�Do you know how being in love makes you feel physically uncomfortable? How that sick, nauseous feeling pulls at the bottom of your stomach? That�s how I feel.�
She called asking for my advice, because she�s in love with someone else other than her partner. She wanted to know what she should do. She doesn�t, she insisted, want to hurt anyone, especially herself.
�The feelings are mutual.�
Bewildered, I sat in our living room watching the sun flood from one tall house to the next across the span of backyard that separates two rows of houses. I thought to myself, briefly, that the snow lent an innocent appearance to the blue of the sky. I felt panicked, unsteady, knowing that she�d begin, after her recounting of feelings, to ask direct questions of me.
�What should I say? What should I do?�
How could I answer her when love is the untrustworthiest emotion I�ve ever encountered? I almost believe that I could perform brain surgery with more certainty than I could act on love, which is indeed a hyperbole, but so is love, I�ve discovered.
What do you think you should do? Was my meek question after she poured her heart out to me, my own heart stopped to hear the rhythm of hers.
�I don�t know. I thought you�d make things look less tangled.�
She hung up, more upset than she began, and I felt guilty for my passive, restated questions. She rebuffed me only once.
�I thought you, of all people, would champion romance.�
Perhaps I still do with my silences. Setting my heart apart. My experiences catty-corner. Refracting, hoping that the sun�s angle is as precise as my want.