Free Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

all right,” my mother keeps telling me. And I want to tell her what she says is impossible—there is no such thing as all right . The lie is in the word all .
    There are more cars on the streets now—nothing so busy that you’d call it traffic. In fact, most of the cars are empty cabs, as trapped in the searching as we are. The people out right now don’t want to take cabs. We just want to walk. Our legs need to move to keep our minds from collapsing.
    I wish there was somebody I could call. I wish there was somebody who I could wake up at whatever time it is and say, “I need you to come to Union Square and be with me right this minute.” But my best friends aren’t that close—not in terms of distance to Union Square, and not in terms of closeness to me. They’re friends I could call at six at night, but not at six in themorning. If I had a boyfriend, maybe I could call him. But I don’t, so it’s a stupid thing to think about.
    Here’s what breaks us: Even though we know better, we still want everything to be all right.
    I think about Marisol and wonder how she and her sister are doing. I would never call her at six in the morning. I don’t even know her last name.
    I think about Jill Breslin and how her father is dead—the school sent out an email telling us, confirming it. What I’m feeling is nothing —nothing —compared to what she and her family are feeling. It makes me feel safer, but also smaller.
    As I’m crossing Park Avenue, about to get to the square, another downpour hits. I didn’t bring an umbrella, so I just let it batter me. I feel the sinking cold, and I can’t help but wonder if there are ashes in the raindrops. I picture them there—a little filament of ash in each tiny upside-down bulb of water. I shiver.
    There are a few people in ponchos on the square, and a few police officers. It’s nothing like it is during the day—the crowded museum of sadness and pain is largely closed for the night, making us the night watchmen. There isn’t an empty railing to be found; they all have wreaths and posters and photos of the missing, who we all know are dead. One piece of paper says TERRORISTS: WE WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU. But mostly people want to commemorate the lost. There are testimonials to the firefighters, the NYPD officers, the Port Authority police. There are flags, so many flags. There are kids’ drawings on oak-tag paper, the Magic Marker smudging now, so the towers havebecome gray moats, the Statue of Liberty has melted into a puddle. So many people saying thank you, and it’s all wet and ruined. Messages that will never be read. Gifts that were given too late.
    The worst is the candles. They’re all out. They stand there blankly, more crooked than upright. They were left to fend for themselves, carry their own vigil, and they failed. They’re just sticks of wax. They have nothing.
    Suddenly I’m crying. I can’t stop crying. This is just too much. The enormity of it is crushing me. Because I am still foolish enough to have believed I would find something here that could help me, that I would wander out into the night and find something that would make me feel better. What a small, almost petty thing to want—to feel better.
    I sit down on a bench, even though I don’t feel I have any right to sit on a bench, here among the dead and the missing and the remembered. In small letters, someone has written NEVER FORGET on one of the slats. I know it’s supposed to be a pledge, but it feels like a curse. Don’t we have to forget some of it? Don’t we have to forget this feeling? If we don’t, how will we live?
    I want to kneel down to every photograph. I want to stop the ground from turning to mud. I want the rain to dissolve me instead of the notes that people have left on the grass. I want one person—just one single person—who is missing to still be alive.
    Breathing is hard. When you cry so much, it makes you realize that breathing is hard.
    People walk past me.