by Ashton Wronikowski

Once upon a time, there was a girl who changed the world, a girl with raven -hair,
hazel eyes, and freckles. She came into view slightly, softly —– as if her body was
purposefully trying not to be too much. Soccer kept her slim, years of running for
hours on end making her athlete’s build lean and graceful rather than solid
and strong. Everything about her was graceful, and beautiful; the thickness of her
eyelashes looking down, either in bashful avoidance of a compliment or in sleep
as she so often did. Her neck, curving to meet her clavicle and drawing eyes to
the sharp contrast of her shoulders. Her hands, musician’s hands, promising
melodies and other softness from each delicate fingertip.

There’s always this bullshit expectation of women to be all-and-nothing,
containing controversies, simultaneously being two totally different things at once. It’s
bullshit, and problematic, and somehow, Claire was. She held herself with
careful strength, cradling her loss and her hurt openly —– hoping anyone who
needed would see themselves reflected in her hands. She was quick with smiles
and faster with laughs, offering every part of herself to complete strangers. The word
stranger really didn’t have the same meaning for her as others, because they
were simply friends she hadn’t yet met.

If you go to the local bar and look at the ceiling, there’s an Irish flag pinned
with a small signature scrawled in the bottom corner, Claire #12 to commemorate
the years spent on the pitch about a mile up the road. Pete, the bartender, always
races to meet her —– asking about one more game of pool or darts, as if it’s one
of the few reasons he opens his bar every night. Whenever we go there
together, I can’t help but smile up at the stripes, at the idea of seeing her name even
when she’s thousands of miles and various time zones away, and think
of the night we met.

__________

Two hours had never seemed so long. The drive back from the
hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor had seemed ages longer than the drive there with the
added throbbing of our new piercings. It was finally one of our few full weekends off,
and this group of teammates had decided to join in some harmlessly
irresponsible behavior. We were already scheming, saying we just needed to
keep it from our parents until a respectable amount of time had passed.

“What’s the plan now? When are you guys going to get ready to go out?”

The most important questions of any weekend always started like these:
Where are we going before the party? What are you guys drinking? Who’s going
to be there? What are you wearing? If every minute of the night isn’t discussed
a good three hours before the function, we won’t be going.

My answer failed to pass from my lips as we walked towards our
apartments and found the tell-tale thumping of bass coming from what seemed
like the complex itself, the bricks doing a poor job of hiding the gathering
within. As only a sophomore in my spring semester, I was hesitant to open our
neighbor’s door —– that required senior-level boldness for sure —– but we pushed
our fear aside to sate our curiosity. Opening the door, we found most of the
women’s soccer team gathered around our neighbor’s back
window. The speaker keeping post in their kitchen was the culprit for the bass
reverberating through the apartments, and Nicki Minaj began
serenading the collective.

“You guys! Hi!” Kaelyn, our neighbor, pulled Nina, Mack, and me into a
warm hug. “You guys are coming to hang out, right?” Her expression suggested
that anything besides an enthusiastic affirmative would be rejected,
so we agreed hastily.

“What are y’all doing out here?” Curiosity was addicting, giving us all
a buzz before our first drink. Kaelyn took us around her teammates cluttering
the apartment and back outside, where an intense game of cup-pong was taking
place. There were heavily accented yells from this side of the door, with waving
hands and expressive language that led us all to let out a laugh. I knew Anna,
her boyfriend Mark, along with Millie, but there was a third girl I hadn’t
recognized, with dark hair and light eyes that followed the other members
of the game with clear mirth.

After a round of introductions led by Kaelyn, I learned her name was Claire,
and it was made blatantly obvious that she was one of the coolest people
I had met. Her Irish accent carried softly across the tables, and her choice outfit
of a flannel, ripped jeans, and backwards hat suggested an easy comfort with
herself that made it easy to be around. As we shook hands and I answered
the silent questioning in her light eyes, I had a warm feeling in my chest that
shook off the last bit of the late spring chill.

__________

The rest of that first night was spent quickly, in a bit of a blur, as we
grabbed filled cups to fill our hands. I kept bumping into Claire Kelly making
her rounds, dipping in and out of conversations like water, being welcomed by
anyone and everyone she turned to. My friends had noticed me noticing her,
and wasted no time in planning our wedding.

“Can you all just relax? We have no idea if she’s even gay!” I attempted to
dissuade their scheming behavior and was given nothing but deadpan stares
or eye rolls in response.

“Oh yeah,” said Nina, dripping sarcasm on Kaelyn’s kitchen
floor. “She’s only wearing the lesbian’s uniform of Docs, a loose flannel, and a
backwards hat. If that girl is straight, I’ll go on the record for having a
shit gay-dar and never expect you to trust my advice again.”

To save myself from responding, I said I needed air, and I wound my way
around the room, dipping in and out of laughing conversations to finally
find solace outside. Leaning against the brick wall of our apartments,
I let a long breath out, watching the condensate travel off into the dark.

“Long night?”

I jumped a bit at Claire walking around the corner to sit against the wall,
gesturing for me to take my place next to her. That warmth I felt earlier in the
night was back, making it all too easy to sit in the grass next to her. She
offered me her cup, and laughed loudly at my subsequent wince. She told me
she drank Jägerbombs, and that they were popular in Ireland.

The minutes stretched languidly as the other topics came and went. We
discussed politics, foods, religion, family, sports, and school. First kisses, last meetings,
loves and hates. I don’t know how long we sat there, or when we finally
stopped talking and laughing to look at each other. That same look in her eye
from earlier litght a fire somewhere between my heart and my stomach. The possibility
of this seemed out of reach —–  that she’d rather be sitting in dewy grass
against the scratchy brick of my apartment than inside with her teammates
wasn’t real. She wasn’t tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder, wasn’t fiddling
with her hat nervously in her hands. I couldn’t be making her nervous, not when
it feltels like my own nerves wereare trying to crawl out of my skin. She touched
my hand, bringing my eyes back to hers.

Her eyes were ice in color alone, a slate gradient that made the dark
rings in her outer iris seem warm, heated, as we looked. We asked —– aloud or silently,
I don’t remember. We kissed.

__________

          When things end for no reason —– when it’s not the wrong person, or even
the right person, but just a good person —– that hurts the worst. You feel like
it’s your fault. It’s not. You guys are two pieces in the same puzzle, but you
just don’t fit with each other.

I heard those words last week on a barstool next to Claire, and it made me
think of the past two years. It went by so quickly. In that time, some mythic qualities
had faded. We had tried, for months —– she went back to Ireland that summer,
and we realized just how far the ocean is across. We blamed that at first,
needing there to be some reason that our pieces didn’t fit. There were
arguments and weeks of silence, but they never lasted. Even when we finally
chose others, moving away slowly from each other, we still smiled.
Just a little sadly.

Two weeks ago, we were gathered around the TV with my teammates,
glasses of wine in our hands. It’s called Someone Great, and I was crying, as was
expected of me at our movie nights. The main character was writing on the subway,
saying goodbye to a love of hers. She ends her letter to him, writing.

When something breaks, and the pieces are big enough, you can fix it.
I guess sometimes things don’t break, they shatter, but when you let the light in,
shattered glass will glitter. And in those moments, when the pieces catch the sun,
I’ll remember just how beautiful it was. Just how beautiful it will always be,
because it was us, and we are magic, forever.

I couldn’t help but look at her. Even if we aren’t in love, she taught me what
it meant to love. To listen first. To pick up sweets at the store just so it’ll make their
day better. To appreciate silence, the simplicity of it. To break it immediately
with a joke, because laughter is all the better. To check in, often, because,
often —, life is hard. To always have tea handy —– Barry’s if you can —– it fixes
everything, from stomachaches, to headaches, to heartaches.

She looked over and smiled, knowing, as she had the habit of doing.
Coming to sit next to me, she held my hand as if to say, don’t worry, we’ll be
okay. And she’s right. We will.

She’s dating someone now —– even if she won’t call it “dating” —– and
I’m so, so happy for her. I know the wonderfully kind, intelligent, caring, lovely,
brave woman this girl gets to hold close, and I only feel incredibly lucky and
grateful to have been a stop on her way.

A teammate said we were soulmates, and in a way she’s right. Claire
keeps a special place in all the hearts that she’s touched, and to have had the
chance to do the same is one I hold close. For cliché’s sake, we aren’t the happy
ending to the story. We don’t get an epilogue. But our chapter was one of my favorites.