I wasn’t supposed to be there, and I wasn’t supposed to hear that conversation. I wasn’t supposed to know his name, and I wasn’t supposed to type the wordsa heart for Connor Lockwoodinto a search bar a few days later. I wasn’t supposed to click on a grainy picture of him, and I sure as shit wasn’t supposed to see the name of his street and house number in the background.
I wasn’t supposed to drive by his house. Ever. And I definitely wasn’t supposed to start doing it every day.
I wasn’t supposed to be there the day aWelcome Home, Connorsign was hung from the porch, and I wasn’t supposed to follow him and his redheaded friend to a camping goods store a couple of months later.
I wasn’t supposed to overhear them talking about his enrollment at the local university, and I sure as shit wasn’t supposed to get a job there.
For months, I’ve hidden all this from him, and I wasn’t supposed to do that either.
“I googled your name and found your GoFundMe page,” I say so quietly my voice is nothing more than a light breath on my larynx. “Something happened to me when I saw your picture, Con, and…I— I couldn’t stay away from you. Icouldn’t. I tried. I swear to God, I tried. You have to believe me that I tried.” I don’t look at him. I can’t. So I don’t know whether he believes me or not, but I do know I don’t have a right to ask something like that of him. “I don’t know how to describe it, but something took hold of me when I saw you. I told you before I was obsessed with you.I tried to make light of it, to make it sound like a joke… It isn’t a joke though. It’s the truth.
“At first, I drove by your house without stopping, and then I started stopping. I parked down the street and watched your windows to get a glimpse of you. I…I was really, really fucked up about what happened to Havi. I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t know how to, and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t make sense of it. Not all the time. Sometimes I told myself that I was, you know, just checking up on him. Making sure his heart was okay. Making sure it had found its way into a good person, someone who would take good care of it for him. Sometimes I told myself we had a big fight, and he hated me, and he never wanted to speak to me again, but he was okay.
“My family said I was in denial, and I mean, yes, on some level I knew they weren’t wrong, it’s just that every time they said it, I felt so disoriented and angry that I could hardly see. And they wouldn’t stop saying it, so it got really hard to be around them. I started renting motel rooms and Airbnbs near your place to avoid them, and I got a job at the university to be close to you. I was in Crema, watching you, the day you put up your roommate wanted notice.”
I run out of steam abruptly and various versions of reality move through me like glaciers. Big, cumbersome blocks of ice collide. I do my best to hold still and let them converge. I let them flow into me and through me.
It hurts as much as I thought it would. More. It hurts more. But I know it’s something I have to do. Something I should have done a long time ago.
Beside me, Connor is mute. He hasn’t moved a muscle. His jaw has gone slack, and he’s blinking very, very slowly. He still has one hand over his mouth and the other over his heart.
“I’m sorry, Con,” I say quietly. “I know saying sorry for something this bad shouldn’t even be allowed, but I am. I’msosorry. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You’ve changed my whole life, and I love you.” It feels wrong to tell him I love him. The words are small and insignificant, completely out of keeping with the strength and force of the emotion I feel for him. “Whatever else you think of me, please believe that. The way I feel about you is real. It’s the realist thing I’ve ever felt. I was so sad and lost and confused before I met you. But being with you…”
I know I should stop talking. I’ve said so much already, and all of it is heavy. Connor needs time to digest it. I know that, but I also know that when he does, he’ll never want to see me again, so there’s this awful sense of urgency to tell him everything while I still can.
I speak fast and with panic. “I know it’s fucked up, Con, I know it is. But you and me… I think we were meant to meet. I think it was fate. I think you’re my soulmate, and I think our lives were meant to cross paths. I wish, wish,wishit could have happened another way, but I think this”—I gesture to the space between us—“is bigger than either of us. I think it’s bigger than you, and bigger than me. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think we’re of this time or place. I think we’re eternal.” I take a big breath and steady myself, looking at his beautiful face and trying to remember every line. Every curve. “And I think that if other lives exist…we find each other in all of them. No matter the cost. No matter what, and no matter how.”
I stop talking, and we sit in silence for several minutes.
I cry, and I don’t try to stop. I cry until it stops feeling hard to do. Until it feels easy. Necessary and right. Like rain falling on dry, cracked earth.
At last, Connor moves. He drops the hand that was on his mouth and uses it to dig in his pocket and pull out his phone. He taps at the screen and a strange, calm feeling washes over me.
Regret, obviously, but also acceptance.
“Are you calling the police?” I ask. “Because that’s the right thing to do. Don’t feel bad about it. You should definitely do that, and also, I’ve been meaning to tell you that you should be a lot more careful about the personal information you put onlin—”
He looks up at me, and his eyes narrow with a foreign expression I’ve never seen on him before. It takes me a second to place it. A heavier brow than usual, a slight flare of his nostrils. Annoyance. “I’m not calling the police on my fucking soulmate, Lennon. Who do you think I am?”
“Oh. Um. What are you doing then?”
He glares at me like I’m the biggest idiot on the planet. “I’m looking for the best goddamn therapist in town.”
“Oh,” I say again. I’m a little confused, and I feel completely hollowed out, but I want to be supportive. When I think about it, it makes total sense that he’d need therapy after all the shit I’ve put him through. “Good thinking. I think that’ll be really beneficial for you…”
His lips part and he leans in, top lip pulling up slightly. “It’s not for me, Lennon,” he says, inserting a tiny pause between each word. “You’rethe one who’s getting therapy.”
Ah, yes. Actually, that does make more sense.
My mom and dad suggested I get help a while back, and I got really mad at them about it, but it’s clear now that they were onto something. It’s so nice of Connor to try to help me after everything I’ve put him through.
The first thing I’m going to talk about when I go to therapy is what a massive, gigantic idiot I’ve been to have someone like him in my life and fuck it up so royally. “I’ll go, Con. I will. I’ll definitely get help. Please don’t worry about me. I’m going to start taking care of myself. I promi—”
“Give me the keys,” he says, cutting me off with a tiny wave I think is meant to shush me. “I’ll drive. It’s fucking freezing out here, and my ass has gone numb from sitting for so long.”
“Where are we going?” I ask dumbly.
His eyes flash and he gives an incredulous side eye. “We’re going home, Lennon.”
