Dear Camilla,

14: New Normal

Dear Camilla,

Days at Oliver's turned into weeks as my foot healed and our affection for one another grew. There seemed something... inexplicably right about our arrangement. Like dominos falling into place, like the sun rising— inevitable and beautiful.

Our schedules, or, more specifically, lack thereof, allowed for a unique degree of freedom to explore one another in an idyllic light. No fluorescent bulbs in an office to reveal the imperfections on our skin, or street lights illuminating my loneliness because he was walking by my side. It was a summer kind of love, a sweet fling savored like the last glass of wine. I suppose I knew he was not permanent and that made it all the more freeing and fun— like when you first realize that everyone's death is an eventuality so the mistakes and ugly parts of yourself will be forgiven and forgotten.

Even in the mornings after the limp from my foot faded, he still doted on me like a princess. Coffee was a guarantee. "My lady," he would say, dramatically, like clockwork, every morning. I began to suspect that he felt more than guilt for his adjacent role in my injury. Perhaps something more like love. Perhaps...

I can't say I didn't feel anything either. It was a whirlwind and my memories are a sparkling sepia haze, hard to decipher through the confusing buzz of it all. Cryptic, almost, like an ancient text, symbolic hieroglyphs of which I was an ingenue archaeologist to. So, I am not sure what exactly it was that I felt, but I know it was something. Something big. Big enough that my thoughts drifted away from you, enveloped in a riptide of emotion in his ocean. It was nice, almost, to be relieved of you. To relive you in him.

The irony is not lost on me. As my foot was healing, my mind was too, but not at the expense of my autonomy. I felt happy and refreshed, mentally clear, as if I had gasped fresh air for the first time in a year. Distracted from the darkness within. But, this progress happened because I was not free to move as I wished for a period. My physical injury prohibited me from running, from walking, from leaving. I was like Rapunzel in her tower, a victim of Stockholm syndrome. I relied on him like a patient does a nurse. So, was I healing, or was I regressing? Was I changing for the better, or was I losing myself? Was this experience more kin to a cast or a lobotomy? The scariest part is recognizing the possibility that perhaps the positive option and the perceived negative option are one in the same— that in fact, it is not a negative option, after all, that is good and right and well for me to lose myself, to be lobotomized, to be tamed in a quiet sort of regression. After all, a caged bird is safest.

Perhaps that sounds insane. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps— why must I always second guess my premise? Demean my desire to express? If I could scream on paper I would. How could something as innocuous as baking bread together ever be interpreted as bad? I suppose that proves my point, without him or a distraction I spiral away from sanity. My reckless curiosity about what I believe to be the truth of the world kills the cat in me that is just trying to sunbathe on a fence post and enjoy the afternoon.

Anyway, back to baking bread. But do, please, take time with my words, I beg.

"Okay we have the warm water, granulated sugar, yeast, salt, vegetable or canola oil, and flour," he said, tapping his fingers as he listed off the ingredients. "But do we have... Hmmm. What's that special ingredient called?" Oliver moved closer to me, so my back pressed against the granite countertop. "I think it's called..." he paused dramatically, grabbing my waist and hoisting me onto the counter, "love."

I giggled as he tickled my ribs and grinned mischievously.

"Shut up!" I shrieked, dodging his wild hands. I grabbed a small handful of flour and playfully tossed it in his already messy hair.

"Oh no, you didn't!"

Gasping with laughter, I jumped off the counter and ran into the living room. Oliver chased after me with the same enthusiasm of a dog hunting a deer, grinning wildly and widely like the Cheshire cat.