I write down one more List of Things to Be Grateful For, to send to Bernardo.
“Do you think Mom will look like me or you?” Arizona says, like those are the only two options. We’re on the train, side by side in a sleeper car, and I sort of can’t wait for night to fall so we can go to sleep to the shaky, grumbling movements.
I shrug. Maybe I don’t care who she looks like. What she looks like.
I don’t want to be my mother, but I want to be a little like her. I don’t want to be my father. But I want to be a little like him too. And a little of Arizona. And a little of something else.
I don’t know exactly what I want.
I want Bernardo, but not the way it’s been.
I take out my eyebrow ring but decide to keep my hair pink. I hope he keeps the parts of what we did together that he likes best too.
I hope that includes keeping me.
Bernardo’s initial is on my finger, and I wonder what else it could stand for. I want us to be together, but not engaged. I want us to be something but not everything.
Beautiful.
Branded.
Bystander.
Breathe.
Blip.
Becoming.
Or maybe it stands for the summer I fell in love so hard my whole world changed. Maybe that’s enough, even if it doesn’t end in forever.
Belong.
It doesn’t mean what I thought it did.
July 17
The List of Things to Be Grateful For: The For Bernardo Edition 1 The way the city looks when you are holding hands with someone versus the way it looks when you are not. That it is beautiful either way. That it changes but doesn’t change.
2 How much can shift when you go from dirty blond to dirty pink. The space between being pretty and being loved, and not having to know which you actually are.
3 The things that didn’t happen. The words I didn’t say. The promises I didn’t keep. The undone. The things I didn’t hold on to. The things I’ll never know. The person I didn’t become for you.