Page 35 of Way Down Deep

Though not just us. I’m pretty sure your boy was there too. Making airplane wings with his arms, like my brother used to do. When I woke up, I was full of this strange sense of peace about it.

And what you described only deepened that feeling. His hand clasping you, how happy it made you, all the progress you’re making with him. The lightness all of it gave you—god, I’m glad for that. A small part of me was worried that it would have been too much, or too little, or that my greed is overwhelming.

But that part is getting smaller.

All the worried parts of me are getting smaller. Or is it that my courage is getting bigger? I thought about standing in your kitchen, and the need to just be there was so great it practically blacked out all other considerations. In fact, I actually put on shoes.

Do you know how long it’s been since I put on shoes?

So long that I couldn’t walk around in them. The best I could manage was a pair of ballerina pumps, and a tentative once around the living room. But after I’d done it I sat down with them still on my feet, and I didn’t once get the urge to take them off. To throw them back in the bottom of the wardrobe and never think about them again.

They’re mine again, now.

And so is the balcony. I went out on it again today, but not just because of you and all the things I’d like to do. Because I wanted to. That glimpse of the world has made me curious for more, so I crept out just after dawn and watched. A guy at his sink across the street, draining his morning cup of coffee. Three girls laughing and golden and gleaming with glitter, stumbling towards home. Someone setting out a sign for a cafe I’ve never been to.

Chocolate soup, it said, and that urge was there again.

To go out there and see what chocolate soup actually is.

God, I want to know what things actually are.

P.S. Yes, I have a fringe. Or bangs, as you say.

2.32pm

Rest easy in the knowledge that the world isn’t passing you by entirely—I have no clue what chocolate soup is, either. And I’m a recovering hipster.

Part of me wants to order you to walk out your door, down the hall, into the elevator, punch a button labeled L, drop down all those floors and march through the lobby, cross the street, and find out.

But another part says no, let’s stay in. I’ll cook us soup. Non-chocolate soup.

I know a few recipes. Caldo verde and slow-cooker split pea and this really amazing African stew that’s made with sweet potatoes and red beans and peanut butter. I know that last one sounds weird, but it’s so fucking good. You squeeze lime juice into it, and it’s like sex in your mouth.

I’ll find us some really good crusty bread from the bakery, and we’ll eat soup like it’s been outlawed for indecency.

I ought to admit I’m not myself just now. I’m feeling weirdly manic, actually. Can you tell?

I went for a run, like I said I would. We got rained on a little, but overall it went great. The boy didn’t make a peep, and we went over six miles. Too far, really, because now I’ve got terrible heel blisters from my new sneakers, and I’ll probably wake up with shin splints, but I couldn’t stop. And I don’t care.

I feel that way still. Like I can’t stop.

I can’t figure out if this is just what feeling good again is like compared to feeling depressed, or if I’ve swung the other way temporarily. If I really have gone a little manic. It feels as though I’ve drunk eight espressos and I want to clean everything. Make everything new.

I feel like how my mom used to get, those times when she had a recurrence. Like I want to clean the whole world.

I remember coming downstairs around midnight when I was about twelve, the night after she’d been to the oncologist and gotten bad news. There was a scary noise coming from the basement, and I found her down there in the laundry room, and there were a dozen tennis balls banging around in the dryer. She’d washed them, and she was waiting there with a lint brush for when they were dry.

“It’s so nice when they’re all fuzzy and bright like new, don’t you think?”

She wasn’t crazy. Not really. I get it now. Whenever she got bad news about her cancer, she wanted to live live live live live live live. Live times a thousand. She wanted to do everything, taste everything, sing every song, make everything fun.

Make our old tennis balls the color of highlighters again.

I think I’m doing that too, a little bit. Only I didn’t get bad news. I’m just feeling alive and awake for the first time in months. I want to run until my feet bleed and polish all the doorknobs.

But more than that, I want to ask about you. May I? You don’t have to answer every question. Pick one or two.

Did I get the rest of your hair right? Is it darkish brown, the color of milk chocolate? Is it wavy?

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