The Lost

“Work is the daily activity that sucks your soul but pays your bills,” I say. “It’s the path your feet walked down while your head was stuck in the clouds.”

Real apocalypses happen in clean, white rooms, delivered in long words by men and women with kind eyes and sterile scrubs.

It’s full of everything real art should be full of. It’s a piece of my heart ripped out and placed on canvas.

As a rule, though, you aren’t supposed to like your job. Anyone who says they do is lying. Or lucky.

“What would keep someone from entering a house?”
“Rabid dinosaurs,” Peter says immediately.
“Seriously.”
“I am serious. If I saw a rabid dinosaur, I’d skip that house.”

I don`t want a relationship.
I don`t want to lead him on.
I don`t want to be alone.

"Best part about it is the surprise," Victoria says. She`s leaning against the wall near the refrigerator. She was so quiet that I hadn`t noticed her in contrast to the whirling swirl that is her fiance. "I don`t think even he knows what he`s making."
"There`s a plan!" he calls out. "There`s always a plan!"
"But do you stick to it?"
"All plans change in the hit of battle. Or the heat of kitchen." He dances to the sink and adds more water into a sizzling skillet.

He`s radiating anger. It`s disconcerting. It`s such an ordinary emotion, and he`s never ordinary.

I`ll always find you. But you have to exist to be found!

Sure, I told myself over and over: think positive. But thinking positive can`t change facts.
Mom is sick.
I am lost.

She fake pouts. "You like her better than me." Then she sticks her tongue out at him. "That`s okay, I like her better than you, too."

He keeps his hand extended. "Do you trust me?"
It`s a line from a dozen romantic movies, and if I were the romantic sort, this is where I would swoon, take his hand, and pledge my devotion. I`m not romantic, but I`m also not stupid. So I take his hand and lie. "Yes."

I`m not her new mommy. I`m a very long way from being anyone`s mommy. I`d have to be a lot less selfish and a lot less cowardly first.

Things I lost:
a slice of leftover pizza, intended for lunch
a cheap set of headphones
an opportunity
my dreams
the future I was supposed to have

A number of years ago, we had a spat. He nearly destroyed my universe. I nearly destroyed his soul.

If you`re meant to be saved, then you`ll be saved. If you aren`t... don`t take me down with you. Please.

"I am here to help you," he says. "I am your guide, your mentor, and your friend. I will stand beside you until you can stand on your own. If a door shuts to you, I will open a window. If you fall, I will pick you up. If your load is too heavy, I will carry it. Until you find what is missing, I am here for you."

By now, Mom must have graduated from slightly worried to very worried. This is the woman who called the police when I walked home from school instead of taking the bus in sixth grade. She`d imagined every possible scenario and decided I must have been taken and sold on eBay. I didn`t get my overactive imagination from nowhere.