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Before

Everyone has an earliest memory.

Some people recall memories from age nine. Age ten.

Some people think they can recall memories from when they were in the womb. (They can’t, because it’s scientifically impossible, and I don’t think I like those people.)

My earliest memories are from around five, and I remember thinking to myself that I was certain I could tell the most about a person by the way they laughed.

Every person has more than one, and I think that’s why I loved that my brain could have that thought. There are so many types of laughs one person can have that I’m not sure you’re ever really done discovering them. Not for yourself or the people around you.

There’s something about getting to hear someone’s laugh. This outward, crystal clear sign of joy. Of happiness. You can’t hide it once it’s happening. It’s like this unspoken permission for you to unzip yourself for a little while.

What I remember most about growing up is how my house was always filled with laughter. There was so much of it in every corner.

It painted the walls of the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, and the den.

It painted the whole inside of the house and the outside. It was absolutely everywhere, all the time, and then when it faded, this incredible peacefulness was left in its wake.

Those are what my earliest memories are made of.

My dad’s eyes crinkled at the corners, face split in two from a smile that made him look years younger. My mom with her head tipped back, nothing but a wheeze escaping her as she clutched her stomach in a desperate attempt to deter the cramps that ensued from the sort of laughter that made your eyes water.

I remembered looking at my little sister, who watched our parents with wide, dazzling brown eyes filled with unhinged adoration before she released a scream of her own. Clapping her hands and bouncing in her high chair, completely unaware of why she was suddenly filled to the brim with an overwhelming amount of joy, only certain in the knowledge that she was .

I remember thinking to myself that when I grew up, all I really wanted was for the walls of whatever home I had for myself to be splattered with laughter in the exact same way. I didn’t want it to just start and end with the walls of this future, imaginary house, though.

I wanted to be covered in it. Head to toe. When I went to school. Out with my friends.

I wanted the inside of my very first car to be positively defiled with laughter.

I wanted it everywhere and on everything. In my hair, my eyelashes, between my toes like grains of sand that you could never get rid of.

It never occurred to me that anything could move over that belief like a blanket of clouds slowly taking over the sun.

Imagine seeing them in the distance, sweet and cozy.

You might want to stick your hand up into the heavens and pull a handful of those fluffy bastards down to take a big bite. They’re scattered at first. The periods without sunshine at all are sparse and fleeting. Hardly enough to even start to notice the warmth leaving your skin.

But then they get more serious, and whether they break for the sunshine or not isn’t up to you at all.

That’s what I learned. That the sun was the laughter in my life, and the clouds had become something controlled completely by my heart. More terrifyingly, by the people— the person —who held my heart.

I heard his laugh first.

It wasn’t particularly loud or brash. There’s no reason it should have stood out among the others. No reason at all. I know for certain that in the moments after it had burst to life and filled the air of the bar around us, it had sought me out specifically. Like a string tied to one of my ribs. Tied to all of them.

I followed it right until I heard the sound again. The only real word I had for it was entranced.

Or drunk.

I was also incredibly drunk. But my eyes still worked, and I could see him where he sat right at the bar with someone who could have been incredibly famous or maybe he was just talking to a potted plant. I had no idea, and I didn’t care. I paid them– it? – no attention.

Him, though. I noticed everything about him.

This rough-around-the-edges man with tattoos covering both his arms, all the way down to his wrists and peeking up above the neckline of his shirt. With hair that hit his shoulders and probably hadn’t met a brush in its lifetime but in the sexiest way.

This man with eyes a blue so light they looked violet, even in the dim yellow light of the bar that was filled way past what I was sure was the legal limit for patrons.

I could imagine dipping a brush into his laughter and painting my life with it. I didn’t remember ever wanting to do something so badly, maybe ever .

I’d been content in my bubble of imaginary invisibility, where I could stare openly at this other human being with no concerns at all about being caught. It didn’t even really register when his eyes met mine, and he held them. Like we were forged. Tethered together, and something made complete and total sense in that split second that our eyes met.

Then he stood up from his table and started walking toward us, and my whole world screeched to a halt.

“Oh my god.”

“What?” my roommate Angelika said, looking literally everywhere except at the giant, very firm-looking man walking directly at us.

“Jelly, talk to me. So it looks like we’re speaking.” I reached for her leg under the table and squeezed.

She swatted me away immediately. “ Ow. What is wrong with you? How can I speak to you when you’re not even looking at me?”

We had a…complicated relationship. I think I liked her maybe forty percent of the time. She liked me much, much less than that, and I was sure it was because I had the audacity to ask her (very politely and with no direct eye contact) to stop having sex so loudly in our shared dorm room after I’d been woken up for the third time.

“I need—” My words cut off as Violet Eyes stopped right in front of our table.

“Holy smokes. You’re a whole lotta man.” Jelly let out a low whistle, and I reached out and gripped her thigh again.

“Would you like to dance?” Oh, oh. His voice.

“Cali.” A forceful shove was delivered to my shoulder.

“I…thank you.” I thank you?

“She thanks you.” Jelly’s beaming, incredibly entertained smile was audible even as I sunk my nails into her leg. “Fuck me, Calista. You’re going to hit an artery,” she gritted out between her teeth, finally managing to unlatch my nails from her thigh.

I was still staring at the whole lotta man .

“You know,” Jelly said, hopping off her stool. “I think I saw someone I’d like to meet outside.”

“It’s raining,” I said, my eyes not at all on her.

“I guess we’ll test your theory and see if I melt!”

And then she was gone.

Then there were two.

“Calista,” he said. Pronouncing every letter of my name with intent, like every syllable held a taste. “I’m Fane.”

“Calista.” I introduced myself again like a moron. “My middle name’s Rose.” I shrugged like that information was useful to this hot stranger who was watching me while I tried to fit my whole foot right into my mouth. “So…Cali Rose. But, uh, Calista is fine. Better, even.”

Holy balls . Kill me now.

“Cali Rose is pretty.” He seemed to look glad to still be standing in front of me instead of horrified that he’d walked up to the world’s most inept conversationalist.

I cleared my throat and opted to pretend the last minute never happened.

“I’ve never met someone named Fane before,” I mumbled, undoubtedly dazed by this human stranger in front of me.

“Would you look at that,” he said, holding his hand out to me.

“What?” The word was breathless and enthralled and hopeful.

“The first thing we have in common.” He pulled me up to standing until I was eye to…pectoral?

“You are a very big man,” I said, staring directly at his sternum.

That’s when I heard it again.

His laugh. It just ripped right out of him. Head tipped back and body shaking with delight.

Completely and totally unzipped.

It was contagious, and I knew those breathless, enthralled, and hopeful feelings were all over my face.

When he asked me to dance a second time, I said yes.

I said yes to a first date, and a second, and a third.

It was the end of my second year of college, and immediately, I had no idea what life looked like without him in it.

I was consumed. Entirely. I had been covered in the sun shining warmth of that same laughter that had tied itself to every rib for two years. I couldn’t imagine wanting anything else. I didn’t think there was anything more . There was simply this person who controlled the clouds in my sky, and every single day was perfect.

Peaceful.

My god, that peacefulness. I didn’t think there would’ve been something to steal my craving for the sunshine but Fane was total, utter peace. It was safe and strong and solid and in that, I had everything I needed.

Even when things weren’t perfect, they were still perfect.

And then my mom got sick. She got sick, and it was like I could feel the laugh lines around my father’s eyes smooth out for the first time in my life. That was the first time I realized what it was like to be heavy. The first time I saw someone else be heavy. Covered entirely in clouds without a speck of sunshine to be seen. It was terrifying.

So, I moved home.

There was never any other option for me. It had always been the plan to go back one day, and I couldn’t help thinking that I was doing my part in making it that little bit better by bringing him home. By adding him to the fold of this safe, perfect place.

There was never any other option for me.

For me.