***

We walk across the neighbourhood to meet a friend, holding hands, the leaves falling from the trees and swirling in the wind around us. He starts talking about his trip to the store for groceries.

“There was this kiosk in the mall. You know that hotel that they’re turning into rental apartments? They had this table laid out with floor plans and rental applications. So I stopped to look. There is a two-bedroom that’s slightly larger than my place, so I asked about the rent.”

He’s just telling a story, but my heart is racing. I know that he’s not actually talking about our future, but my reaction excites me. I want a future with you.

***

I go to a yoga class in Chinatown, to a studio that I last went to in in March. I walk into the room and a wash of memories and feelings come back to me. That time of uncertainty. There’s a mural on the wall of a child falling gracefully through space into nothing. Her thin limbs, and the light blue fabric of her dress like gossamer wings. I look at the mural and begin to quietly cry. The ethereal beauty of falling into nothing. I, too, fell. I wonder if I appeared as fragile, as beautiful, as transparent as the child in the mural. Vulnerable beauty.

After class, I cycle home in a torrent of rain, the streetlights impotent against the sucking darkness of a rainy Vancouver night. The gutters run full. Lakes form at low points, where the leaves have blocked the catch basins. Taxis and buses cut closely around me, sending even more water against me. I somehow love and hate this at the same time. In reality, I’m scared of dying, of a bus slamming into me and tossing me off into the dark. Of looking down from heaven and seeing Russell standing alone in his apartment, of my parents sitting at the kitchen table, hearing the news. If only she’d worn a bright yellow jacket.

Chinatown smells like roasted pork and heady green vegetables laying damply in cardboard boxes at the side of the road. My heart aches. The dark city, and feeling invisible. The rain and the quick slipping into sadness feeling alone. The desire to have someone tell me that they love me, that I am beautiful. That I mean something to them. That they’d miss me if I were to perish.

But I am no longer alone.

Someone will miss me.

In the morning, the sun shines in a bright blue sky. Impossibly blue. Russell texts me at 7:30 in the morning. I cycle to work in the brisk autumn beauty.

My heart is full.