I tell her, I think I made you up. She agrees but differently and laughs a little at me. ‘Solipsistic isn’t it? What if I made you up?’ Honestly, I’d considered it and decided if that were the case then I have nothing left to be afraid of, she made me exactly the way she’d intended. You are perfect, I tell her. She smiles and it is beyond imagination. ‘I’m just a mirror, honey.’ I look into her eyes and see myself forever in them. Whether I’ve invented you or you me, I don’t care because now it’s real.
Standing by the cliff, she says, ‘I want you to push me first and then dive in after to save me.’ I don’t ask why and she laughs and the harness tightens. ‘Are you scared?’ Only of losing you, I say. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says, ‘after this you’ll have only lost fear.’ I can almost see her skin eating the sunlight, caramel clashing and consuming the blue. She turns to face the cliff and the future and says, ‘Now fucking push me.’ I put my hands to the small of her back and whisper in her ear, I love…
A Few Short Words 