You and I and I and You by Camden Rose
1000 words, ~5 minutes reading time
Issue 7 (Spring 2025)
—we’ll meet for the first time in a tavern saloon diner coffee shop. I know it’s you because I’ve been looking for you all of my lives and it’s always you.
When I walk by, it looks as though you’re trying to reconcile this version of me with one you knew before, maybe in a dream. You say “Have we met?”
“Yes No,” I say. Though every night, I dream a thousand versions of us, where we meet, fall in love, and leave only to meet again in another time.
You laugh as though you’ve practiced this moment in front of a mirror for the last thousand million twenty years. A potted plant Homemade cookies A Lego tower A scone falls into your lap.
I chuckle and push my hair behind my ear. It feels wrong, this hair. Everything in this body feels wrong.
“Sorry, I’m normally not this clumsy,” you say, brushing crumbs off your skirt shorts jeans. You’re lying.
“It’s okay. I’m Cyrus Obi Grace Wren Sonja Alexa Jake Eve.” I hold out my hand. You take it and your fingers relax in my grip.
“I don’t understand how you can move in with someone that quickly,” my mom roommate best friend ex says. When we met, I thought maybe, for once, I could choose who to be with. I thought wrong.
My ex and I are still friends.
“Fate,” I say. My ex grimaces.
She sprays the can of whipped cream in her mouth and swallows. “Ominous,” she says, and I hear the implication underneath: You never moved that fast with me.
I ignore her. After all, I found you.
“Destiny,” I reply.
I propose to you after we’ve been dating a month day year. At this point, you’ve gotten impatient, but not impatient enough to ask me. I think, like me, you’d rather act like we chose this, just like any other couple.
So we wait until I die you die I ask you.
You say yes. Your ring sparkles like your eyes did the day you found out that we were reincarnated lovers and you never had a choice I watched you die, not knowing when I’d find you again we chose to take some time apart because we were done with knowing too much about each other and still never enough you told me you loved me. You knew without a doubt that we were meant to be together.
We don’t have kids. We can’t because when you give birth, your body bleeds out like a heartbeat because when I give birth, I can’t handle having to share your love with another. Instead, you cook and I cook. You clean and I clean. You go fishing in the middle of a lake on a humid summer day and I join even though I hate the sun and the way the moisture in the air engulfs me. I’d rather have hair plastered to my neck than spend a day apart. We’re lovers. We have to spend every waking hour together. As though the world will stop turning if we aren’t in each other’s arms.
My friends call me crazy. Sometimes I am. One evening, I sit in bed, yearning for the warmth of a different you. Once, I almost fling myself out a window to have a break from you. Still, we stay together, attached at the hip. We don’t need anyone else. We have us.
I call my ex one evening after you’ve gone to bed. She answers on the first second third ring.
I choke back tears, tell her that I’m not sure how something can feel so right but also so wrong.
“Whoa, whoa, Eve. Slow down,” she says. “Do you need me to come over?”
I say no. I say yes. I say nothing. My ex hangs up. Ten minutes later, she’s at the door in her PJs. The ones I gave her.
I wonder if all iterations of me have felt like this.
My ex gives me a hug. It’s warm and comforting, but not as comforting as yours. Somehow, even knowing it’s fated, I still crave your touch more than anything. My ex backs away and looks closely at my face.
“Right, so what’s going on? Do you need a rescue?”
All of my answers are too complex to explain. How do I tell her that I don’t know if my happiness is my happiness? Am I just a puppet in the hands of destiny fooled into thinking I have free will?
Instead, I cry-gasp, and she hugs me again.
“Eve?” you call from upstairs. My heart leaps, I’m not sure why. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I call back. “I’m fine!”
You come downstairs anyway. My ex lets go. I stand between the two of you, as you both ask why I chose you love me in your own ways.
“Hey,” you say to my ex.
“Hey,” she responds.
I hold my too-wrong body close.
“Do you want some tea?” you offer. My ex nods. We all head to the kitchen.
Later, you and I are on a boat in an airplane on the couch watching TV. It’s the day after I’ve found out we’re reincarnated lovers you found out we’re reincarnated lovers your mom died we found out we couldn’t have kids my ex came over and had tea. You hold me close. I lean into you.
I think we both know we didn’t choose this. I think we both know we were meant to be. I think we both know that when we die, hands wrapped around each other, we’ll still refuse to say all the things we want to say because we have love and that means everything is alright. Then, before we can blink, our lives intertwine again and—
