When you love someone, when you care for someone, you have to do it through the good and the bad. Not just when you're happy and it's easy.

But hope got in, no matter how hard and fast I tried to stomp it out. Like these tiny fire ants we used to get in Portland. No matter how fast you liked them, there were always more, a steady stream of them, resistant, ever-multiplying. Maybe, the hope said. Maybe.

And in that moment, the wordless thing passed between us, the thing that wasn't quite love but was so close I could believe in it sometimes.

And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.

Mice? Fine. Flying mice? Not so fine.

i feel like a curtain has dropped away and i'm seeing people for who they really are, different, and sharp, and unknowable.

I don't know whether these feelings - this thing growing inside of me - is something horrible and sick or the best thing that's ever happened to me. Either way, I can't stop it. I've lost control. And the truly sick thing is that despite everything, I'm glad.