January 1st - January 3rd

have you ever gotten everything you’ve ever wanted? no, but i once got very close.

1. january first, 2025. new years eve.

i shook in the car and found it hard to move my limbs because i had recently come to terms with the fact that i was deeply in love with a man who was now behind the doors of the house i was staring at. i took a deep breath and journeyed the trip from the warmth of the 2008 camry’s heated seats to the chill of the wintery san francisco air blended with the damp fog that dimmed the street lamps above. i crossed an empty street and let myself into the warmth of the fluorescently lit garage that rang with a clamor audible from a street down. the room was hot from the crowd of people, but my eyes tunneled in on him and i felt a rush of relief sink into my veins, overwhelmed by the beauty that had turned down the loud cacophony the rest of the room was emitting.

just him, that was it. all i needed, the only reason i’d come here tonight. I loved my friends, i did, but everyone was secondary to him, in all truths. sometimes early love can be like that, where infatuation makes every other relationship - friendship, family - secondary if not obsolete and redundant. it is not a long-term, lasting state of mind in a truly healthy state of romantic love, but it was the state that I was comfortable inhibiting at the current moment.

i was unhappy with the way things had been left off 10 days prior. i had cried the entire next morning after that night, the whole car ride up out of the city into the mountains, being kindly consoled by my dad. i spent those 10 days enjoying my time and then locking myself in the bathroom to sob before re-doing my makeup and exiting as though nothing mattered. that was the kind of effect this man had on me, the ability to meld and shape my entire mood for days on end, dependent on how much he wanted me. my joy seemed to be on the exact wavelength that his want for me was on, and one could not exist without the other. when one level rose, the other went with it - interlinked forever. joy could not be true to me without the knowledge that the man i was in love with appeared to feel similarly to me. the distance, the tension, it dropped my heart, dangerously near shattering before i’d receive a phone call or a word of confirmation and everything dissolved like condensation on a water glass. inexistent, gone. i had never been an emotionally anxious nor dependent person before. i was used to being distant, but not in a pretentious, attention-seeking sort of way. i just didn’t care about many people that had served their purpose for me, at least in the style of relationship he and i had. this was new territory and it frightened my previously stoic heart. i was softening recently. emotional. sincere. honest. afraid by my love. ardent and irrevocably passionate for another soul and how it mingled with my own.

i gave him a brief hug before letting myself in deeper to the party, trying to play it cool now. i didnt usually have to do this, normally i just was. empty, unemotional. now i was method acting, grasping for every memory of how it usually felt to be in a room full of people where i did not care really what they thought of me, but appreciated the feeling of certain peoples’ eyes on me, all the same. i never had to try this nonchalant routine because in my heart there was no dependency on how one’s behaviors would shape my mood, the two were always disconnected. but now…there was so much stock put in how this night would go.

it had to be okay, i had prayed. oh how i had prayed. crossing my fingers and clutching my palms, interlocking my fingers so tightly in themselves that they would turn blue, as if the tighter i clasped, the more God would hear me. I had held my crosses and my rosaries, repeated please please please until my voice was hoarse. I had essentially begged, practiced manifestation techniques. I needed this closure to be right. not closure, no, that was the wrong word. I did not need anything to close, but i needed to compensate for the terrible night that had last occurred, had to rewire his memory of me to be calm and collected and relaxed like the girl he had met all those years ago - not the hysterical emotional girl I had been that night of mid-December, so uncharacteristically messy and scattered and caring and full of desperation; digging myself deeper as i tried to find a grip hold to climb out of the hole i was in. no, i had to close that memory from both his and my mind. i needed to alter it, re-fabricate it with this night. maybe all would be forgotten. i wanted to talk to him, but decided to give it time.

hours ticked by, and i made myself seem busy but my energy was revolving around another’s aura, not really paying attention to what was actually happening. every lock of eye contact was a breath of fresh air, every smirk and brush of our skin as we walked by one another was a relief, a promise, that maybe things could work out.

i stood in front of the mirror, and heard the door open, not turning but knowing the footsteps that slowed before i felt him hugging me, at last. and on his own accord! he held me in his arms as i sunk into them, just a hug and i felt a kind of calmness that no prescription medication could ever emulate. i was home.

the next hour flew quickly; my laughs were genuine now, the fingertips intertwined in my hair were his.

the car ride as we left the party, 20 minutes before midnight was euphoric. he was looking at the road while i looked at him. the sky was dark and the golden gate bridge was red. the lights were white and the tunnel was orange. the bass from the music rattled the car and i laid back in my seat, at complete peace, holding his spare hand. my bare feet were on the dashboard. his completely tattoo-covered arms were lit by the light of the street lamps, and suddenly we were in our city. he parked the car and everything was perfect. the clock struck midnight and i showed him the time on my phone. he grinned. everything was perfect.

everything was perfect.

happy new year. i can’t believe we’re spending new years alone just the two of us, i said. he said, im not complaining. it was just so perfect. my wishes were being fulfilled and i was at a loss for words for my gratitude that he was choosing me.

sentences i’d savor came through into my ears, muffled - murmurs while i played with his hair. i really would date you, actually…im going to marry you one day, he said. we have the same soul. we have the same brain. you are my other half. i think you are the same person as me, chloe. we. are. the. same.

we shared a soul in that moment.

pleas for me to stay, as i played my part just right. i told him i’d call him later. he was the one who did. i told him i’d left. he told me he wished i would stay. i told him i would.

i didn’t.

2. january second

i had come back to life. i existed in a haze of bubbly glowing champagne-tinted vision. i bounced as i strode from place to place. is this what happiness and true fulfillment feels like?

3. january 3rd. the last day of my life as i had known it.

i went on a hike. i was with my mom. for TWO HOURS she listened mercifully to me talk about my time with you that night. she listened to me optimistically talk about my future, pretending in a careless, unmotivated way that i wasn’t talking about you, letting me pretend to be convincing in my vague terminology with someone, and some guy. we both knew who that guy was. it was you.

i reminisced to the trees about our time together and how i couldn’t wait for you to see them. i couldn’t wait to show you these trails, these rivers, these waterfalls, these dusty paths in the early january sunsets. i told the mountains about my love for you. i begged the river for things to keep flowing so incandescently beautifully.

i got into my warm bed that night, under my covers. i wondered why you weren’t responding. it was okay. id see you soon. next week! you would be visiting, like we had agreed on, for a whole week. you’d be here in santa barbara and everything would be perfect. everything would be perfect, i thought, as i closed my eyes and smiled as i drifted off to sleep.

at that same moment, hundreds of miles away, your body was on a cold street, your last breaths were jaggedly being taken from you. from me. from earth.