"Which part?"
"That despair comes from not being who you are." She turns her head to look at me without sitting up. "Because I think sometimes you don't know who you are until something takes away who you were."
I look at her.
"Like it has to be removed first," she continues. "The version you built. The one that other people decided for you before you had the vocabulary to argue." She looks back at the clouds. "And then something happens and the version breaks and underneath it there's just—" She exhales. "A person who hasn't been consulted in a very long time."
The park sits around us.
"Kierkegaard would say that's the beginning," I say. "Not the crisis. The beginning of existing." I look at the water. "Most people never get there. They just rebuild the same version faster."
She's quiet for a moment. "Is that what you do?"
I consider this honestly. "I’m not sure if it's more me or just a better constructed version of the same problem."
She sits up, close enough that I can see the gray light in her eyes.
"What was the thing that broke it for you?" she asks.
The true answer is long and dark, and it involves a sister, a man who deserved what he got, and a decision I made that I would make again. Somehow, that has led me to a park blanket in November with a girl I have no business being this honest with.
"Someone I love got hurt," I admit.
She holds my gaze. Her eyes softening like it would if I lifted a veil and showed her a scar. She doesn't ask who, how, or what. Just receives it and accepts it for what it is.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"Don't be."
I look at her mouth.
She looks at mine.
"Theo," she says, wetting her lips.
And then she closes the distance, touching her nose with mine. I don’t move, letting her be in control. Her restraint only lasts a fraction of a second, and then her soft strawberry lips are on mine.
I cup her face, and then I kiss her back.
Her mouth is warm where the air is cold. Her fingers curl into my jacket, tugging me closer and lower.
She pulls back a fraction and looks at me.
Fuck, I love how she looks at me with those bright eyes.
"The book," she says, slightly breathless. "You never let me see the cover."
I reach beside me without looking away from her face and pick up the dark romance novel and turn it toward her.
She looks at it and reads the title.
She throws her head back and laughs.
I look at the cover and almost smile.
I open to the first page and read the dedication.
“For the girls who like their men tall and mysterious –– I dare you to kiss him.”
