Nina LaCour

“I do not mean the difficulty. I do not mean the sex. I mean there are too many failings. Not enough hope. Everything is despair. Everything is suffering. What I mean is don’t be a person who seeks out grief. There is enough of that in life.”

It’s noon, and then it’s one. I keep looking at my phone because I don’t want the time to sneak up on me.

It’s two, and my body is heavy and sinking, and I can’t shake the feeling that everything is ending all over again; only it’s worse this time because I know what awaits me when it’s over.

If our past selves got a glimpse of us now, what would they make of us?

And the way I’d convinced myself of so much: that I wasn’t sad, that I wasn’t alone.

It’s too much coming from her mouth and the look in her eyes is too earnest and I’m too overwhelmed to answer. I guess she needs this—for us to move on—but it feels like another loss. To think a new girl is pretty, and not in a way that lots of people in the world are pretty, but pretty in a way that might mean something to me. To look into Mabel’s dark eyes, try not to stare at her pink mouth or her long hair, and say that. To think that a girl who is practically a stranger could be the next person I love. To think she might take Mabel’s place.

It’s too much coming from her mouth and the look in her eyes is too earnest and I’m too overwhelmed to answer. I guess she needs this—for us to move on—but it feels like another loss. To think a new girl is pretty, and not in a way that lots of people in the world are pretty, but pretty in a way that might mean something to me. To look into Mabel’s dark eyes, try not to stare at her pink mouth or her long hair, and say that. To think that a girl who is practically a stranger could be the next person I love. To think she might take Mabel’s place.

She peels an orange, separates it in perfect halves, and gives one of them to me. If I could wear it like a friendship bracelet, I would. Instead I swallow it section by section
and tell myself it means even more this way. To chew and to swallow in silence here with her. To taste the same thing in the same moment.

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.