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“Let me see it, Clary.”
“Absolutely not, no way in hell.”
Izzy pouted and leaned her head in her hand. She watched Clary with big, shiny eyes that Izzy hoped she wouldn’t be able to resist.
“Come on, sweetheart, what’s the point of dating a poet if I don’t even get to read dozens of love poems about myself?”
“Isabelle, you know I adore you, but it’s embarrassing!” Clary protested. “I let you read everything else you want but this one feels too personal.”
“A poem written about me is too personal for me to read?” Izzy questioned.
Clary blushed. “Well, yeah. Iz, we’re still pretty new and there’s a lot in here that I haven’t said out loud to you yet. I don’t want to freak you out or anything. We’ve only been together for four months and I don’t want to scare you away.”
Izzy smiled and leaned in to press a kiss against Clary’s lips, humming into it. Clary’s cheeks were warm under Izzy’s fingertips.
“First of all,” Izzy started upon pulling away, “I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would scare me away from you. I’m all in, baby girl. Second of all, you don’t have to show me if you don’t want to. It’s your writing and your feelings, and you don’t have to give those to anyone you don’t want to give them to, don’t have to give them to anyone even a second before you’re ready.”
An audible sigh of relief parted Clary’s lips. Her shoulders relaxed as she reached for Izzy’s hands.
“Thank you for understanding, baby.”
“Of course,” Izzy replied, squeezing Clary’s fingers softly. “Still, if you ever decide you want me to read it, I’d be more than happy to. Anytime you want me to know what’s inside that poem, don’t be afraid to give it to me. I’m sure I’ll love it.”
“Okay,” Clary nodded as she shoved the poem into her pocket.
When Clary kissed her again, all thoughts of words too intimate to share and lines so sweet you could taste them left Isabelle’s mind. At that moment, she had something much more beautiful in her grasp that needed all of her attention.
.
“Are you really going to walk away from me right now, Isabelle?” Clary yelled as they stumbled out of the bar.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Clary. I didn’t realize we were still together and that you had any right to tell me what to do,” Izzy shouted over her shoulder and kept walking.
“That’s not fair,” Clary argued, her heels clacking furiously against the asphalt.
Izzy whipped around and glared at her. Clary stumbled at how abruptly Izzy stopped in her path.
“It isn’t? You broke up with me, Clary, not the other way around. You left me and now you’re mad at me for trying to leave you? Sure, sounds real fair to me.”
“I just want to talk to you for a minute, Iz. Is that too much to ask?”
Izzy crossed her arms in front of her defensively.
“Yes, it is too much to ask when you suddenly end things and then disappear for two months. I haven’t heard from you since you told me we were over and now you think I should just stand here and talk to you as if you didn’t ignore my calls for weeks.”
Clary shrunk back and Izzy pushed back the pang of guilt in her chest. She didn’t owe Clary anything, but somehow hurting her felt wrong. It went against every beat of her heart to push Clary away. After all this time, after all this pain, she still found it almost impossible to keep Clary at a distance.
“Please, just let me explain,” Clary pleaded.
“What else is there to explain?” Izzy asked breathlessly. “I remember what you said. That I’m too much, too complicated. That you couldn’t be with me because I had too many problems that you couldn’t figure out how to solve. Here’s the thing though, Clary: I didn’t need you to solve everything. I didn’t need you to fix me or to protect me. I just needed you to love me and you decided that wasn’t something you could do anymore.”
A tear spilled down Clary’s cheek and Izzy’s fingers twitched at her side.
Don’t wipe it away, Isabelle. Don’t comfort her. Don’t break down right along with her. Don’t.
“I know I made a mistake, Izzy. All I ever try to do is fix things. I see people in pain and I can’t stand by and do nothing. You had your own demons you were dealing with and I thought that I could help. I was naive for thinking that it would ever be simple, that there was something I could do that would magically make everything okay. I should have known that you didn’t want that from me. I should have just supported you and been with you as you are instead of trying to change you. I didn’t understand that there are some things I don’t have the power to fix and that’s okay. I left because I was scared I wasn’t what you needed, or that I would only end up making things worse. I didn’t want to go but I thought it was what was best for you.”
Izzy couldn’t help it. Tears she’d been trying to keep in ran down her face. Clary hadn’t put the reason for the breakup in so many words before. On that terrible night, Izzy had known something was wrong. Clary had been quiet all through dinner and the whole way back to Izzy’s apartment. When they walked up to the door to her home, Clary had refused to come inside. The words had been quick, choked and aborted in her throat.
I can’t do this anymore, Iz. I’m sorry.
Clary had rushed back down the steps before Izzy even had the chance to beg her to stay.
“You should have talked to me, Clary. You shouldn’t have decided what I needed without asking me,” Izzy cried.
Clary ran a distressed hand through her hair, her breaths hiccuping through her soft sobs.
“I know. I know I fucked up, Isabelle. I’ve regretted it ever since. I know you’ll probably never forgive me, but all I wanted to tell you tonight is that as much as I screwed up, the reason I walked away was never a lack of love. I loved you so much and making that choice was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you enough to stay. I left because I thought loving you wasn’t enough.”
God, how could Clary not have seen that loving her would have been more than enough? It would have been all Izzy ever asked of her. She didn’t want anything in the world more than she wanted to lay in Clary’s arms at night or to taste the wine that lingered on Clary’s smiling lips after a day spent together. Being with Clary had always been enough.
Clary reached into her purse and pulled out a crumpled piece of folded paper. She held it out to Izzy.
“What is this?” Izzy sniffled.
“Do you remember that poem I wrote about you but I never let you read?” was Clary’s reply.
Izzy took it gently between her fingers.
“You carry it with you,” Izzy murmured.
“Every day. I could never get myself to let go of it, of you. I want you to read it now so you understand how much you meant to me, how much you still mean to me. Even if it doesn’t change anything, I want you to know. I’ll leave you alone after this, but just read it for me.”
Izzy almost didn’t want to open it. She didn’t want to read about a love that she’d lost, a life that could have been lived together. It felt too raw still, the throbbing behind her ribs, and she feared where these words would take her.
She read it anyway.
~
Isabelle: Poem Number One of a Lifetime
She knows my favorite color—
That it isn’t any one shade of blue
Or the searing orange of a sunset,
But the specific stain her lips leave on my skin.
She knows the names of all the stars—
Andromeda, Centaurus, Orion.
And the ones that haven’t been named,
The ones in my eyes and under our outstretched fingertips,
She names them herself.
She calls them
My Darling,
My Heart,
My World.
She knows the mistakes I’ve made—
The ones I tell no one but her,
The ones I can barely admit to myself.
She helps me see beyond them
To who I could be,
To who I want to be
For her.
For me.
She knows my body—
How it curves and shivers,
Yields to her touch
Like it was never a struggle to begin with,
Like it recognizes her to be made of the same cosmic dust,
Like she’s coming home.
I wonder if she knows how I worship her—
A poet crawling before her muse,
Her Aphrodite,
Wondering how I became worthy of such a grace
That I get to call
My own.
I do not know much—
Not about the stars
Not about all that she is
Not even about myself, really
But, my most dear Isabelle,
If I know what love is,
It is because of you.
~
Izzy couldn’t breathe. The words had crept into her throat, holding it tight between their syllables. Her brain was captured by verses and stanzas that were so beautiful yet so painful in their beauty. They were the feelings Izzy had longed to receive from Clary since their parting, but hadn’t belonged to Izzy for months. There was a certain relief in them, to know that they were still true, but also a sort of backwards sadness that she’d lived so long without them.
“I love you, Isabelle,” Clary whispered before Izzy could manage to figure out what to say. “I always have and I always will. I get if this doesn’t make it up to you and I’ll always be sorry for how I treated you. You deserve better than that. I’ll be better if you give me a chance, but only if you want—”
Isabelle kissed her.
Izzy never would have been able to find the words to say how the poem had made her feel, but she knew how to show it.
She’d missed the feel of Clary’s hands on her waist. The scent of her skin. The taste of her lips. The sound of her sighs as she leaned into Izzy’s hold.
Clary pulled back.
“Does that mean we’re gonna be okay?” Clary asked, green eyes wide and gleaming.
Izzy nodded tearfully.
“Yeah, we’re gonna be okay, baby girl.”
Clary had messed up, but Izzy didn’t want to be angry anymore. She didn’t want to give up on the woman who she loved more than anything in the world over an issue they could work through. This obstacle was large but it was not insurmountable, not by a long shot.
They could work together to find their way back to what they’d had before, and maybe— hopefully — to something even better.