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When you lie once, you have to make it uniform. We all know that.
You know when you do something and realize only a few seconds afterward that you’ve actually done it?
We used to fish at the river, upstream, and we’d race to see who could get there first. Not once did I win. Of course, I told myself, I could have if only I really tried. So just once. I did. And I lost.
I didn’t know words could be so heavy.
Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.
She liked me being just Ed. It was safer that way. Stable. Now I’ve changed things. I’ve left my own fingerprints on the world, no matter how small, and it’s upset the equilibrium of us—Audrey and me. Maybe she’s afraid that if I can’t have her, I won’t want her. Like this. Like we used to be. She doesn’t want to love me, but she doesn’t want to lose me either.
“Believe it or not— it takes a lot of love to hate you like this.”
But will it end with this? I ask myself. Will it let go of me? Already, I know that all of this will stay with me forever. It’ll haunt me, but I also fear it will make me feel grateful. I say fear because at times I really don’t want this to be a fond memory until it’s over. I also fear that nothing really ends at the end. Things just keep going as long as memory can wield its ax, always finding a soft part in your mind to cut through and enter.
Hearts, of all things to be last. I expected spades. I got hearts, and for some reason, this feels the most dangerous of them all. People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it’s the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.
Afraid because I don’t want my own funeral to be that forlorn and empty. I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.
“It’s the person, Ma, not the place. If you left here, you’d have been the same anywhere else.” It’s truth enough, but I can’t stop now. “If I ever leave this place”— I swallow—“I’ll make sure I’m better here first.”
“Ed?” Ritchie says later. We’re still standing in the water. “There’s only one thing I want.” “What’s that, Ritchie?” His answer is simple. “To want.”
If a guy like you can stand up and do what you did, then maybe everyone can. Maybe everyone can live beyond what they’re capable of.
