The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long…
She was facing towards me but not making eye contact. My heart thundered in my ears, my fists clenched.
“For a while, that was enough, but I couldn’t escape that there wasn’t room to grow or change in our relationship. I did my best, but it got to the point that I couldn’t continue on the path he’d chosen for us, for me.”
She rose her eyes and they shone with the force of her memories.
“You don’t want to go through that again,” I said.
“Failure doesn’t scare me. I have no regrets about the marriage or the divorce. Relationships begin and end. It’s the cycle of life.”
If anyone else had said it, I would’ve taken offense. The cycle of life wasn’t always so natural, but she was sincere, without being righteous. She had no idea how fantastic she was.
“But loving someone means compromise. There’s no clear measure of how much is too much. That’s what terrifies me.”
I reached out and took her hand. She gave me a small smile.
“It took something horrible for me to figure out the point at which I would lose the essence of who I was. If that hadn’t happened, I’d still be married to him, with a life of my making but not of my will,” she said.
“You’re afraid of losing yourself?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never experienced her struggle. I wasn’t going to be able to convince Luci that her concern was unwarranted. It was. She’d lived it.
I rubbed my hands over my running pants, smooth and worn bare in some places and stiff with paint in others.
“I get it,” I said.
