Pieces

A different form of this short story is part of Until You Fall Asleep.

There are a lot of things that fascinate me in life. Falling in love with someone in slow motion and not being able to do anything about it, no matter how hard you try to stop it, is one of them. It’s like watching yourself crash through the lens of a camera. You see it coming, but you can’t stop yourself from moving away. A train accident where you explode into a hundred pieces. An explosion of pink confetti, because your whole world is suddenly soft.

Over the years it changes, and yet it stays the same. How small your world suddenly seems to feel when you develop a crush on someone. How everyday things don’t seem so important anymore, because he has opened a window and asks if you want to go outside. And how you push everything aside to be in his presence for a moment. That presence that you crave like fresh air. Like a drug.

The snapshot where your self-worth is measured by the speed at which someone texts back. And then shake it off because you are no longer 18, and this is complete nonsense. Being able to wait half a day and still be able to laugh stupidly at a screen because he has texted something back. People around you see it and ask if you are in love. You blush.

You knew you would end up here again, and yet you let it happen again. Like a person with a drug problem, you keep crawling back to what you need so badly. But he never promised you anything, and you know there are others. It’s like a half-life, and he is your quarterback. You try to give him a place in the back of your mind and try to create some distance, but he is already at the center of it all. Like a shiny beacon of sickening hope. A what if. A, but maybe. Keep dreaming.

You know it can’t go anywhere, and yet you stay in it. One day he disappears from your life again as if he was sitting next to you on the train. A passenger on the road. It seems like this is his final station, and you are not there yet. And then you nod sweetly to each other as you say goodbye because you know that is the right solution. You stay strong because this hurts more than you want to admit. Another day, maybe another moment, another life?

But until he arrives at his station, you sit in blissful ignorance together. Your hands gently against each other. Because you are in love. Because only you are in love. I hear the sirens slowly getting closer, but I can’t look away from the wreckage. This is going to hurt for a while, but isn’t it worth it? The grieving process has already begun as my eyes start watering.

When I finally explode into a hundred separate pieces, I hope to finally fall back together again in the form of a brand-new person. A beautiful mosaic of shiny colors and new possibilities. I will be someone who treasures you as a beautiful memory. Or maybe this time around, someone you can fall in love with too.