And he’s not into it. And he’s not going to love me.

I can tell, which only makes it worse because I’ve desperately fallen.

I don’t want to feel this way. I want it to stop. I will myself to stop and sigh.

Sigh. Again.

It’s too painful. I look at him and see everything I ever wanted.

And I don’t care that he doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.

As they say. Whoever they are.

I don’t care that he’s sometimes cold or stand-offish.

I’d give it all up, all my silly aspirations, if he’d just look at me

the way I look at him.

I turn my back to the Adonis next to me and stare out the window.

South Beach skyline.

One thousand miles from home?

I don’t know what that is.

Thought maybe I’d find it when I got here.

All I found was confusion and my heart, petrifying.

Turning cold, turning jade.

And then he touches me.

“C’mere,” he says and pulls me into him.

I almost speak but don’t. Don’t want to ruin it.

Even a few moments like this have the heat to melt my heart again.

26

I haven’t told you this before.

It doesn’t make it easier to say now.

Sometimes I’m scared.

Of dying, I guess.

That’s what it sums up to.

If you can add fears together like that.

An equation of fear and the sum is.…

I’m not sure.

Like when I get on a plane.

A silent prayer and the false courage I give myself.

It’s automatic, a habit.

I whisper, “I could die today and it would be alright. I’ve had an amazing life.”

But… and there’s almost always a but, isn’t there?

But would the ritual exist at all if I truly believed that?

No.

The truth is I’m afraid.

I’ve never told anyone that.

24

In the basement.

There’s a monster and I’m scared to look.

Because if I accidentally let it out he could ruin my life.

He nearly did once.

I can’t risk that again.

Best to keep him chained down there.

In a box with a blue satin ribbon.

A monster is more pleasant to look at that way.

Neat and compartmentalized.

Easy to fit on a shelf.

I don’t have a lot of boxes.

In fact, there’s just the one.

But I’m scared to look.

An elaborate picture will begin to form as soon as I play connect the dots.

And the dots are there.

I’ve seen them.

Poking their noses out of kitchen cupboards unexpectedly.

Or lying purposefully on the sidewalk so I nearly trip on them.

Menacing dots disguising themselves as simple memories.

Unrelated.

But they connect.

It wouldn’t be much of a game if they didn’t.