A Year of Novembers

Chapter Ten

Approximately one month after Lorna’s funeral, James Augustus Rush and I make plans to meet outside of the counselling room in an effort to make the appointment more jovial and interesting. We agree to meet in Janeston’s community park, though it is December and as cold as stone everywhere. There is no escaping the winter winds- they bite and chill and bruise the bones, so we give in to the tides of snow and let it sweep us in to its wintry kingdom.

            We are bold creatures, he and I; we talked and ate together at the park, chatting like old friends when my curiosity gets the better of me, and I ask him to try explaining his love for his mind again.

            He smiles, sitting in the snow. “I thought you’d never ask again, Sophie- girl.”

            He tugs at my coat sleeve until I sit with him in the snow, disregarding the chill that floods my body through my slacks.

            “Have you ever been in love, my dear?” he asks, watching the scene before us.

            “No,” I say. “No, love is not meant for people like me.”

            His brows furrow together. “And why on earth wouldn’t it be? You’re just as fit as anyone else to love and be loved.”

            “It’s not that I don’t love, James, because I love many things dearly.” I pull my coat tighter about me. “I just don’t fall in love. Romance is not of interest to me.”

            “Ah, all the pretty, young birds say that,” James chortles. “Then they fall in love and marry and make nests.”

            “Well, I know that I will build my nest with no one but my friends, and I know I will not fall in love.” I look at James, and he is smiling amusedly, but he does not negate my declaration.

            “Regardless, Sophie, being in love is a strange thing. It’s like drowning, but you like it- in fact, you love it, and it gets to the point where you wake up in the morning just so that you can drown again.” He smiles at the snow on the ground, and runs a bare finger through the fluff. “And you feel so lucky to be the one that gets to drown in all of this chaotic beauty, and it’s like God just let you get a sneak peek at Eden.”

            I snort, and James smiles, outstretching his arms in a grand gesture, and he shouts, “The divine have loved me, Sophie-girl!” as if the whole world should know, and he grins at me. “It’s like everything you ever could dream.”

            I want to savor that moment forever, where he is screaming to the world about how God has loved him so much that he gifted him with being in love, but only statues get to taste the permanence that I crave.

            “What does it feel like to be in love?” I ask him, and he sighs this grand sigh, as if he has to release all of his air in order to fit all of the feeling inside of him.

            “It feels like being a drug, honestly,” he admits, running a hand through his hair. “It’s amazing, because suddenly being alive isn’t so terrifying. You spend your whole life being afraid of the maze, of having to find your way through the briar bush, but then you fall in love and it doesn’t seem as scary anymore. Suddenly, you feel like maybe it’s okay to struggle, because then it would be a good struggle. It’d be okay to come home to a messy, falling- apart house, just as long as you have the love. Nothing is as scary anymore- to live and die as a replica isn’t that bad anymore.”

            I cannot imagine a life in which normalcy isn’t frightening, but I suppose that that’s just the madness of the man in love, specifically the man in love with his own mind.