She’s dancing when I walk in. Not to actual music, mind you, but to whatever rhythm is running through her head. Though I can’t hear it, I know the song from the way she bounces her heels from side to side: left, then right, then one-two-three. She’s wearing the purple socks with penguins on them that she says are conducive to slides and swirls on our tile floor.

“Hey!” She spins to face me with finger guns drawn. “How long does it take pasta to boil?”

“That depends,” I grin, leaning against the door frame. “What does the box say?”

“Forget the box,” she shakes her head. “The box is dead to me. What else you got?”

Laughter spills out from that silly little source of light in the center of my chest.

“I’m being serious,” she says, firing the finger guns at me.

“I know you’re being serious. That’s why it’s funny.”

“How was the MRI?” She mumbles just low enough that I can pretend I didn’t hear.

“Do you ever get a feeling that’s so bright and beautiful that it seems like your entire existence was created for the sole purpose of experiencing that moment. Like everything before was just build up and everything after is just time to reflect?”

“Hmm,” she taps the tip of her nose with an index finger. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to compliment my butt?” She shifts her weight to one hip and cocks an eyebrow at me.

“Because that is completely in line with my character,” my smile widens on its own accord. “Seriously though, there’s something about this moment with you in your dumb penguin socks and spaghetti sauce on your face – my heart feels like it might explode, and I’d be just fine with that.”

“Nooo,” she whines while stirring pasta. “I want my moment too. If your heart explodes before I get my moment, I swear to god I’ll eat your face off.”

“Oh yeah? Just going to choke it down raw?”

“I’m not a psychopath, Stewart,” she scoffs. “I’d boil it first. So, how was the MRI?” She turns her head toward me this time.

“It was good,” I stuff my hands in my pockets, but that feels weird, so my left arm grabs my right. That also feels weird, so one hand moves to the back of my head while the other stays stuffed in its pocket. “Just the usual stuff.”

Her stirring slows as she watches me out of the corner of her eye. “Okay.” A silence settles, but I can only handle it for a few seconds.

“I was thinking about taking some time off work.” I move up behind her, placing my hands on her hips. I sway her from side to side, hoping to reignite that invisible beat inside her head. “We could take that trip to New Zealand, get a cabin in the mountains, or just stay here and dance.”

“Oh yeah?” She leans her head back against my collar bone, letting her hair fall across my nose. “When do you want to do that?”

“Next week?” I suggest. “Tomorrow? Today if you’re up for it.”

“Hon,” she shakes her head. “How about six months?”

“Ah, that’s so far away,” I groan and plant a kiss behind her ear. “God knows where we’ll be in six months.”

Her grip on the spatula tightens but she doesn’t reply. Instead, she spins around in my arms so she can meet my eye.

“Hi,” I press my forehead against hers, smiling at the dab of marinara on her cheek.

“Just tell me.” Her eyes grow wider.

“Tell you how hot you are in those socks? Oh my gosh, you’re like a friggin’ Disney princess before the princess part happens.”

“No,” she crosses her arms over her chest, creating a few inches of distance between us. “Just. Tell. Me.”

Listen here, you whimsical fuck.

We had a deal. I let you drive this paper white slice of straight cake for the rest of its life on the sole condition that you lead it to true love.  Yet all I have to show for it are a dozen romantic misfortunes that have ripped my heart a hundred new assholes.  I could have pursued financial success, a master’s degree, perhaps a drug or sex addiction, but no. I’m out here following my heart like a fucking idiot.

You were supposed to be my magnetic north, my unseen engine of serendipity, but you’re not an engine of serendipity, are you? You’re a parasite. A despondency monster.  You live not for love, but for the deep well of anguish that opens up when love collapses.  It’s a tale as old as time: boy meets girl, girl rejects boy, sadness vampire attached to boy’s soul grows stronger. Fuck you.

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean that.

I’m just frustrated.

Because there is no road map for finding the love of your life. No consecutive string of short-term goals to mark one’s progress, nor series of incremental promotions to climb like a ladder. All I have is you, my ethereal little love penguin, and your instincts haven’t exactly been on point. I have messed up so many good things with women I didn’t deserve from the start simply because you had a bad feeling about it. You create this gold-plaited versions of a person for me to pursue, and then get disappointed when reality doesn’t rise to match it. Yet, for as much as you make me want to scream, you’re the best part of me. You are my humility, my empathy, my capacity for a complex love that could only originate from eternity, and I need you to get your shit together.