Every Last Word

He laughs. “I made you feel normal? You do realize I’m pretty far from normal, right?”

“I don’t care,” I say, brushing my lips against his. “I like you too much. Remember?”

I kiss his dimple first, and then I cover his mouth with mine, kissing him, thinking about how perfect he is, maybe not in every way, but in every way I need him to be. And I’m so relieved when he kisses me back. I feel the thoughts that have haunted me for the last four days pop like bubbles, disappearing into the air, one by one.

“I like you too much, too,” he says.

“Still?” I ask.

“Still,” he says with a huge smile on his face. “Way, way too much.”

my friends are normal. And perfect. They pride themselves on normalcy and perfection, and they can’t ever find out how far I am from those two things.

Still, I can hear this one thought hiding in the dark corners of my mind. It doesn’t attack like the others, but it’s frightening in a totally different way. Because it’s the one that never leaves. And it’s the one that scares me most.

What if I’m crazy?

I laugh. “Why would I want to write about a piece of furniture?” I have a mental illness and four superficial friends. Surely I have more fodder for a poetic career than to need an ugly orange couch

because my friends are normal. And perfect. They pride themselves on normalcy and perfection, and they can’t ever find out how far I am from those two things.

“You seem to know how to articulate your feelings and share them with other human beings. I’m afraid my gift is the exact opposite; I’m skilled at holding everything in.”

someone’s always the odd girl out. Often, that’s me

“I need him to forgive me,” I say.

It’s all I think about. It’s making me crazy.

“You can’t need that, Sam,” she says, slowly shaking her head. “That one’s out of your control. You’ve done your part, and now it’s up to him. He’ll either forgive you or he won’t.”

“The trick is to recognize your mistakes, take what you need from them, and move on.”

“I can’t move on.”

“You can’t beat yourself up, either.”

“Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You’ve made mistakes all your life and you’re going to keep making them.”

“Terrific.”