She felt like she was on the edge of a rebellious phase. She could feel it in her bones, that anticipation, the possibilities… her thoughts were tangled up in the kinds of trouble she could get into now that she had no one to worry about and no one to worry about her. She liked being with him, coming home to him, but she liked coming home to no one too, having secrets, making foolish decisions. It wasn’t so much selfishness as it was a recharged independence. Summer had just arrived in the city and long, warm kisses from the sun made her forget everything she was tired of explaining. Longer days meant longer nights and this was both an exciting and exhausting notion. But the thrilling vagueness of not knowing what was next propelled her out of bed each morning — she thrived on mere possibility. That urge to do whatever felt right came over her in waves, during moments she felt closer to 22 again, when guilt did not weigh her down. Maybe she didn’t want to think twice. Maybe she didn’t care what the outcome might be. Maybe she was ready to dull the ache in her chest by rediscovering what made her happiest before he came along. And while she has a tendency to make things sound carelessly sexual, this was not that sort of rebellion…it was simply an urgent awareness triggered by the need to once again dive headfirst into beautiful experiences and people and stories, as writers (and wannabes like her) are wont to do. It was a time to pick up the pieces and inadvertently scatter them all over New York. But she would do so with discretion and patience and shrewdness because she would have to watch him do the same. She put on heels again. She did her eye makeup just a shade darker. She went with red instead of pink, only because it made her feel stronger. And on days she found herself struggling with loneliness or uncertainty, she would stand as close as possible to the edge of the subway platform and wait for the train to roar into the station, letting the rush remind her that she was alive and fulfilled and capable of shaping this city into whatever she needed it to be to carry on. Manhattan and all of its clichés were her heart. The summer sun, the sleepless nights, the sadness of knowing too much and the thrill of starting over again added up to something she couldn’t quite explain or define, nor did she have to. But the desire to thrust herself into all of it at once, the good and the bad, kept her teetering on the unknown, unsure of when to let go, but ready to find out.