She asked me if I thought love could exist between two females. I took her face between my two tiny hands and told her she was beautiful. And if love couldn’t exist between two females, well, love was about to be taught a lesson about the capability of womankind, with the two of us on the loose. I wanted to be everything for her. I wanted to be there, to be present, to hold her hand when things got rough, and for my smile to keep hers alive. I wanted to be the first person in her life she could count on, the one constant, the rock she could lean on when those waters got too intense for her to swim. I wanted to be the person she woke up to and came home to, the one who held her hair back when she was vomiting from the flashbacks that overtook her after that altercation with that stranger in that bar. I wanted to be the person she called to say goodnight to or just to say “I miss you” before hanging up. I wanted to be the one she thought about when listening to punk rock love songs or when watching old classics. I wanted to force happiness upon her the way only I could, in the beginning. I wanted to be the one to make her laugh while she was crying, to make her smile when all she wanted to do was sit in that claw-footed tub, hold her knees and scream. And, later, I wanted to do for her what only those substances could; I wanted to surge through her veins and make her feel like nothing in this world could affect her ever again, make her feel as though she were floating on a cloud of invincibility and contentment and utter fucking bliss. In the end, I just wanted to hear her laugh one more time. To keep her here. To say goodbye. But there’s only so much one person can do for another and, short of bottling happiness the way we’d jar lightning bugs in the July’s of our youth, I didn’t know what more I could try, no matter how terribly I loved her. So, I let her go, I set her free. Now, I’ll never get to see her laugh that one last time. And, no, its not okay.