So much of me was Cal now. His kisses pushed oxygen through my blood, bringing my body to life. I was deflated before him, waiting for a breath of fresh air, mouth open, gasping for something to breathe in, someone to inhale. I’d become a filter as he filled me, letting what I didn’t need trickle through as I cradled the nutrients I craved in my catch, holding onto him as he held me. Yet, standing too many feet apart from one another on the crowded fairgrounds, Cal wasn’t anything to me and more painful still, I was nothing to him. Moonlit moments on the beach were washed in white, a flashbulb fantasy disappearing under the spotlight, particles of who we were present only until we dissipated in the beam, eradicated by the light of day. In the quiet of his closet-sized room, we lived a lifetime among the paint, held in that small space, where I grew in ways I hadn’t expected to. I didn’t know how to treat him like he wasn’t everything, or at the very least something.

I watched as Cal greeted Iggy and Maks, itching to knock their hands apart, phony fingers and pretending palms. Their worlds didn’t exist in tandem, only ours did; any acknowledgement of the others’ existence felt like an invasion. I didn’t want them to touch him and tarnish my illusions of my autonomous relationship. Their politeness penetrated my bubble, one I wasn’t willing to let burst. As familiar as I was with Cal was how unfamiliar I wanted my family to be. I was spiraling, something I rarely did because I had always cared too little to get wrapped up in overwhelming emotions. How could I if they hadn't existed? How could I exist now that they did?

He smiled at me and I was scandalized. It was the same grin he gave me when he was on top of me, when he rested his head on the pillow next to mine, when I was on my knees in front of him—he smiled that smile and I nearly lost my mind.  My smile on his lips. I wanted to fall in to the dirt in that moment and cover myself until I didn’t exist, until he didn’t exist, until none of us existed at all. It shouldn’t have been so complicated, but it was, and I shouldn’t have cared so much, but I did. I was inundated by rogue feelings when all I wanted to feel was nothing, because it was easier to feel that than everything.

Time spent at The Gallery on State and The Studio had hypnotized me into thinking there was anything simple about being who we were, liking what we liked. Standing in the middle of the World’s Fair, regarding my lover like he was a stranger, I was jolted from my trance.