coffee.’ ‘It’s your house!’ I cried. ‘You’re supposed to offer me coffee!’ ‘Make the sad divorcé a coffee!’ ‘You make it!’ ‘You!’ ‘You!’ ‘Fucking, YOU!’ ‘Hey Kit,’ I said through a grin I knew he’d hate. ‘Love you.’ ‘Okay, enough, that’s disgusting. Go and pack up my office.’

‘You can’t love someone into loving you back,’ said Kit. He wasn’t looking at me, but out at the bare and brittle wisteria. ‘They just do until they don’t, and then it’s gone.’

‘You’re not alone,’ I told him. I felt him tense for a moment, but then he relaxed, and I felt the weight of his head resting against mine. ‘And when you feel like you are, you’ll call me. I’ll come over, and then we’ll be alone together.’ There we were, two people with no one left to lose, friends by circumstance, and finally, by choice.

There were things we could hide from the whole world, but there was nothing sacred between sisters.

It went beyond love and into biology: two bundles of atoms, made up of the same stuff. Knowing — not just believing, but really knowing — that we would be connected throughout this life and into the next.

You could walk away from friendship, injured but fulfilled, disappointed but stronger, shivering from the loss and warmed by the memories. You could never stop being someone’s sister.

‘You’re an idiot,’ she laughed, and I could breathe again, because the best part of my life was settling back into itself. ‘But I like you, and I love you.’

open. I waited. He can wait for me. I waited. He can wait for me.

‘Why is romantic love the benchmark? Why do you think it’s more meaningful than any other?’

Isaac was the shore. Soft and sun-drenched and tangible, waiting for the tide to bring me in. No one chooses to stay lost at sea.

In the end, which was harder on your heart: to love the wrong person or to be loved by them?

How quickly we grew bored of the thing we’d always sworn to want. Some gifts were better left in the wrapping.

I took the first step out of the doorway, knowing I had one foot in the right direction, and one in a dream I’d never be able to return to again. It had always been so much more beautiful inside my head.

How nice it had been to want something without ever having to risk getting it. How lovely it had been to fall in love a thousand times and live a thousand lives inside my own head, excited and enthralled and safe, always, from the real pain of real life.

I noted, in my fuzzy champagne haze, that I had everything I ever wanted, even if it looked nothing like I expected it to: a home, a dog and a lemon tree.