We sit side by side on this patch of earth that cuts into the ocean, and the wind tells itself secrets as it slithers through the tall grass. The moon pets Jonah’s beautiful hair with the glow of his light. He’s taunting me, questioning my will, but I’ll still press forward the way we must when we know we are being true.
I’d already felt called back to the mountains, back to the rain and sunshine, back home. But my last shred of doubt was crushed when I got a text from Ruby while I was in the hospital. A picture of a pretty girl I’ve never seen before, dark skin and round cheeks, smiling across the table at Ruby’s favorite coffee shop. Her name’s Kara, the text said. I’m falling in love, Viv. Wish you could meet her. I held the phone to my chest, crying and crying and knowing where I belong. You can ache for where you come from, and it’s homesickness. A relationship, and it’s heartbreak. But is there a word for missing your friends like that?
So I’ve never felt stronger than when I was packing up my room at Richard’s place. Using one arm to pack up the present, to face the past, to embrace the future. I’ve also never felt sadder. Sad but strong. You can be both. And I am.
Inhale and exhale and here goes nothing. “We’re going back to Seattle.”
The silence becomes a third party between us, swirling in and out and changing shapes. Finally, Jonah sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“In two days.”
“Two days?” He looks sick with loss, with frustration, with confusion, with everything. I hate doing this to him, even if there’s a part of me that is glad I could make him feel so much. “Your mom can’t make you leave that soon—that’s crazy.”
I swallow hard, almost embarrassed now. “I asked to go back as soon as possible, actually. It was me.”
“But . . . why? I mean. I know why, I guess. I just . . .” He winces like this is physically painful—and it is, really. “I don’t want you to go.”
I reach over for his hand. “I know . . . but it’s like your party tonight. It just feels like the right thing.”
He rubs at his jaw, where stubble has appeared since the last time I saw him. Jonah sighs again—a mile marker I should have expected from this conversation. This is not any easier for me than it is for him. I am just more sure.
“I guess that means we’re breaking up?” he asks.
The term breaking up is so bourgeois. The idea of it simply doesn’t fit my notions of relationships and their fluidity. I sigh, too, because I’m very uninterested in devoting precious time to defining or undefining who people are to me. But maybe this is what he needs from me, and I want to give him anything that he needs—anything but myself. That’s not something I can give. “We’ll be twelve hours apart. I don’t see how we could be together.”
“We could still . . . text. And visit.” He glances over to gauge my reaction.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I can’t imagine seeing Jonah Daniels casually. We’d meet up for coffee while he’s in Seattle on a college visit, and it would be so quotidian, just two former flames sitting across from each other. But all I’d want to do is crawl across the table and into his arms, desperate to transport us back to this summer. It would hurt too much, I think.
Besides, there are other girls in his future, and each will change Jonah in little ways that push him along. More stepping stones in our paths. I want him for myself, but I want adventure for him, too—and for me.
And heaven knows texting wouldn’t be enough. “Oh, Jonah. You’re the roots, darling. I’m the clouds. Our love will always be from afar.”
I expect him to smile, but he looks so stricken that I give it to him straight. “I need to get things right for myself.”
“I know, and I want you to. And I’d support—”
“I know. But I have to do it in my time, for me. I know you would never rush me, but I think I’d rush me. If we planned visits, I’d want to seem better for you.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I climb into his lap before he can. He’s sitting with his knees bent, and I sit exactly the same way, only facing him. It takes me a minute to situate myself because of the sling on my arm and the broken ribs that ache throughout my side. Once I’m settled, I stare right into those brown eyes of his, and they almost liquefy my resolve. The coastal wind whips our hair, a chill rushing through me. I imagine what we must look like from a distance—two little specks interlocking, sitting on a cliff over the seas with a backdrop of ocean and stars. What I mean is, there are worse places to break someone else’s heart. And your own.
But finding each other was celestial, and this is how it must be.
“Maybe we were dying planets, Jonah, being drawn into the darkness.” I hold my right palm against his cheek, and I wish I could touch him with both my hands. “When we collided, we bounced each other back into orbit. And now we have to do that—we have to return to our own paths because that’s what we gave each other.”
“Sounds lonely.” He gives me that self-deprecating smile.
My heart bangs into my rib cage, screaming at me, Traitor! Traitor! “A little lonely, yes.”
Jonah tucks a lock of wild hair behind my ear. His smile doesn’t hide his own aching chest—I can feel it. “Can we say ‘someday’?”
I lean in, touching my lips against his. He smells like him, like shampoo and oregano and everything I want to keep even though I know I can’t right now. “Someday, Jonah. Someday.”
When I sit back, we stay there with our foreheads pressed together. Jonah Daniels, my sweet boy with his rumpled hair and khakis and heart, handed me so many things that I needed. And his beautiful, boisterous family, they gave me something I’ve never held before in my life: the desire for that kind of love. Maybe I’ll grow up and fall in love and have half a dozen kids. Or maybe I’ll buy a little house with a big dining room table and a deck, and I’ll have a group of friends who come over all the time to drink wine and laugh our way even through the hard times.
I’ve always fixated on the things I want in my life—paint palettes and sumptuous fabrics and star-flecked skies and dancing on my tiptoes and the smell of jasmine. But I usually imagine myself alone or falling in love with all kinds of different people. These days, I’ve started to daydream of the permanent relationships I want to have. Friends who stay in my life forever. People who I trust to love me even if I’m wobbling—the way I trust Jonah. And if that’s what I want, then I have scorched earth to till and replant. I love Ruby and Amala too much to not try.
I have a Japanese maple seedling, and I have seen how beautiful a rooted life can be. But I have miles to go before I decide where to plant us.
“I want to tell you something,” I say. I wish I could explain everything to Jonah. But bipolar disorder is an untranslatable term. I could tell him that sometimes it feels like being on a carnival ride, so fast and dizzying and fun at first. Then it goes on for too long, and you can’t stop. I could tell him how I hurt friends without meaning to. I could tell him that depression made me feel like a husk, empty and lifeless. Those comparisons might help, but bipolar disorder is so complex, and it’s mine. My feelings have back rooms and trapdoors, and I’m still learning them. I can’t quite articulate what bipolar disorder is for me, exactly, but I can articulate who he is to me, and so I take a deep breath.
“I want you to know that I wouldn’t have done anything differently this summer. Well, that’s not true, obviously.” I give a breathy laugh, and I let myself start over. “That first night we went to the beach, I wore my nightgown because why not? That’s me. But the day before I crashed the Vespa, I wore that nightgown all over town without even caring that everyone could see . . . and well, I wouldn’t have done that. But there still would have been picnics and writing plays and making scavenger hunts. I would have loved you the same.”
“I know that,” he says. But he closes his eyes for a split second—relief that he can’t hide from me. His hand is on my cheek, looking at me so admiringly that I almost can’t believe I’ll walk away from this. “It doesn’t change anything for me either, Viv. You know that, right?”
My own eyes blink closed. Yes. I already knew that, but I treasure the words.
“And thank you for the pie, Jonah,” I whisper, even as the first tear rolls hot down my face. “I’ll never forget it.”
“Me neither, Viv.” God knows—and so does Jonah Daniels—that I don’t just mean the pie. We know there are three little words branded inside my heart: Jonah was here.
I’m bogged down in my realities: money gone, friends I’ve hurt, medications I haven’t taken and the ones I have and will, a way forward that will be hard to navigate. I feel a little emptied out, but not exactly hollowed. Sometimes I feel empty like a new canvas.
I almost try to explain another untranslatable word—nyat—to Jonah. The idea has Buddhist roots and several meanings, depending on context. I think emptiness is the closest word, but, in English, we infer emptiness as a void, a lack. nyat is open with possibility, a meditative space.
But Jonah’s lips are warm on mine, and so I savor this kiss like the last bite. That’s the thing they never tell you about love stories: just because one ends, that doesn’t mean it failed. A cherry pie isn’t a failure just because you eat it all. It’s perfect for what it is, and then it’s gone. And exchanging the truest parts of yourself—all the things you are—with someone? What a slice of life. One I’ll carry with me into every single someday.
I lie down in the cool grass beside him as planets collide above us, and we stay like this for a long time, down to every last crumb. My cheeks are wet, but oh, my heart—it is so full.