If Tomorrow Doesn't Come

She was so bright she could belong to everyone and no one, just like the sun, just like the stars.

I had always known grief was a type of loneliness, but when I went to college, I learned loneliness was a type of grief.

We were never just friends, were we?’ I tried to remember. Had there ever been a time when my heart didn’t race around her? When my hands weren’t drawn to her hands? When fighting with her didn’t feel like the end of the world? When she wasn’t untangling my life? When we weren’t tangled together? ‘No,’ I said. ‘I guess we were never just.

There's nothing to know." Except I'm in love with you, I can never tell you that, and I know you'll be happier without me.

It's not a problem to be nineteen and unsure of what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Loving you is a reflex.

Thank you from the very bottom of my heart to you, reader, for taking the time to read Avery’s story. My life—and this world—will always be better with you in it. Tomorrow will come. It will, I swear it. I’ll meet you in the morning.

If I was drowning on land, in oxygen, maybe the floor of the river was the only place I’d be able to breathe. [...] I thought, again, I’m so tired. I’m such a disappointment. I don’t want to do this anymore. I could kill myself. I should. I might. I want to. But, no, I can fix this, still. I just have to try harder. But I could. And I might.

My whole chest hurt with yearning. I'd wanted this from the moment I'd watched her dance without me at prom.

Her knee touched mine, and it was all I could think about, but neither of us moved to put inches between us.

Oceans, rivers, they're like hope for what's beyond us. But lakes remind me there's beauty where we are.

Good luck, brave and beautiful strangers. Aren't we the lucky ones walking into the night, all eyes on the same star? Aren't we the lucky ones? We were here for a time to dream. We still are.

But who even am I? I feel like I'm ten people and no one all at once. I show different sides of myself to different groups of people.

I can't stop thinking about how a star is going to kill us,' she said, her voice cracking, 'I don't want to die. I was just becoming myself.

Did I believe I could love all of who I was, including my screaming flaws, my biggest failures, and my cruel, relentless brain? I wasn't sure, but I could choose to try.

She looked so much like me, not just in her coloring but in a certain expression she wore. I'd seen it in the mirror so many times, not sadness, exactly, but an exhaustion that had nothing to do with the body. It was like there should be a light there and there wasn't. It was like she should be dreaming, but she couldn't.

Actually, yes. I try to reach outside myself, even when I'm alone. Inside myself, well. That's a darker tale.

We were coated in sweat, smelling like each other, pressing our skin together, running our hands through each other's hair. The electric lamp swung above us. It was the best thing I had ever done in this body. Cass was me, and I was Cass, and we were maybe dying. And here, I thought, here I am. Finally alive.

You know what's funny, though?" "What?" "In every version of my future, I see myself back here in New Hampshire in the end. With you." My heart sank a little. I was starting to realize more and more that was an ending I couldn't give her. As if on cue, a loon sang sadly nearby. "You don't want to come back here. You deserve the world, Cass," I said. She slung her arm around me. "You too, Ave. But you should know - in the movie of my life, you're in every frame.

Gonna be a disaster." "Utter shitshow." "So, we're going?" "Obviously.

Kissing her felt like the answer to every question I had ever asked. It felt like the period at the end of a breathless sentence. It felt like we were giants, like I could reach up to swat the asteroid from the sky and we could fold into each other like that forever, so big nothing could destroy us.

We're going home," I said, but with her head on my shoulder, I was already halfway there.

We sat on the grass at the edge of the lake, alone together. Her knee touched mine, and it was all I could think about, but neither of us moved to put inches between us. And there it was, finally, the spark I'd been waiting for all week, fear, awe, beauty, all at once. There was more holiness in the cricket cry, in the starlight, in the silver, moon-painted waters than I had felt all week. Loons sang to us, beautiful, bittersweet songs, and wandering fireflies lit the dark with golden sparks. No one from camp could see us. No one from church could touch us. And I thought, No other heaven could ever compare to this one. It doesn't want us to grovel. It doesn't need us to change.

All my life I'd been telling people I love them. I'd been so careful with those three words.

You know, you can't ask the universe for what you want; you have to demand it.

The world may end someday, but not yet. Not today. For now, we’re all here together, and that can be enough. Tomorrow can be different. Tomorrow can be better. If we let it come”.

Why do you want to leave me, then?” “I don’t

The wind caught us, took us out. My hair haloed around me. It was winter, but Cass was still golden. She smiled so easily. Can you imagine? In my life, I got to love her.

...I read beautiful books I'd been meaning to get to while leaned up against the bark of an ancient tree. I felt alone. I felt like everyone was there. I talked to them out loud when I missed them the most. There were so many people to miss, but my cells were still. My breath came steady.

For a second, I was back on the dock of the river with the ice on my skin. And then came a rush of my tears, tears that didn't hurt this time. I imagined myself thawing, cracking into my own chest with a shovel, planting something. And that was what I planned to do.