The garden is scarier at night.  Things rustle in the shadows, the small amount of light present on the leaves bends in your head and twists into everything unimaginable.  The bench creaks under my weight, frightening me each time, but I try to stay still and not focus on that. I try to focus on her face, instead, but that’s even harder, so I just look out to the night sky to avoid the creaking and the shadows and the look she’s giving me right now. But I speak up anyways, maybe to drown out the silence or the crickets, I don’t know why, but I speak. 

“I figured that I’ll never find that love,” I start, picking at the dirt under my fingernails. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a home or a shower.  I feel the ghost of hot water on my back and the reality of the icy wind on my fingertips. 

She smiles at me, and it hurts. “But you will. I believe you will.”  It hurts that she tries to comfort me when I’m about to crush her. She always does this. I can’t blame her for loving me. How could I? How can you hate someone who only wants the best for you? 

“But I don’t. And that’s.. That’s the issue. “

“If you don’t believe something will happen, then it won’t”

I shift, and the bench creaks under me. “But I want it to.” A bug flies past my ear, and I flinch. She doesn’t seem to mind. 

“But you need to believe first.” 

For once, I turn away from the melting darks of the sky and glance at her. She’s looking down at her bag, digging out some peppermint chocolate.  “Do you want some of this?” She asks, handing me a wrapped piece. I take it, quick to avoid touching her hand. It’s almost nature now.  

“Oh? Yeah.. sure.  Thanks.” I place it in my coat pocket.

It’s silent for a moment, tense. I hate it now. The silence. 

“I just.. I feel like nobody will be that person for me.” I fill the quiet. 

“Why not?”

“Because… because I know I’m that person for you.”

She pauses again, to soak up my words. To maybe try to make sense of them. The gears turn, behind her eyes, and I can only hear her brush her hair behind her ear.  Normally, I’d let her gears turn, I’d let her think about it, but today wasn’t the day. Today was the day I let her go, and I didn’t want her gears turning forever. 

“I know you think of me as a…” I pause to find the right words. “When you… when you think of some people, they always conjure images in your mind. Some people are just there. Some people you love, like a brother or a friend, they come jokingly with laughter and music. But others come with hurt. With… with significance, you know?  Like, you see them dancing in the sunlight, twirling around. You hear their laughter coaxing with their tears and they hold hope. So much hope. They make colors so bright and trust so deep it hurts, burns, but all you can be is delighted at the sight of them. Memories intertwine like the strands of our DNA and bounce through our minds like pebbles across a river. They twist the world around them, like gravity, like the whole world has a pull towards them that makes you lose your breath.” 

I take a deep one.  If she wasn’t frozen before, she is now. I creak the bench again, swallow a little too loud. 

“Oh.” 

She says little, but I can tell she agrees. I know she feels that way. It doesn’t take a genius to see someone twisted in love. It doesn’t take a mastermind to know when she looks the other way or reaches for your hand or gets red in the face when you let her take it. 

“You think of me as that person. I know you do.”

Silence.

I continue anyway. I’m not finished yet. “And it hurts me to know I can’t reciprocate that kind of feeling for you. I want to. I tried to. But I can’t force love. And… and I know you see that for me. And I don’t see that in you. So what’s stopping that... What’s stopping that from happening with somebody else? What if my perfect person feels the same way I feel about you? So I want so badly to love you as you do me. Because maybe if I do, maybe if I see you as I should,  my special person will try, too.”

Her lack of movement is louder than the creak of the bench, the buzz of the fly. Her glossy look is more terrifying than the bending of the light and the howl of the wind.  I can run from those things. But the more you love something, the scarier it feels. Because love is not a fortress. It has weak points, and faint deluding lines. Love is fragile The scariest part about it is that you don’t want to run. You want to shovel the pieces into a bag and sit down and just fix it. Find the remnants of what was. But you can’t always do that.” 

I hear her now, sniffling and I can feel her trembling. She cries next to me, and I just stare off into the sky. I look at the moon, harboring a faint glow and pressuring me for more. 

Her response is stiff, yet quiet and trembling.  I listen to her now. I look at her now, because soon it’ll all be over.  I watch her cover her face in her hands, the red of her jacket faded from months of use, her brown hair swept behind her ears and her hazel eyes snapped shut.  I take her all in, head to toe, let my brain know I want to see her forever and let go. 

“I know.” She says.