The frozen lake cracked beneath his feet, as everything else had been cracking around him recently. He had been in a stable relationship with his girlfriend, and then they showed up, this beautiful, unafraid to be themself, confident, hard-working person. He couldn’t help but fall in love with them. The first time he laid eyes on them he felt his world cracking, just as it is now.  

CRACK 

SPLOOSH 

The ice gave way, and he felt the shock of the ice-cold water on his skin.  

I have people waiting for me. I should get out and go back. He thought to himself, trying not to breathe in water. I have to, for them.  

Not sure if he meant his girlfriend, his family, his friends, or the person he had fallen in love with, he started fighting. He swam his way to the surface, pulling himself out of the water and slowly but surely getting himself out, spreading out his body weight on the ice so he wouldn’t fall in again. 

Freezing, he sat there, hating the cold but needing it, hoping it would shock him into coming to his senses. First, he thought about his girlfriend, the sweet, beautiful angel he’d been with for two years. He wanted to stay with her, he wanted to keep her, he didn’t want to lose her, but at the same time, he wanted them. The beautiful non-binary writer and poet, and he didn’t know how to let go of either of them so he could fully focus on one or the other. 

The cold was biting into him now, chilling him to the bone, his lips turning blue, his fingers and toes going numb, yet he couldn’t bring himself to move. 

I don’t deserve them. Either of them. 

He thought of his childhood, how he had never felt he belonged until he joined ROTC and band, and how now he felt like he belonged, to both of them. Sitting there, his mind and heart being torn in two, they appeared.  

They had both noticed he was gone, his angel and his poet, and so they worked together to find him.  

His poet stood back and let his angel take care of him, the angel didn’t know about them, and he had asked his poet to keep it that way. They met his eyes, read the emotions displayed there, and understood. They, too, had been feeling the same way. 

His angel continued on, taking care of him, offering him her coat, promising to make him hot chocolate, and starting to lead him home, oblivious to the silent conversation the other two had just had.  

As they walked the poet thought. They thought things similar to what he was contemplating, laying on the ice, except they thought about letting him go. Their mind told them that they couldn’t keep him, though their heart wanted to hold on. Watching him and his angel together always reminded the poet that they were meant for each other, and no matter what they did, he would never choose them over her. She always cared for him so tenderly, knew what he liked and what he disliked, she knew so much about him, and they felt they had no hope of ever learning as much as she knew. 

And so they wrote. He was their muse, everything they ever wrote turned into something about him. Even when the poem wasn’t about him it was, because he inspired them to write. He inspired them to feel.  

Every time they were together, him and his poet, they wrote about him and how he made them feel. They wrote: 

I knew 

When my world started to crumble,  

I could look at you 

And it’d repair itself, 

When I fell into darkness 

You’d hold my hand 

And sit with me, 

If I couldn’t remember 

What light looked like 

Your smile would brighten everything, 

And I realize 

We aren’t meant to be, 

And I keep reminding myself, 

But I can’t help but hope 

And wait. 

 

And so they wait, and they wait, and they write, and they wait.  

He looks back as his angel leads him on the trail through the woods, back to the parking lot where his car is, and meets the poet’s eyes. Words pass between them, telepathically, almost, and he senses them step back.  

His eyes turn pleading. No! Please?! And the poet, ever sensitive to his desires, caves. They tried to help him make the decision, tried to help him out of his internal anguish, and learned that it’s something much easier said than done.  

You see, not only did he fall for them, but they fell for him. All they want is for him to be happy. Whether he’s with them or with her, all the poet desires is his happiness even if it comes at the cost of their own. And yet he must decide. 

Again, the poet writes: 

Holding my breath with the hope 

That one day, you’re mine 

Looking back on it 

How could I be so blind? 

You and I are not made for each other. 

Looking into the future 

I wish I could see further 

You will never need me, 

The way you needed her 

Nor complete me 

The way you complete her. 

 

And though he walks forwards, guided by his angel, thinking he still has to choose, the poet has already decided. They must let him go, and watch his future with his angel, loving him from afar. For though they love him and want to be with him, they know that if he was left to make the choice, he never would. If no one made the choice, it would haunt him and them for all eternity, and if his angel ever found out, he would be ruined. 

So they made the choice for him, he was already troubled enough.  

Though they will always love him from afar, and hope to still be a part of his life, they have accepted their role, and she is destined to be his wife.