Even If It Kills Me

“Justin…” I heard a voice pulling me back to reality.

Or was it reality?

What was reality anymore?

Point is, I was reliving the best night of my life, and an extremely annoying voice was trying to pull me away from it.

“No…” I said, trying to stay where I was. “I don’t want…”

“Justin!” it snapped, now sounding thoroughly irritated.

“What?” I asked in annoyance, as Antonia’s figure in front of me faded into another, as did the scene around me. We were in that park again.

“Finally!” Angelica exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air in exasperation. “I thought I was going to have to slap you or something.”

“Sorry, it was just-never mind.”

“No, tell me about her,” she prompted, as we sat down side by side on the grassy hillside nearby. She closed her eyes and laid on her back. “I want to hear about her.”

“She’s crazy. But I love her. I can’t stay mad at her for more than a few minutes. Not even when she’s mad at me, because she looks beautiful even when she’s pissed. She hates the way I comb my hair,” I said, running a hand through it. “She tells these lame-ass jokes, but I laugh anyway, just because I like to hear her talk. If I could listen to her laugh all day long, I would.” I laughed. “And she’s always letting these God damn cats into her apartment, just because she feels bad when she sees stray ones outside. It gets cold when she’s not around, or at least that’s what it feels like when she leaves the room. It’s like…she’s so weird and imperfect and it just makes me love her even more. This is going to sound so damn cheesy, but it’s like she’s my other half.” I stopped.

“I’m boring you, aren’t I?” I asked, glancing over at her.

“No. It sounds nice. Being in love, I mean.” She paused. “I wish I had gotten a chance to fall in love.” She still hadn’t opened her eyes. “Tell me how you met her.”

“It was at a party. She was talking to one of my friends, and I wanted to murder him because of it, but I didn’t know why. She got me a drink and then told me she didn’t like my hair. I told her I liked her belt. It was pretty stupid, and I kind of made a fool of myself.” I laughed again. Angelica smiled, and finally sat up, looking thoughtful.

“Speaking of which, she hasn’t been drinking lately, has she?” I thought back to Matt’s birthday last week. Toni hadn’t touched any alcohol that day. I vaguely remembered her flat-out refusing drinks and insisting on her water bottle, which I thought was weird.

“Wait. Are you saying that my girlfriend is-” I began slowly, putting the pieces together.

“I’m not saying anything,” she said, putting her hands up in defense.

“But-”

“Justin! I can’t tell you everything. I don’t even know for sure.”

“Fine,” I pouted. “Can you tell me what the memories were for? Why did you show me-”

“Present, past, and future,” she said quietly, smiling.

“So what is going to happen, then?” I asked her. She laughed slightly.

“I never said I had all the answers, Justin,” she replied.

“But you said the future-”

“The future is going to be whatever you make it. Sure, you could choose to stay the same, but you know where that will get you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Nowhere. But if you change, you never know. I don’t know the future, because it hasn’t happened yet. Neither do you. I can only guess. We can all only guess.”