Living With Vicky Link

I didn’t have an answer. Or maybe I did, and I just didn’t know how to say it. That talking would make it real. That if I said out loud how scared I was—about my job, about my future, about the fact that I was twenty-nine and still didn’t know what I wanted—then I’d have to do something about it. And doing something was terrifying.

“Just get in the car.”

Tonight, she’s making pasta. I can hear her singing in the kitchen—still badly—and the rain has finally stopped. I’m sitting at the table, watching her dance around the stove with a wooden spoon in her hand, and I think: This is it. This is what it feels like to be alive with someone who loves you. living with vicky

“That’s why I moved in with you, you know,” she said quietly. “Not just because my apartment had mold. But because I was lonely. And I knew you were too.” I didn’t have an answer

I’m not good at talking. Vicky knows this. She’s always known. The thing about Vicky is that she feels everything at full volume. Joy, sadness, anger—it all comes out the same way: loud, messy, and honest. When she’s happy, she laughs so hard she snorts, and then laughs harder at the snort. When she’s sad, she doesn’t hide it. She cries openly, ugly-cries with red eyes and wet cheeks, and she lets you hold her until it passes. That if I said out loud how scared

I used to think she was dramatic. Now I think maybe she’s just braver than me.

“Then why don’t you?”