I went to the spot where she first said she loved me.

There a man smoked.
A couple loudly arguing.
Somehow, I still felt the same.

A little bit high, stumbling over the tree roots coming up through the grass. The ground wet with dew in the cool night air.
It looks out over the ocean. A small broken lighthouse at the bottom of the cliff, flickering red and yellow.
Her eyes dark sky, shimmering with stars. A tear slips down her cheek onto her chest. Goosebumps. 

Curly brown hair, olive skin, and a dimple under her eye when she smiles. The pressure is building in her lungs, I can see it on her face. Lungs aching from the gasping breaths she takes in the cold air, exhaling in a shudder.

She doesn’t like it at home, home is where she can’t be herself. Cracked glass, a thin veil of the church-going-Sunday-best archetype. 

She is herself with me though. Laughing, smiling Joy. She is an embodiment of her name when she’s with me.

Joy of her parents’ life, meant to be the perfect girl.

The tears say otherwise.
I watch that tear, too quick for me to wipe away. And try to memorize the path in which it fell.
I can’t do it anymore. Her little chin trembles. 
Why not? Why now?
They’ll never accept me.
You have me.

Silence.

I wrap her up in my arms, then she explodes my heart with the murmuring into my chest that she loves me. I pull away slightly.
What did you say?
She blinks. Turning to the sea, as if it will respond for her.
I love You. 
My head tumbles off the cliff, clunking into the lighthouse and landing in the shore. The current drags me out to sea and I’m surrounded by water. It fills my ears as she says something else, but she loves me and my head is in the ocean. I trip over my words, how to respond without the casual I love you too. But she loves me, and I love her too.
I’m really glad you said that. Because I love you too.
I finally spit out after fishing my bobbing head from the cool water. Water is leaking from my eyes, salty and slow. Joy loves me. And I’m a little bit high and she’s a little bit not.
She is running from me, I can feel the waves in my head sloshing around. Confused and dazed, I take her hand. Small, cold, I bring it to my lips and kiss each fingertip, slowly softly. 

She blinks.

Why do you love me?

My head is in the ocean and I can’t see why not.

You are my Joy. Always. You are my forever girl. 

I know I will never love another the same. I am limescale, hard from the slow drip of cloudy water built up over time. Hard to Love, Hard to give Trust that she won’t take my heart and break it. 

But she is running, and I am swimming.

She, a dark forest, ominous and looming, it swallows her up most days. No matter how hard she tries to run to the edges, the Sharon and Rob will make her turn back around and burn in the center. The heat that radiates from the core of her parents’ unhappiness scorches the earth. 

Third degree burns.

She is running, and I am swimming.

I will wait until the burns heal and my head washes up on the shore. I will wait for Her. I will wait, wait, wait.

I’ve returned to this place where the man is smoking, and the couple is arguing. She wants a divorce, he wants to work it out. But I know through bitterness they will stay together. Arguing when they think their little one isn’t listening. Little ears sitting on the steps will hear the truth, their love map a faded twisting winding mess of a guide.

It’s daylight but I’m seeing stars. Salt water starts to fall from my eyes as I remember her. My body was thrown into the sea when they sent her too far. It was my fault. I told them. She wasn’t ready. And now she’s too far and my head is in the ocean again. This time joined by my heart. They sink to the bottom, pulled under by the breaking of a soul. Joy turned my shining lighthouse into a flickering shoddy yellow and red. I sit on the bottom of the cliff where we stood and cast my broken light onto the waves.

My head is in the ocean, surrounded by Joy, swallowed in Pain.