This collection of excerpts is from an early draft of a story about a psychic who is taking a submarine to the bottom of the ocean. Later revisions removed these confessions, but they are here for you to enjoy.
Every little thing that went wrong was because of me.
At least at the beginning, when we hated each other because of that silly misunderstanding. So I would play pranks on you at work. When you couldn’t find your bag, and it showed up in the weirdest places. When you drank from your water bottle, but the water had turned hot. When I replaced three of your gummy worms with real ones, painted blue. It was so fun in the moment, but I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was watching it all happen in slow motion as some classical aria played underneath. Like there was something deeper there that was waiting to blossom.
Later, when we were friends, you told me you thought our workplace was haunted. I just laughed and said I didn’t believe in ghosts.
On our first date, I wanted to tell you I was leaving in a few months.
But I was afraid of scaring you away. And I knew I was going to come back home eventually. So I kept quiet as we walked around the beach. I watched you blow bubbles and saw them pop when they hit the waves. I couldn’t stop looking at your lips, how the air from them gave brief life to those little magic sparkling spheres.
As we were leaving, I said this beach reminded me of the ones in California. You asked me how I knew what California beaches looked like, and I said just from movies.
How many ways are there to say, “I love you?”
I heard it in my head every time we hugged a little too long. Or when we said we missed each other. Or when I would send you memes because I didn’t know what to say, but wanted to know that you were smiling and laughing while thinking of me.
On the night before my flight, you wrote it with your finger on my back. I pretended I was asleep, but now I wish I didn’t.
I would complain that you were evil, but it was always me.
When we would text until 3 AM and I never got any sleep, or in the day and I never got any work done, I would always blame you. I would tease you, saying you were the evil spider luring the innocent little bug, and I never could resist.
But we both knew neither of us ever wanted to say goodnight. I remember turning up my ringer to the max so I wouldn’t accidentally fall asleep, and how I would always try to find ways to keep the conversation going.
Now that I think about it, my 3 AM was your 6 AM. You were always losing more sleep than me. If one of us was weaving a web to keep the other trapped, it was me.
This is clearer to me now that we aren’t talking anymore.
I used to think unrequited love was the most painful thing.
Now I know it’s requited love. It’s love like ours that didn’t work out because of certain circumstances, because of the way we are. But not because we didn’t love each other. Maybe it’s selfish, but it hurts more to know there’s an alternate universe out there where we’re together, and happy.
I always knew this submarine was going to sink. After all, I’m a psychic.
I had told my friends and family I just wanted to get away for a while, to explore the sea. But I knew where I was headed. I knew part of me would die and stay on the ocean floor forever. But that’s the way it has to be for the rest of me to be reborn. For us to maybe know each other again in some different way, after I come home.
So I tell myself not to be afraid, for a deflated balloon can always be blown up again. All it needs is a pair of lips and a little bit of air.