If she wasn’t going to love me, she wasn’t going to love anyone.

I thought about her weak points— her damaged hair, her rough hands, the dry patches of skin on her fading cheek. I thought about how she’d hidden herself for so long that showing herself seemed like a battle cry— both exciting to see and also a little vulgar. I thought about her sea lion laugh, the way her light colored shirts always got under arm stains within seven wears, and about how one side of her mouth always seems slightly more slack than the other, even when she smiles. I thought about the times she used terrible words in private, thought terrible thoughts, brooded over horrific eventualities, and manifested the worst possible outcomes.

I thought about the times she was told by people who were supposed to love her, you’re a mess. A failure. Not enough. Worthless. Ugly. Evil. Unkind. Lazy. Mean.

I wondered why it is that love makes you want them to be right, even about the worst things, because then at least they’re not liars on top of everything else.

One day I was on the train, and I looked up, and she was there. The person who had loved me the best that she could. Who had loved me in a way that justified what she needed to believe love was. I looked her full in the face, across from me on the train. I hadn’t expected this moment to come just yet. I still felt so young. But there she is. Looking me full in the face. An echo of a catch twenty-two. An echo of a circle. An echo of a heritage.

Is forgiveness love? Or is it a Hail Mary?

I looked at her hungrily. I drank her in like well whiskey at a bad party.

The wild hair frizzing a halo in the weak fluorescence; the trapezoidal chin with the dimple that never lets her look her age; the large, expressive mouth; the pale skin; the jawline starting to soften, the long neck starting to harden; shoulders rounded forward from a lifetime of trying to take up less space; surprise in the over-large eyes: the look of a ghost who has seen a ghost.

I was wrong. And I was right.

She’s there. And she’s not there.

An echo. A circle. The end of the line.

If she wasn’t going to love me, she wasn’t going to love anyone.

But whose love do I need? Hers? Or mine?

Or are they the same thing?

The train stops.

I stand.

The people around us stand and push, press, shoulder their way towards the doors.

I lose her in the crowd.