You’re standing in a foggy clearing, admiring the thick grove of trees that surrounds it. The fog clears, and you see a boy with brown eyes and a contagious smile. He takes your hand and leads you away from the clearing through a canopy of wisteria, and into a geodesic cave made entirely of rose quartz.

The cave is gigantic, with endless garlands of flowers hanging from sharp crystal formations. Most of the cave is filled with translucent water, fed by a roaring waterfall that streams down its north wall, while the cave’s outer edge is covered in silky pink sand. You have an instant fear of the water’s deep end, the only place where you can’t see the bottom. You soon calm when he promises that if you decide to swim there, he will be with you every step of the way.

Large tufts of moss curls around your toes, and you notice that thick weeping willow trees grow from the sand, somehow. Things don’t have to make sense here, you think as you marvel at violets growing in small formations by the willow tree's roots. Your jeans, baggy white shirt, and Doc Martens have been replaced with a simple cotton dress. You are too transfixed by the ecosystem to realize that you don’t like those clothes; they aren’t you.

The boy makes you feel special; he calms the water's swirling waves so you can collect the sea glass that rests at the bottom. He harvests clam mollusks and bakes them on a fire he conjures out of thin air. You can do that here. You don’t have to work to feel sparks fly all around you; they just do. It makes him a bit lazy, cocky too. You don’t find it frustrating or annoying because whenever those feelings creep up, he looks at you and you see great big shining stars in his eyes. The stars are so bright and dizzying you soon forget to notice the outside world, the passage of time or your inner voice telling you to run.
You’re content with this beautiful life until the thunderstorms begin. They are far apart at first, just blasts of crackling lighting that you can hear only slightly. Then the storms start turning the cave dark. When this happens, your heart beats faster, and you scream for him; you want him to hold you when it counts but he never does. You look for the stars in his eyes. You want them to be your guiding light, but they have been snuffed out.

You ignore the burns creeping up your arms from when his hand touches yours again; you are too happy that the stars came back. You like the electric high his touch brings, you tell yourself.

The dark side of the cave becomes more noticeable; you see the sharp crystal edges and how he pushes you towards them. You start to be painfully aware of how you are always shivering when you leave his side. You try to tell him that the cave turns on you when he’s not around, that it becomes something ugly, and that you are pretty sure he makes it that way. You try to tell him that places with no laws of physics end up being more destructive than dazzling. He tells you you’re crazy; he has no control over any of it.

“It's a blessing to be here,” he says.

He turns the cave back to normal for a while, and you ignore the fact that he had the power to do this all along. You're not ready to give all this up. You think the story hasn't been finished, but the truth is it has already been told a hundred times.

One night the cave darkens and you prepare yourself for more burns, more silence, and the fear that the stars will never come back. You begin to notice how intense everything is, the air is hot, the ground is shaking, and the water crackles with nervous anticipation. A hollow boulder sinks to the bottom of your stomach, and you suddenly know that you and he are not coming back from this one.
As usual, there is no wreckage after the storm so you can fool yourself into thinking that everything is normal again. You pretend not to see it coming when he throws you into the deep end alone. The water acts as a whirlpool, pushing you down to the bottom. You gave so much to the boy with the shiny exterior, the boy who made you feel like the only girl in the world. Yes, It hurt to love him, but you can’t yet comprehend that he left you to drown.

You struggle against the current, trying to ignore the panic that comes with not having any air. You twist your limbs, and try to propel yourself upwards. You come back to the surface sputtering. He is standing at the water's edge watching you with amusement. Your eyes lock, and you see the stars leave his eyes one final time as he exits the cave to claim his next victim. He leaves this masterpiece of a cave to you as a parting gift. The only problem is it's not a masterpiece anymore. Something happened when he finally called it quits. The water becomes putrid and brown, rats crawl on the walls, the crystals are replaced with sharp icicles, and the plants turn poisonous. You watch helplessly as the quartz that makes up the cave’s foundation breaks apart, and acid rain pours onto your face.

You’re one of the broken people now. You wonder why it was so easy for him to leave, and you can’t seem to. After screaming for help until your voice box gives out, you begin to accept your fate. You don’t care that your burns are bloody; why should you? Nobody will ever see the scars that will cover them soon.This is your home and nobody will ever come to find you.

Three weeks have passed. You see a shape coming through the cave’s entrance. You see the shape turn into a girl with short black hair. She makes your body feel long dead emotions as she charges through the toxic sludge that was once water. Once she reaches you, she just stands there for a few minutes, looking straight at you. You start up a conversation, you don’t know
where the nerve to do so comes from, but a little voice inside you says that you won’t regret taking the leap

You think this is probably a friendship. But, after less than a week of spending every moment talking and laughing, you soon understand that it's something more. The Saturday after you first meet, you suddenly realize that it's time for something daring. This girl understands you in new and exciting ways. She makes you feel safe. You walk over to her, hold out your hand, and in a moment of courage you step out of the cave. Together.

When you first leave the cave, you miss its intricate beauty. You ache for the boundless love you once had with him. Then you realize that the stars in her eyes don’t stop shimmering, not even for a second.

You walk the forest together until you find a new cave. This one has tumbleweeds at its edges. It's not made of quartz or starlight. Instead, it has been constructed from dependable smooth brown rock. This cave's sand creeps between your toes, and the water is freezing and deep. You find it unsettling how imperfect everything is. The two of you spend weeks trying to figure out how to fix the water’s temperature. Then you jump in it together, hands interlaced, and it turns out that when you touch, you don’t notice the cold.

The cave becomes home. You pick her lilacs from its entrance. You dance and sing together in the weeds. You watch as the butterflies from the old cave migrate into the new and perch on her shoulder.

You miss the excruciating intensity of him sometimes. Then, you remember that when this cave turns thunderous, she never leaves you out in the cold, and you never leave her struggling to breathe in the water’s depths.
This love is so much bigger than the painful love he gave you. This love is human. This love makes every moment precious. This love makes the world brighter. This love allows you to leave the cave knowing it will be there when you get back. This love does not consume you; you know where it begins, and where it ends, and you also know that it will grow with time. It doesn't hit you like a grenade and leave you seconds later; it makes you smile and laugh. It makes you kiss and touch. It gives you a future where the cave is your home, not an oasis from the real world.

You can’t conjure anything in this cave. There is work that needs to be done in order to reap its rewards. Together you hunt for appleseeds, plant orchards, and talk about enjoying their rewards in ten years. You build strong soil and plant wildflower roots deep within it. You set traps and catch oysters. You lay against the cave walls, supported by the rock. You start trusting that it's not gonna break. You learn how to listen, you learn to crave the work that comes with living in this cave, you find yourself helplessly happy. And slowly with time, you realize that you're not supposed to suffer for love.

Your burns are nowhere near healing; some nights you wake up screaming because you're afraid the acid rain is going to return, and she is going to leave you with the wreckage. The pain is more manageable with her, and you have hope for a future when it is only a small part of you. Someday your burns will be nothing more than old scars that are barely a whisper on your skin. Making that a reality is tomorrow's problem. Today, it's okay to float in the water with her hand in yours, so in love with this moment that you don’t notice her touch never burns.