She left a plant on my windowsill, you know, and I still water it. It would be a shame to let it die, and anyway, I’m worried it’s stuck to the paint you rolled last summer. “You love it too much,” you said, and, solemnly, I told you you were right. Have I told you how every time I hold the lip of the glass to touch-dry soil, it’s her hand pouring?

I tell everyone to drop me off at the park, CVS, the corner taco stand. I say that I’ll find my own way home, I wouldn’t want to make them make the drive. Not through the mountains, not at night. But, October, when I was sick out of my head you called to look outside: and there you were, with my school work and your shiny, little, car, waving like you held the world in your palm.

We’re on the way home now, my ears are ringing and I could swear someone’s playing bass in the trunk. I can’t see very well at night, I tell you this, the lights are too swollen and streaked without my glasses to make out much. You laugh, ask me if I want to do this again. “Only if you’ll have me,” I say- and you call me insane for thinking you wouldn’t.

You’ve never once made me feel uncared for; the years between when we met and now, stretched lazily around us. We peer at each other through two sides of a mirror, handing pieces of ourselves through the glass, breaking them off like the bread we threw in the lake before we knew it hurt ducks. You felt so bad when I told you I nearly wish I hadn’t.

I carry your favorite gum in my front pocket, and from time to time you’ll ask if I would spare a piece. I don’t have much to give, but I’ll wait with you when I can; I’ll give you my time and a jacket and a joke, maybe a laugh if you’ll spare one. You’re better at that, though; standing in her exhaust I called you, and although impossible, I laughed. I’m not sure how you do it.

I used to think that love was soulmates, only; instant understanding. I don’t always understand the pieces of yourself you hand to me, but I try to handle them with care and place them on the highest shelf with the ribbons and trophies and pretty things. I think that counts. I think that’s extraordinary, too. You handed me a glass before I had the chance to ask, in my favorite cup, subconsciously. And it’s awfully easy to feel desperately alone, to long for highs and lows, mountains and valleys. But it occurs to me, so simply, that in this glass, although not spectacular, and not particularly exciting, holds within it, the greatest love of all time.