The Love of Another Life

Prologue

Dear Alice,

I’m trying to remember how this all started. When something shifted. What it was that tipped me from just knowing you, to needing you.

It might sound mad, but I think I might have even missed it while it was happening. Crazy when you think about it. The biggest decision in my life and I didn’t even register it happening. I was too busy being careful, too busy convincing myself there would be more time.

I know how you read the last pages of a book before the beginning because you always want a happy ending. How you listen to a song on repeat while you work so it becomes part of the experience. How you take your tea, how you laugh with your whole body. But there is still so much I don’t know.

I’ve loved you from a distance. I’ve loved you quietly, never expecting anything in return. I told myself that was enough. That having you just for one night was enough. And wanting anything more would just make everything about my life harder.

But time is the one thing I don’t have.

If I wait any longer I—

I lean back in my chair, throw down the pen onto the kitchen table.

Then tear the page in two.