Those two sentences were branded on all the grooves of Angel’s brain. Tears raced down their cheeks for the 7th night in a row. They stopped, re-winded, and replayed each and every single frame of the worst day of their life. They were curled into a ball — sobbing — on their cold, hardwood apartment floor, listening to a playlist filled with Chappell Roan, Beabadoobee, and 070 Shake.

Angel and Yuki had just finished making out. The drinks had long evaporated from their systems, leaving a behind a warm, thrumming feeling. Yuki had pulled back and given Angel a breathtaking look. Angel felt her gaze paint their synapses in hues of adoration and love.

Her tattooed hands had been on their warm cheeks, her thumb swiping at the skin. Smiles were plastered on both of their faces, relishing in the intimacy of the moment.

“How are you so beautiful?” Angel whispered.

Yuki blushed, holding Angel’s hand and turning it to kiss their palm. She murmured, “Shut up.”

“It’s true. Aphrodite has nothing on you.”

“She’ll come smite me now. What ever shall we do?”

“I guess we can kiss until we die,” Angel suggested with a shrug.

Yuki laughed and leaned in to kiss them again. Angel’s heartbeat raced, their whole body trembled as they felt like they finally weren’t in that sea of adoration and love alone.

Angel pulled back and whispered, “I love you.”

Yuki replied, “Yea, love you too.” She leaned in to kiss them again, but Angel pulled back to stare at her.
“No, like,” Angel paused and emphasized, “I’m in love with you, Yuki. I love you so much. If I don’t say it now, I feel like I never will.”

Angel had expected a smile, a lean in to kiss again, or even a little laugh. There was only pain reflected on Yuki’s face. Angel’s face dropped. Yuki shifted her feet, wrung her hands. She pushed her dyed red fringe behind her ears, despite it never being long enough for that. Yuki pulled away from Angel and stood up.

“I think you should go,” Yuki said quietly.

“What?” Angel said as they stood up. “There’s no way you don’t feel the same way.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuki whispered with a grimace. “I only see you as a friend.”

Angel’s disbelief birthed accusations, which created a fortress of Yuki’s defensiveness. It got nasty — there were screams and insults, the type of agony only someone who knew the cartography of your soul could inflict. The dam had broke, with broken logs ricocheting against their bodies and minds. Angel was left to pick up the splinters of disappointment, embarrassment, and betrayal.

Another sob ripped through Angel’s chest. They turned over, pressing their skull to the floor. They clutched their chest and forced air to enter and leave their withered lungs despite the pain.

Angel and Yuki had realized they were queer around the same time in high school. While hanging out at Angel’s house one day, Yuki saw their search history filled with “girls kissing girls”, “why do i hate my boobs?”, “binders for teenagers”, and more. Angel’s face had been bright red when Yuki confronted them about it, but Yuki confessed she felt the same way about girls.

Their parents had all been livid when they found out; they claimed they didn’t even know what a non-binary was. Needing a scapegoat, Angel’s mother had blamed it on Yuki and her family. Yuki’s family had counteracted with, “They’ve been a bad influence on each other since they jumped from the top of the monkey bars together in the 2nd grade!”

It felt like the only space for reverence and acceptance was when the two of them were alone. They could cry together, curse the world for all of its injustices, and heal in each other’s arms. There was a level of understanding that came from two hearts being in the same place at the same time. They stood up for each other each time they had been bullied at school or faced disdain from their parents.

“You’re all I’ve got,” Yuki said with teary eyes. Angel sat next to her gathering septic wipes and bandages from the first aid kit. “I hate everyone else out there, but you… you’re the only person I love.”
Angel couldn’t say anything. They tried to focus on applying light pressure to new cuts and bruises on Yuki’s arms and face. The vehemence coursing through their veins for their classmates made them want to break everything in sight. They transmuted that rage into a gentle, reverent kiss on Yuki’s forehead.

They were in high school when Angel’s parents finally called them their child instead of daughter. They were in college when Yuki’s parents finally started asking when she would get a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. All the while, Angel and Yuki had been hooking up in secret. They had decided it was better to try things out with each other than with a stranger.

From the moment Yuki had kissed Angel, they knew they were done for. They continued this under the guise of ‘exploration’. Throughout university, the justification had morphed into ‘for safety reasons’ or ‘because we’re drunk at a party’. After they graduated, the reasons had graduated to ‘because we’re comfortable’ or ‘because we’re bored’. When close friends or acquaintances pressured them for more reasons, they had simply said ‘because we can’.

The love Angel had for Yuki only deepened as time passed. They knew the ways Yuki took care of them after parties or whenever they were stressed about schoolwork. They saw how she supported them through each hobby they picked up and dropped, each job interview that only resulted in rejections or ghosting. Angel noticed Yuki’s jealousy whenever someone spoke to them: clenched jaw, rolled eyes, and curt tone. They noticed how her kisses had increased in intensity, how all the bites on their neck had been harder to hide.

They thought a confession would be as natural as the sun rising every morning. They thought it would result in them growing together in a different way, the seeds in their heart blooming into a vibrant flowerbed. It ended with the clouds covering up the sun and a flowerbed filled with cobwebs and weeds.

With the rejection, Angel had lost their best friend and themself. In just seven days, they felt like the all the beauty had been stripped from their core. Their eyes were downcast wherever they went. They only wore baggy clothes. They kept thinking that maybe if they were cooler or more attractive, Yuki would have reciprocated their feelings. If only they were a different person, it could have worked out. Each thought felt like a crack in their psyche. They felt like their self esteem had been reduced to ash, and they were unable to fathom how a phoenix could rise from it.

The hardest part was knowing that Yuki was queer. Angel wished she was straight so they could rationalize all of this with the knowledge of her only wanting men. It would be hard for them to go to gay bars without thinking of exactly where they had been standing during all their nights out. All the pride events would be filled with phantoms of them with clasped hands, cheeks pressed to shoulders, and sitting side by side. The dance studios would be filled with the ghosts of them waacking and vouging together. Their lives and identities were so intertwined that the ghost of Yuki plagued every single one of Angel’s steps and thoughts. The possibility of navigating a life without Yuki felt like a curse too heavy to bear.

Their brain settled on a time when someone had asked them out after a waacking class. Angel couldn’t even remember their name.

“I think you’re really cute,” they had said. “Wanna get coffee sometime?”

Angel tried to hide the shock on their face as they picked up their bag. They said, “I’m flattered, but I’m sorry. I’m not interested.”

The person tried speaking to them, but Yuki interjected. She placed a hand on their waist and stood next to them.
She looked at Angel and asked, “Shouldn’t we get going? We’re going to be late for lunch.”

“Oh, right,” Angel replied. Yuki squeezed their waist, trailed her hand down until she intertwined their fingers, and lead them out of the room.

They hadn’t even planned to go to lunch that day. That incident had confused Angel for weeks until Yuki made an off handed comment about disliking their energy.

Angel hadn’t found that person unattractive; they were just too head over heels for Yuki to care about anyone else. They wondered if that person had doubted their beauty or worth too after the rejection.

The glue their brain used as fuel for their insecurities regarding Yuki’s rejection morphed into jello. Logic filtered through jello, making a clear pathway for air to enter their lungs. Rising like a phoenix still felt like a fever dream, but it no longer seemed impossible.

That person from waacking class just wasn’t who Angel wanted or needed. Despite spending every minute together, despite knowing everything about each other’s bodies and minds, Angel realized they just weren’t who Yuki needed either.

They finally sat upright and sighed. It felt like they were standing on a shore, staring at a tsunami slowly building and rising on the horizon. There was nothing they could do but accept their fate as they watched it inch closer and closer. They would simply have to ride the waves of their anguish to come out on the other side.

The seed of their wants had no place to bloom and grow. The love they had stored in every fiber of their being would have to be transmuted into a different form. All the sparks went haywire and blew up in their face, singeing their curly hair and covering their face with soot. Angel could only sit in the loneliness of the aftermath. Their entire life would have to change without Yuki in it. They wiped the tears from their face, inhaled deeply, exhaled even deeper, and finally rose from their floor. A headache hit them with full force, and they groaned as they picked up their phone to stop the sad sapphic playlist. With shaky legs, they made their way over to the bathroom.

Yuki’s toothbrush was still in a little heart shaped cup they had made together at a pottery class. It hurt too much to throw out, so Angel put it in a zip lock baggie before hiding it in the drawer. They filled the bathtub up before sinking in and letting the warm water encase them in a well needed hug. After exiting, they put on a face mask and crawled into bed to try and sleep their headache away. Their phone buzzed, and as they moved to put it on their bedside table, they froze.

It was a message from Yuki asking if they could meet up to talk.