Lives are made up of many people.

I remember you.

I remember understanding the world with you, then stopping to look at every bug and strange on the walk home, trying to understand those too.

I remember when you told me I could call you if I had night terrors, and I instantly knew I wouldn’t because you made me safe.

I remember sitting on the back steps with you, drinking wine and falling in love.

The terrible fights we used to have, when we punched and kicked at each other, bruising and clawing and biting because there was no other way to be angry. Telling you I was a better parent and feeling I was right. The time I was defending them but you hit me and I hit you back and then left home for many years.

Lying on the floor and giving your dog water through a syringe because she was so sick and we were both so afraid. I slept in the couch, but you made me a mix tape. It wasn’t until years later that you said, “Does this mean you’re my girlfriend?” When you sent me to etiquette classes and I hated it but I ate snails for the first time. They were gross. Holding you down and putting the medicine in your mouth because that way there would be sanity and you would not throw knives.

Being miserable and lonely with you, sitting on the couch and keeping each other company to forget about why we were so lonely and miserable. When you bit the teacher in the hallway. I remember when you pinched my back trying to snap my bra but I was in third grade and was still afraid of bras. And when we sat in the graveyard late into the night,talking for hours about ourselves in the most honest way possible.

I remember rollerblading across the city, and then you went home and then told me online that you didn’t love me any more. I also remember when you decided that was a terrible mistake. When the policeman came because the headlights were shining into the sleeping neighbor’s window but we were too preoccupied to notice.

I remember when you both told me that if I bought the puppy in the pet store you would help me take care of it, but most of the time you didn’t really do it. When we lived together, both times, and I would check your sugars for you when they got too low because I was afraid you would die if I didn’t.

I remember all of you.