#which is not a sentence I could’ve imagined myself uttering a year ago but here we are

[lockheed-martin-unofficial]

With how spiky Starscream is on TFP, he must be very easy to climb. I also love the clinking noises that happen when he moves.

Maybe I made him a little too small? I don’t mind.

This sparks joy

[noblest-roman-of-all]

to dance on one’s grave

day five bringing us some bittersweet love, and my first attempt to write Virgil. 

ships: prinxiety

tw: death and gore ment. 

The lights of the old theater hum and flicker as they turn on, testament to how long ago they probably should have been replaced. Virgil huffs a laugh to himself as he walks towards the stage. The ghost lamp is still sitting there, which he flicks off in a moment. It’s not as if it actually does anything, on or off, but it's a habit at this point. He stands there for a moment, waiting to see if anything, or anyone, would appear, then turns towards the wings. 

“You’re so late today, I’d begun to worry you’d crossed over to my side without consulting me,” a voice calls from behind him. He kills the smile that begins to form as he turns around. Standing with his arms crossed is Roman, the utter asshole Virgil had somehow befriended during his long nights working at the theater. His brown hair was carefully unkempt as always, his white costume perfect except for the ugly stain of blood, still a bright red, across the center of his chest along where the gash that killed him sits. 

Oh yeah, Roman is a ghost. Virgil has a whole sixth sense, “I see dead people” thing going on. Another reason he doesn’t get along well with people. 

“What makes you think I’d have time to consult you before I died? It’s generally not a choice, as you’re well aware,” Virgil responds. Roman throws his head back in a hearty laugh that from anyone else, Virgil would be sure is completely fake. But no, Roman is just like that. 

“Fair enough, my knight in gloomy armor,” Roman says. “What are we working on today?”

“We aren’t working on anything. I’m doing a double check on the stage props, making sure nothing’s missing. We haven’t got that long until opening night,” Virgil says, throwing the response over his shoulder as he heads further into the wings. Roman, predictably, is not far behind him. 

“Is that so? How long exactly is there?” Roman asks. 

“Two weeks. Opening night is the twenty-seventh, today is the thirteenth,” Virgil calls back absently, making his way through the mess of a backstage he’s been left with. He doesn’t notice how Roman trails behind slightly at the comment. 

The rest of the night goes surprisingly well. There’s nothing incredibly important missing, none of the stage props have massive portions of them that are damaged or unfinished, and most of the hand props are also complete and unbroken. Virgil walks through everything once more to double check, and then heads to the stage manager’s podium to make sure that they have the lighting cues noted. Through the whole night, he notices that Roman is being oddly quiet. Certainly not silent, but he trails off at times, or starts rambling on about stories he’s already told, which he usually never does. They make their way back to the stage, and when Roman lets out another forlorn sigh, Virgil stops in his tracks. 

“Alright, what’s up with you tonight dude? You’re acting all,” Virgil flails his arms, gesturing at Roman’s bent posture, “Weird. I dunno.” 

Roman wanders to center stage before responding. “I died 34 years ago today. I officially have been on earth as a ghost longer than I was alive.”

Virgil grimaces. “Oh. I, uh, didn’t know that.”

Roman chuckles, sad and empty and not at all like his normal, boisterous laugh. “There was no way for you to know. I never told you.” He sits down on the stage, legs pulled into his chest. He looks so… young, like this. Virgil sits near him, a few feet away. 

“Do- do you wanna, like, talk about it?” Virgil knows he could have done that a little better, but he openly admits he’s bad at emotional conversations. He’s out of his element here, but he’s trying. 

Roman seems to appreciate it, at least, because he gives Virgil a small smile. “I was supposed to be the prince in a performance of Cinderella here in 1984. We were doing our last dress rehearsal when something went wrong. Somehow, one of the lights shattered right before I got to have my dance with Cinderella. I pushed her out of the way, but… I wasn’t fast enough to save myself.” He looks down at the gash running from just below his sternum to his stomach. Virgil follows his gaze and notices, from this distance, that the wound is more jagged than he thought. He can imagine some massive piece of glass falling from the catwalk, sees Roman running to push his co-star out of the way only to be impaled. It’s… not a pleasant image. 

Roman sighs, looking out into the house. “I just wish… I wish I could’ve gotten to have that dance. Maybe it’s selfish, but… I don’t know,” he trails off, letting his head fall to his knees. Virgil can’t do anything but look for a moment. He’s never seen Roman so small, so sad. He wants to do something, to help somehow, but it’s not like he could magically give him that last dance. 

Unless… 

“Wait right here!” Virgil shouts, then runs to the speakers. He plugs in his phone, and goes through his phone to find the track he was looking for. Thank God he didn’t delete the songs from his last show. 

He runs back onto stage just as the first strains “Waltz for a Ball” began to filter through. He stops just before he runs directly into Roman and holds out a hand. 

“Fair warning, I don’t know the choreo for this, so you’ll have to guide me,” he says. Roman looks from his hand to his face, and he breaks into a bright grin. Virgil can’t help but smile back. 

“Worry not, I’ll be able to get us through this,” Roman says, full of his normal gravitas again. He grabs Virgil’s hand, feeling surprisingly solid, if a bit cold. Then he sweeps them into the dance. 

The dance is, in all honesty, quite simple. Virgil remembers that much from when he ran sound for it at another theater a while back. There’s lots of people dancing all in unison, so of course it’s relatively simple and easy to coordinate. That doesn’t make it any easier for Virgil, who is not a talented dancer (he works backstage for a reason), and who is rapidly becoming aware of just how bright Roman’s eyes are, and that he has a splash of freckles across his nose and cheekbones, and that he’s close enough to Roman’s face to make out details on his nose and cheekbones. 

Roman chuckles at some point, muttering that he’s “literally dancing on his own grave”, and that statement shocks Virgil back into a bit of reality. He’s dancing with a ghost. This isn’t some cute guy he somehow managed to flirt with, this is the ghost of a man who died decades ago, whose only source of companionship is the one person in the world who seems to be able to see him. 

It doesn’t make the heat leave his cheeks, and it doesn’t slow his beating heart, but it does sit like a rock uncomfortably in his stomach. 

The final strains of the song fade out, Virgil laughing as Roman says all of the lines of all of the actors in dramatic, ridiculous tones. They step away from one another slightly, Virgil’s face slightly red, Roman with a bright grin across his face. 

“I… thank you for that , Virgil,” Roman says suddenly. Virgil looks up at him, and he continues. “I never actually got to do that whole dance in costume. Obviously, this isn’t exactly how I thought it would happen, but…” Roman glanced up at Virgil, his eyes flitting over Virgil’s face. “I couldn’t ask for a better dance partner.” His soft smile knocks the breath right out of Virgil’s lungs, so he can only stare for a moment. In fact, it’s his prolonged staring that makes him realize something. 

“Uh, Roman? Why are you getting more see through?” Roman’s face morphs into a state of shock when he looks down at his own body, apparently also seeing the way he’s quickly fading. Then he lets out a slightly hysterical laugh. 

“The last dance. That’s what was keeping me here. But you helped me resolve it, so now I can-”

“You can pass over,” Virgil finishes his sentence with not a small amount of dread. If Roman passes over, he never gets to see him again. He never gets to have long, ridiculous conversations about absolute nonsense during his long hours. 

Roman gives him a sad sort of smile, like he knows exactly what Virgil is thinking, which of course he does. He seems to be able to read Virgil like a book. He reaches out and lays a gentle hand on Virgil’s cheek. 

“Thank you. Not just for this last dance, but for all of the nights you kept me company. For all of the secrets you divulged to me. For all of the love you let me feel, for the first time in a very long time. I just ask one thing of you: don’t forget me, please.” By the time he finishes, he’s almost completely gone. Virgil puts his hand over Roman’s, trying to cling to his last few moments with him. 

“I couldn’t forget you, even if I wanted to,” Virgil whispers. Roman leans forward, eyes closing, and brushes a soft kiss against Virgil’s lips. Before Virgil can respond, he’s gone. 

[chapterxxv]

How to Know if You Should Spend Forever Together

A love story

By Heather Havrilesky

Romance is an act of imagination, fueled by fear. My perfect future husband and I don’t know that yet, as we begin planning our first trip to Europe, scrutinizing blurry photos of hotel rooms in Le Marais and San Sebastián to discern if they’re the suitable mix of sophisticated and scrappy, skimming menus and considering attractions, packing ordinary clothes for these extraordinary places. We have faith that we will become extraordinary on the beaches at Biarritz. We are certain that, in the gorgeous corridors of Barcelona, his eyes will sparkle, my hair will form a luxurious, fluffy frame around my sun-dappled face. As we plan for romance, we are sure that romance will elevate us to a higher level of consciousness and gorgeousness and confidence. We are in love, after all. We have found our person. This is the start of a whole new life. All former selves — intractable, lumpy, ungrateful, repetitive, needy — will be left behind.

But our former selves disagree. They are packing their bags for their first trip to Europe, too. They know they have the power to ruin everything. Imagine, how romantic it will be, to destroy a very good thing — the best one yet, by far! Our former selves snicker behind their hands as they pack. They cannot wait.

Some might say the romance of this romantic trip began the morning we left for Paris. As we waited for our cab outside my perfect future husband’s apartment, I felt a leaf in my hair and tried to pull it out, only to find a crushed, furry bee between my fingers.

Others might argue that, as the plane tilted and rumbled across the Atlantic and my wrist swelled to the size of a prune, that was when the real romance began.

Others, though, would zoom in on that first night in the closet-sized Parisian hotel room with the slanted stairs and slanted floors, the room spinning from what I would in retrospect properly label as vertigo, my mind flooding with the dreadful realization that every corner of Paris does not smell like the pages of glossy lady magazines. The romance, they would argue, sprang to life the moment I became aware that when you walk the streets of Paris for the very first time, you do not always feel like a great glowing god, optimistic and invincible.

In fact, it is possible to feel queasy and ugly and stupid on the streets of Paris. It is possible to find the corner cafe too crowded and smoky, to encounter the tiny brasseries and flower stands as cartoonish imitations of a France that might’ve vanished decades ago. It is possible to find the French themselves a teensy bit too French. Not only that, but it is possible to reach into one’s brain for a single sentence from six years of French in junior high and high school and college, and discover an utter void. And after fumbling for words and mumbling something in English like a common tourist who has never been to Paris even once, after the waiter rolls his eyes and theatrically turns on his heel, revealing himself to be a bad imitation of a breed of French waiter that might’ve died off around the time Hemingway last set foot on the continent, after looking down at an idiotic crepe — we might as well be at Universal Studios Hollywood! — after all of that, I looked to my perfect, handsome, smart, amazing future husband for comfort and reassurance, and saw that he was a little bit … moist. He was looking back with worried eyes, wondering if, like Paris itself, he was a big letdown. And in that exceptionally frightening and thus deeply romantic moment, it was suddenly possible to find this handsome, smart, amazing future husband … disappointing.

What’s more disappointing? The fact that he actually cares what you’re feeling, which for some crazy reason makes you angry and self-conscious, or the fact that he doesn’t bluster his way through his nonexistent French so much as cringe and cower visibly? This is what all of your former selves are debating in delighted tones as you take the fast train from Paris to Biarritz, your head spinning and your bee sting, now the size of a plum, throbbing. This is not how your arrogant father behaved when he was traveling, your former selves remind you. Your dad dove in and blustered his way through it all, and you felt safe and secure (if sometimes slightly embarrassed). Your future husband has no bluster. His fears amplify your fears.

“But what do you want?” Your former selves hiss in your ear as the landscape whizzes by and your future husband smiles nervously in your direction. “Do you seriously want a daddy? You’re so pathetic that you can’t travel to Europe for the first time without wanting your future husband to imitate your actual dead father?”

This moment, as the train pulls into Biarritz and your self-hatred starts to upstage your hatred of your amazing future husband, might just be the starting point of the real, true romance. The rain lets up enough for the two of you to find a table by the ocean, and as you sit there, you notice that you are surrounded by a wide range of bored international types with money, families with adult children, all of them with the same triple-processed hair carrying the same Gucci and Hermès bags, all of them trussed up in tight jeans and blousy blouses. You might as well be at The Grove in Los Angeles. You might as well be in Miami or New Jersey or Pleasanton, California.

This is not the real France, the real Europe. You arrived a decade too late — maybe two or three decades too late. You could’ve come as a student and stayed in hostels and gotten drunk on red wine with greasy delicious strangers, but instead you are dragging along with you a disappointing middle-age dope like an unwieldy, oversized suitcase without wheels. He has nothing to say, you can see that now. He tries to make up for it by reading street signs out loud in a cheerful voice, like some kind of confused half-wit. He is awkward and he is wearing — is that a golf shirt?

Here is where the roller coaster starts climbing the really steep hill that will almost certainly bring your death. At this moment when you recognize for the first time that you are wasting a literal fortune just to lug an oversized man-shaped bag through a long-ago-destroyed, overpriced tourist wasteland, as your pulse races and you realize that this misshapen, pointless, charmless mountain of wincing leather will soon propose marriage to you, of all things, that’s when you know in your heart that all lives peter out early and become miserable descents into old age and disappointment. Heterosexual women like yourself only pair up with a man because they know they’re going to be miserable anyway, so they might as well have a guy around to carry things and fetch the car and speed them through customs.

Why a man, though? Your former selves whisper as your oversized luggage orders a second lukewarm beer. Why spend the rest of your life with a man, of all things? Men, you now see clearly, are tedious beasts with nothing to offer and nothing to add. Why not bring your closest female friends to Europe? There’s nothing you’d like better than to have your girlfriends here instead, drinking and snickering with you over the bad waiter. Why do you and your lady friends isolate yourselves into miserable pairs instead? Why not marry your friends? Why not marry a nice dog or a gentle horse? Marrying a man is like ordering an imitation crepe in an imitation of a cafe in an imitation of Paris. Why marry an inadequate replica? You will merely seal yourself into a wax museum of your own creation.

One might presume that the point when you began to write off all monogamous heterosexual human relations from a few centuries back forward to the present moment could mark the apex of the romance in this heady story of romance! One could be forgiven for presuming this. Because as you trudged through the streets of San Sebastián, flanked by soccer — yes, football! — fans pissing on the cobblestone streets, as you boarded an overnight train to Barcelona, your head knocking into the side of the train car for hours, as you finally entered those narrow old streets, sleep-deprived, your vertigo kicking up again, you issued a deeply romantic warning to your future husband.

“I know you’re probably planning to propose on this trip,” you recall yourself saying. “Don’t speak, just listen very closely: Don’t propose when I’m tired and dizzy, like I am today. I’m PMSing right now, just so you know, so don’t propose while I’m still PMSing. Make sure I’m at least showered. And don’t buy me some bubble gum machine ring. I want a real engagement ring. That will take time for you to pick out. So don’t propose anytime soon. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

Your big stumbly non-rolling bag looked at you, disappointed. Handle everything, is what you meant, with confidence, with arrogant self-assurance, with swagger, even. But do it later. Much, much later.

“OK. I hear you.” That’s all he said, because he has literally nothing to say, ever, like all men.

Maybe I was buying myself some time. Maybe I knew by then that our former selves had stowed away on the plane with us, and I didn’t want his self-doubting former self proposing to my hormonal, ugly, resentful former self. I didn’t want him to ask me to marry him with a question mark in his voice, asking not just “Will you marry me?” but also, “Is this a stupid idea?” and “Am I good enough for you?” and “Are you good enough for me, or are you actually completely terrible?”

I wanted him to be sure, because I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough for him or for myself or for marriage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend forever with anyone, least of all myself. But I was very, very sure, at that particular moment on our trip, that nothing would ever make me happy. I was sure that I would drag him down into hell with me.

I wasn’t wrong about that. Because when we arrived at our hotel north of Valencia, we finally broke into a giant fight — about how tedious and repugnant he insisted on being, maybe, or about choosing the wrong hotel or about something even smaller, who knows? (You can fight with an overpacked bag about anything under the sun, trust me). And I yelled at my perfect future husband. I yelled at him in my bad sleep shorts, with my tangled, ugly hair on my hideous head, and as I yelled I thought, “This will release me from this purgatorial entanglement! I’m free! I am disgusting and I deserve to be alone forever!” My future husband stormed out. Success!

He returned a half-hour later. He sat next to me on the bed, where I was reading. He was apologetic, which was helpful and yet also unattractive. Then he spoke. “There was a jewelry festival of some kind downstairs — ” and he started to reach into his pocket.

This time I didn’t just yell. “NO!” I shrieked. “I told you I didn’t want this!” I wailed like someone about to jump off a cruise ship and drown in the salty terrible sea. I screeched like a woman smothering all of her former selves under an avalanche of self-loathing. I howled like a woman murdering the best thing that had ever happened to her, ruining the absolute best relationship with the kindest, most patient, most defensive, most exasperating, most handsome, most hideous man she had ever met. I bellowed and sobbed and snotted into my pillow, in my bad sleep shorts, in my bad hair, and my future husband yelled back, telling me I was terrible, finally admitting that I was awful, awful and unlovable, things I knew all along but wanted to hear out loud, and in English.

My disappointing future husband sat in the bathroom of our disappointing hotel room on a disappointing stretch of Spanish coastline for about 20 minutes. Then he came out. He did not show me the (probably disappointingly bad) ring he’d bought. We talked in ragged tones about what was happening to us. I cried. He sulked. We talked some more. We cuddled ambivalently on the uncomfortable mattress of the bad bed in the bad room, hating ourselves and each other, hating Spain and Europe and the whole planet and the inky black void beyond it.

The next morning, we drove down the coast, sunshine streaming in the windows of our tiny rental car, over empty, winding roads. “The south of Spain!” a voice inside my head gushed. We stopped at a place called the Auto Grill. Among the bad pieces of pizza and wilted-looking salads, I found a sandwich made of fresh bread (finally!), manchego and jamon iberico wrapped in paper. My future husband found some very good olives and another sandwich with other cured meats involved, and we ate our sandwiches in the front seat of our tiny rental car in the parking lot, and we didn’t talk much.

All of us were there, our former selves and our current selves. We were excited and melancholy and needy and pissy and impatient and satisfied. And thatwas the most romantic moment of this very romantic story. Because as we sat and chewed, we realized that love had not transformed us into great, glowing gods, optimistic and invincible. Instead, all of our former and current selves would be packed into that tiny car like temperamental clowns, and our agony wouldn’t end when our trip was over. We were in for a rough ride that would last a lifetime, or even longer. Maybe we would even be jammed together like sardines in the afterlife. Anything was possible.

We ate our cured meats in silence and every now and then, we looked into each other’s eyes and we didn’t look away quickly. Because we knew that it was possible to be disgusted and annoyed and bored and still feel love — pounding, elated, passionate. In that moment, we were disheveled and ordinary, and also gorgeous and extraordinary. We belonged together. We were terrified, but we were sure.

[difficultdivine]

How to Know if You Should Spend Forever Together: A love story.

By Heather Havrilesky

Sept. 29, 2018

Romance is an act of imagination, fueled by fear. My perfect future husband and I don’t know that yet, as we begin planning our first trip to Europe, scrutinizing blurry photos of hotel rooms in Le Marais and San Sebastián to discern if they’re the suitable mix of sophisticated and scrappy, skimming menus and considering attractions, packing ordinary clothes for these extraordinary places. We have faith that we will become extraordinary on the beaches at Biarritz. We are certain that, in the gorgeous corridors of Barcelona, his eyes will sparkle, my hair will form a luxurious, fluffy frame around my sun-dappled face. As we plan for romance, we are sure that romance will elevate us to a higher level of consciousness and gorgeousness and confidence. We are in love, after all. We have found our person. This is the start of a whole new life. All former selves — intractable, lumpy, ungrateful, repetitive, needy — will be left behind.

But our former selves disagree. They are packing their bags for their first trip to Europe, too. They know they have the power to ruin everything. Imagine, how romantic it will be, to destroy a very good thing — the best one yet, by far! Our former selves snicker behind their hands as they pack. They cannot wait.

¸.•*¨*•.¸♥¸.•*¨*•.¸♪¸.•*¨*•.¸

Some might say the romance of this romantic trip began the morning we left for Paris. As we waited for our cab outside my perfect future husband’s apartment, I felt a leaf in my hair and tried to pull it out, only to find a crushed, furry bee between my fingers.

Others might argue that, as the plane tilted and rumbled across the Atlantic and my wrist swelled to the size of a prune, that was when the real romance began.

Others, though, would zoom in on that first night in the closet-sized Parisian hotel room with the slanted stairs and slanted floors, the room spinning from what I would in retrospect properly label as vertigo, my mind flooding with the dreadful realization that every corner of Paris does not smell like the pages of glossy lady magazines. The romance, they would argue, sprang to life the moment I became aware that when you walk the streets of Paris for the very first time, you do not always feel like a great glowing god, optimistic and invincible.

In fact, it is possible to feel queasy and ugly and stupid on the streets of Paris. It is possible to find the corner cafe too crowded and smoky, to encounter the tiny brasseries and flower stands as cartoonish imitations of a France that might’ve vanished decades ago. It is possible to find the French themselves a teensy bit too French. Not only that, but it is possible to reach into one’s brain for a single sentence from six years of French in junior high and high school and college, and discover an utter void. And after fumbling for words and mumbling something in English like a common tourist who has never been to Paris even once, after the waiter rolls his eyes and theatrically turns on his heel, revealing himself to be a bad imitation of a breed of French waiter that might’ve died off around the time Hemingway last set foot on the continent, after looking down at an idiotic crepe — we might as well be at Universal Studios Hollywood! — after all of that, I looked to my perfect, handsome, smart, amazing future husband for comfort and reassurance, and saw that he was a little bit … moist. He was looking back with worried eyes, wondering if, like Paris itself, he was a big letdown. And in that exceptionally frightening and thus deeply romantic moment, it was suddenly possible to find this handsome, smart, amazing future husband … disappointing.

♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸❤¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪

What’s more disappointing? The fact that he actually cares what you’re feeling, which for some crazy reason makes you angry and self-conscious, or the fact that he doesn’t bluster his way through his nonexistent French so much as cringe and cower visibly? This is what all of your former selves are debating in delighted tones as you take the fast train from Paris to Biarritz, your head spinning and your bee sting, now the size of a plum, throbbing. This is not how your arrogant father behaved when he was traveling, your former selves remind you. Your dad dove in and blustered his way through it all, and you felt safe and secure (if sometimes slightly embarrassed). Your future husband has no bluster. His fears amplify your fears.

“But what do you want?” Your former selves hiss in your ear as the landscape whizzes by and your future husband smiles nervously in your direction. “Do you seriously want a daddy? You’re so pathetic that you can’t travel to Europe for the first time without wanting your future husband to imitate your actual dead father?”

This moment, as the train pulls into Biarritz and your self-hatred starts to upstage your hatred of your amazing future husband, might just be the starting point of the real, true romance. The rain lets up enough for the two of you to find a table by the ocean, and as you sit there, you notice that you are surrounded by a wide range of bored international types with money, families with adult children, all of them with the same triple-processed hair carrying the same Gucci and Hermès bags, all of them trussed up in tight jeans and blousy blouses. You might as well be at The Grove in Los Angeles. You might as well be in Miami or New Jersey or Pleasanton, Calif.

This is not the real France, the real Europe. You arrived a decade too late — maybe two or three decades too late. You could’ve come as a student and stayed in hostels and gotten drunk on red wine with greasy delicious strangers, but instead you are dragging along with you a disappointing middle-aged dope like an unwieldy, oversized suitcase without wheels. He has nothing to say, you can see that now. He tries to make up for it by reading street signs out loud in a cheerful voice, like some kind of confused half-wit. He is awkward and he is wearing — is that a golf shirt?

Here is where the roller coaster starts climbing the really steep hill that will almost certainly bring your death. At this moment when you recognize for the first time that you are wasting a literal fortune just to lug an oversized man-shaped bag through a long-ago-destroyed, overpriced tourist wasteland, as your pulse races and you realize that this misshapen, pointless, charmless mountain of wincing leather will soon propose marriage to you, of all things, that’s when you know in your heart that all lives peter out early and become miserable descents into old age and disappointment. Heterosexual women like yourself only pair up with a man because they know they’re going to be miserable anyway, so they might as well have a guy around to carry things and fetch the car and speed them through customs.

Why a man, though? Your former selves whisper as your oversized luggage orders a second lukewarm beer. Why spend the rest of your life with a man, of all things? Men, you now see clearly, are tedious beasts with nothing to offer and nothing to add. Why not bring your closest female friends to Europe? There’s nothing you’d like better than to have your girlfriends here instead, drinking and snickering with you over the bad waiter. Why do you and your lady friends isolate yourselves into miserable pairs instead? Why not marry your friends? Why not marry a nice dog or a gentle horse? Marrying a man is like ordering an imitation crepe in an imitation of a cafe in an imitation of Paris. Why marry an inadequate replica? You will merely seal yourself into a wax museum of your own creation.

One might presume that the point when you began to write off all monogamous heterosexual human relations from a few centuries back forward to the present moment could mark the apex of the romance in this heady story of romance! One could be forgiven for presuming this. Because as you trudged through the streets of San Sebastián, flanked by soccer — yes, football! — fans pissing on the cobblestone streets, as you boarded an overnight train to Barcelona, your head knocking into the side of the train car for hours, as you finally entered those narrow old streets, sleep-deprived, your vertigo kicking up again, you issued a deeply romantic warning to your future husband.

“I know you’re probably planning to propose on this trip,” you recall yourself saying. “Don’t speak, just listen very closely: Don’t propose when I’m tired and dizzy, like I am today. I’m PMSing right now, just so you know, so don’t propose while I’m still PMSing. Make sure I’m at least showered. And don’t buy me some bubble gum machine ring. I want a real engagement ring. That will take time for you to pick out. So don’t propose anytime soon. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

Your big stumbly non-rolling bag looked at you, disappointed. Handle everything, is what you meant, with confidence, with arrogant self-assurance, with swagger, even. But do it later. Much, much later.

“OK. I hear you.” That’s all he said, because he has literally nothing to say, ever, like all men.

Maybe I was buying myself some time. Maybe I knew by then that our former selves had stowed away on the plane with us, and I didn’t want his self-doubting former self proposing to my hormonal, ugly, resentful former self. I didn’t want him to ask me to marry him with a question mark in his voice, asking not just “Will you marry me?” but also, “Is this a stupid idea?” and “Am I good enough for you?” and “Are you good enough for me, or are you actually completely terrible?”

I wanted him to be sure, because I wasn’t. I wasn’t sure if I was good enough for him or for myself or for marriage. I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend forever with anyone, least of all myself. But I was very, very sure, at that particular moment on our trip, that nothing would ever make me happy. I was sure that I would drag him down into hell with me.

I wasn’t wrong about that. Because when we arrived at our hotel north of Valencia, we finally broke into a giant fight — about how tedious and repugnant he insisted on being, maybe, or about choosing the wrong hotel or about something even smaller, who knows? (You can fight with an overpacked bag about anything under the sun, trust me). And I yelled at my perfect future husband. I yelled at him in my bad sleep shorts, with my tangled, ugly hair on my hideous head, and as I yelled I thought, “This will release me from this purgatorial entanglement! I’m free! I am disgusting and I deserve to be alone forever!” My future husband stormed out. Success!

He returned a half-hour later. He sat next to me on the bed, where I was reading. He was apologetic, which was helpful and yet also unattractive. Then he spoke. “There was a jewelry festival of some kind downstairs —” and he started to reach into his pocket.

This time I didn’t just yell. “NO!” I shrieked. “I told you I didn’t want this!” I wailed like someone about to jump off a cruise ship and drown in the salty terrible sea. I screeched like a woman smothering all of her former selves under an avalanche of self-loathing. I howled like a woman murdering the best thing that had ever happened to her, ruining the absolute best relationship with the kindest, most patient, most defensive, most exasperating, most handsome, most hideous man she had ever met. I bellowed and sobbed and snotted into my pillow, in my bad sleep shorts, in my bad hair, and my future husband yelled back, telling me I was terrible, finally admitting that I was awful, awful and unlovable, things I knew all along but wanted to hear out loud, and in English.

My disappointing future husband sat in the bathroom of our disappointing hotel room on a disappointing stretch of Spanish coastline for about 20 minutes. Then he came out. He did not show me the (probably disappointingly bad) ring he’d bought. We talked in ragged tones about what was happening to us. I cried. He sulked. We talked some more. We cuddled ambivalently on the uncomfortable mattress of the bad bed in the bad room, hating ourselves and each other, hating Spain and Europe and the whole planet and the inky black void beyond it.

♥.•´¯`•.¸¸.•..:*´¨`*:.☆

The next morning, we drove down the coast, sunshine streaming in the windows of our tiny rental car, over empty, winding roads. “The south of Spain!” a voice inside my head gushed. We stopped at a place called the Auto Grill. Among the bad pieces of pizza and wilted-looking salads, I found a sandwich made of fresh bread (finally!), manchego and jamon iberico wrapped in paper. My future husband found some very good olives and another sandwich with other cured meats involved, and we ate our sandwiches in the front seat of our tiny rental car in the parking lot, and we didn’t talk much.

All of us were there, our former selves and our current selves. We were excited and melancholy and needy and pissy and impatient and satisfied. And that was the most romantic moment of this very romantic story. Because as we sat and chewed, we realized that love had not transformed us into great, glowing gods, optimistic and invincible. Instead, all of our former and current selves would be packed into that tiny car like temperamental clowns, and our agony wouldn’t end when our trip was over. We were in for a rough ride that would last a lifetime, or even longer. Maybe we would even be jammed together like sardines in the afterlife. Anything was possible.

We ate our cured meats in silence and every now and then, we looked into each other’s eyes and we didn’t look away quickly. Because we knew that it was possible to be disgusted and annoyed and bored and still feel love — pounding, elated, passionate. In that moment, we were disheveled and ordinary, and also gorgeous and extraordinary. We belonged together. We were terrified, but we were sure.

Heather Havrilesky is the author of the upcoming essay collection “What If This Were Enough?” (October 2 from Doubleday). She’s been happily married for 12 years.