Show Me How by Molly McAdams

my closest friends because they’re like family. But the other? I think it’s something ­people have made up over the years. It’s wants and needs and infatuations that ­people glorify into a relationship and marriage that you either stick out for your life or decide you don’t want to deal with anymore.
    Stranger: I don’t think we’re meant to fall in love with someone and spend forever with them. I think the whole “the one” thing is just bullshit.
    â€œThat’s depressing,” I whispered, then tapped my words out to him.
    That is incredibly depressing.
    Stranger: How did I know you wouldn’t agree with me? Even after the guy from years ago that treated you the way he did, you still believe in it?
    Of course I do.
    I don’t think it’s always easy, and the journey to find the person you’re meant to be with can be messy, but I think there is at least one person for everyone. And I don’t say “at least” in the instance that we get bored, but if there’s a death, or something like that . . .
    And, yeah, it can start with wants and needs and desire, but you never know when it might end up turning into something so much more than that—­when your soul recognizes theirs. I feel like a part of our souls are dying away every day until we finally find the person who holds the other half.
    Stranger: Soul mates, huh? If that even exists, I think ­people are quick to put that label on someone. Just like I think ­people are too quick to say those three little words.
    True, some ­people are.
    Stranger: Not you?
    I had only ever told one person that I had loved them, and I hadn’t even said the words “I love you.” I’d simply told Ben that I’d been in love with him for as long as I could remember. Those three words had never left my lips, though I had fantasized for years about the day they would.
    No, but I envy them. I think it’s a beautiful thing to be a lover.
    Stranger: You and your words . . .
    Stranger: So you’re a romantic then?
    Obviously, as if you expected me to be anything less.
    And I will say I’m kind of disappointed in your lack of belief in love.
    Stranger: Sorry, Words. No white knight waiting to sweep you off your feet here.
    Ha ha. Shame.
    I fought off a yawn as I tapped out my response, and glanced up when something caught my eye out of one of the large windows of the warehouse. I blinked quickly, squinted, then smiled at the pinkish gray sky.
    Good morning, Stranger.
    Stranger: Christ. Already? Morning, Words.
    I don’t know why you always sound so surprised when you won’t ever let me go to sleep.
    Stranger: I’m sorry.
    Stranger: I like your words, what can I say?
    My chest moved with my silent laugh, and my lips pulled into a smile.
    Yeah, but I think ­people at work are starting to worry about why I can’t function.
    There was such a long pause before the little dots popped up, indicating he was typing, that I’d thought he’d finally fallen asleep.
    Stranger: I’m really struggling not to ask where you work. Or who you are . . .
    I wouldn’t tell you even if you did.
    Stranger: Ever?
    My thumbs stilled above my screen as I thought. What we’d had with my notebook last week, and now with texting all night every night, was safe because we knew nothing about each other. And yet, in the past week and a half, I’d told him everything about myself.
    He didn’t know my name, my family, the specifics of my past with Ben, or about Keith . . . but he knew more about me than anyone else ever had. And I knew that was because there was this sense that he wasn’t actually real. Like he was fictional. It was as if I was falling for the hero of a book, except he was real.
    Something told me that if we were ever put in front of each other, what we’d had would end, and I wasn’t ready for it to. I’d