Larissa Smith’s Reviews > In Five Years > Status Update

That it was my job to protect her. That I was the strong one, counterbalancing her weakness, her whimsy.
But I was wrong. I wasn't the strong one, she was. Because this is what it feels like—to take a risk, to step out of line, to make decisions not based on fact but on feeling. And it hurts. It feels like a tornado raging inside my soul. It feels like I may not survive it.

Love doesn’t require a future

And then he pushes into me. He moves slowly, deliberately, and I feel myself come apart before I even have a chance to begin.
He keeps moving on top of me, long after I've returned to my body, to my brain. We are like constellations passing each other, seeing each other's light but in the distance. It feels impossible how much space there can be in this intimacy, how much privacy.

“There’s no baby.”

He goes to the fridge and yanks it open. I peer over the counter. I see rainbows of vegetables and fruits, paper-wrapped cheeses, fresh parsley and mint, containers of oily olives, some rolling lemons and limes, and a large wedge of Parmesan. We are supremely stocked.
"You got all of this?" I ask.
In prior years, 'd be lucky to show up to a stick of butter.

What Bella actually said was that he made butternut squash and sage risotto, but before she could have one little bite they'd had sex on the counter, right there in the kitchen.

I imagine David wearing a sweater and a gold band on his ring finger, opening wine in our kitchen on a cozy winter night. A sense of sustained comfort. The materials of a warm life.

When I first moved to New York, I used to walk by the park and think that someday Id live near it. Now, David and I have a key. We can go inside the park anytime we want. But we don't, of course. We're busy. We went the day we got the key, with a bottle of champagne, stayed long enough to open it and make a toast, but haven't been back since. It's pretty to look at through the window, though.