The Rest of the Story

by Tal Bauer

“The most important day in hockey is tomorrow. Tomorrow, you tackle what went wrong today. Tomorrow, you improve. Every day, every tomorrow, you get better.”

This hurt right now, the wanting and not having and walking away. What would happen if real emotions got involved?

He smiled, and it was like a million sparklers went off at once, a million little flashes of light in the depths of his eyes.

I’d never felt this way. I’d never lost myself in someone else. Certainly had never given away my heart so completely, so utterly, that my life no longer belonged to me.

Dating Shea was exhilarating. No. It was balls-out terror, white-knuckling to hold on to the edges of the world, every breath, every moment, singing out like crystal about to shatter. It was cartwheeling on the edge of a blade.

I wanted this. I wanted it so fucking much. I wanted to take this moment and freeze it in amber for a thousand millennia. I wanted this—every second, every moment, every breath, every heartbeat—to last for the rest of my life.

“You are every dream I didn’t know I had, and every future I never knew I wanted, come true. I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy, or to love life this fully. Loving you has changed everything. Now, my future is yours, and my hopes and dreams are tied tight to your hopes and dreams.”

“Give me your hand,” Shea whispered, “and I will give you my forever.”

Months ago, I’d thought we were a kaleidoscope, shifting pieces of broken beads and glass twisting into new and beautiful shapes. Every time you looked at us we were different, I’d thought. Stronger. More exquisite. But I’d forgotten that it’s the brokenness of a kaleidoscope that brings out the beauty, and as easily as there can be order, everything can fall apart. Can shatter.

Women like Amelia, like Kathy, amaze me. How they could take all the shit the world threw at them and their loved ones and then power through it, stack all the tragedy up and move forward, pick up the pieces and keep going, keep loving.

It’s a big thing to recognize inside yourself that there are lines you will not cross, and that even if someone can push you hard up to the edge, you won’t go over.