The Beginningaftertheend Novels & Stories

The word after had a different quality now. Before the resolution, after had been a theoretical territory, the place the present was moving toward but had not yet reached. A horizon that the work was oriented toward without being visible from where the work was happening. After the filing. After the acknowledgment. After the statement. After the resolution. Now it was simply where I was. Standing in the after without the before pressing against me from behind, the specific quality of having arrived somewhere rather than moving toward it.

A thing with a location was a thing you could bear to wait for. He finished the book. He closed it. He sat with the quality of having finished something, which was not the same as the quality of having ended something. Finishing was completed. The ending was a loss. The therapy would be an ending, and he would hold it as an ending, with all the weight that endings deserved. But the after—the after was not an ending. The after was a different kind of thing.

Because of my fragile health, my best friend, Eva, kept me on a tight leash growing up. She always told me, "Leah, you can't take risks." So for every date David and I planned, she had to test it out for me first. When the new roller coaster opened at the amusement park and she said it was too intense for my heart, David took her instead. After I booked a bed-and-breakfast by the ocean, Eva said the night breeze was too strong for me. So David spent the night there with her. I made reservations at a romantic couple's restaurant, only for her to say the menu might trigger an allergic reaction. That was why David took her to try it first. Every time they came back, Eva would look me in t

“Don't you dare end this ca-“ Without taking my finger out of her, I reached for her phone, clicking the end button. “He makes a lot of noise,” I mentioned. Avery’s eyes held so much emotion. Annoyance, lust. “What did you do that fo-“ Before she could complete her sentence, I curled my finger inside her, tapping on her wall. Her hips shot off the bed, tugging at the restraints as she struggled to get her hands free. Now that the distraction was over, where was I?