Better Than Easy by Nick Alexander

outcome.
    â€œDo you see what I mean?” Tom says. “I don’t see staying together forever,
what
ever, as a dream at all. It always looks like a prison sentence to me.”
    I nod slowly. “But it’s just so depressing,” I say.
    Tom shrugs. “It’s only depressing if you think that’s what you
have
to have, that that’s how it
should
be. If you just give up on the idea and take each day as it comes, if you just assume that everything is transitory, then it’s fine. Fun even.”
    I nod vaguely and reach out to stroke Tom’s leg. “I
do
see what you’re saying,” I say. “But
…
I don’tknow. It doesn’t
work
for me.”
    Paloma leaps onto Tom’s lap and starts to turn round and around in an attempt at getting comfortable. Tom uncrosses his legs to help her. “Dizzy cat,” he says.
    â€œWhat you say makes sense, Tom, especially coming from where you’re coming from. Your parents, my parents, Jenny, Nick
…
I mean, I can’t fault the logic, but I don’t see how you can
live
like that. How can you plan for anything, build anything? How can you do anything other than live day-to-day if it’s all going to end?”
    â€œThat’s the idea I think,” Tom says. “To live day-to-day.”
    â€œSo, what about, say, the gîte? There are things that take planning, things that take more than a day. Things you can only do with the assumption that you’ll still be here tomorrow.”
    â€œIt’s like life,” Tom says. “We all know we die at the end; we all know it’s ultimately pointless, but we do it anyway.”
    I swallow hard and nod slowly. “Except that that isn’t how I live,” I say. “What you say is true, but it’s not how I live. I don’t think about the fact that I’m gonna die all the time; that it’s all
pointless
– if I did I wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. It’s how humans live – we pretend we
aren’t
going to die. And it may not be logical or scientific, or right even, but it can still be a better, happier way to live. And I do pretend that we’ll be together forever – or at least that we’ll
maybe
be together forever. Because the alternative – believing, as you do, that it’s all destined to dust anyway – makes me want to just not bother, not make any effort; it makes me want to give up at the first hurdle.”
    Tom grits his teeth and pulls his bottom lip down into a cartoon grimace. “That bad huh?” he says.
    â€œBut beyond the
…
” I shrug.
“Emotional?
side of things
…
I think that even in practical terms, well, Ithink that we
make
our own destiny. Through what we choose to believe.”
    â€œWe
do
all die though,” Tom says. “Whether we believe it or not.”
    I nod. “Yeah, sure,” I say. “But not all
relationships
are doomed. Some
do
last a lifetime. But practically speaking, it kind of seems to me that if you don’t believe that it can, if you don’t even entertain that possibility, well, then it
is
doomed.”
    â€œDoomed,”
Tom says in a Scottish accent. “We’re all
doomed.”
    I frown at him.
    â€œSorry,” he says, pulling a guilty face.
    â€œDon’t mock me,” I say.
    â€œIt’s just all getting a bit dramatic,” Tom says gently. “A bit metaphysical.”
    â€œI know. But it
is
metaphysical,” I say. “There’s a bit of me that thinks that what you choose to believe is important. And if you believe that something can happen, then maybe it can, and if you believe that it can’t, then, well, it really can’t.”
    â€œSo if I believe in UFO’s
…
” Tom says.
    â€œNo. But if you believe our relationship
might
last forever then it
might,”
I say. “And if you
don’t
, then, well, it just