I once argued with my 9th grade literature teacher.

She told me that people could not live alone; that humans were not capable of being, of existing, totally by themselves. If you can read the foreshadow, you know already that I vehemently disagreed.

I was right. Even in 9th grade, I was a literal child. I knew it then, and I know it now: people don't need other people to be alive. To have oxygen and nutrients flowing through their hearts and arteries. Babies don't need their mothers, and men don't need others. The novelty of being alive, of rapidly responding to external stimuli, isn't sustained by human relationships. Christopher McCandless can live in a van in Alaska and survive on wild plants and squirrels. Robert Neville can live alone in an eight-million corpse steel graveyard and survive the outbreak. And God knows I could sit alone in my apartment, eating two meals a day out of a microwave, while my heart still contracted and relaxed.

Still, even while being correct, It's funny how off I was. She did not mean what I thought she meant; she did not say what I thought she said. Granted, those particular muscular contractions that formed those particular words that made up the offending statement did come out of her mouth and vibrate through the air matter between us and into my ears. But I absolutely failed to read between the lines. I heard what she said, but didn't realize what she meant. I became so invested in the literality of her words that I ignored the deeper statement about life and human relations. Had I not done that, had I read between the lines, I would have prematurely learned a great lesson, one that kings would have killed for.

People cannot live on their own. They can be living, be existent and responsive to external stimulus, yes. So yes, I did literally argue the correct response when I heard her collection of words. But I was stupid. There is no way I could truly live alone. And I pray to God that I won’t have to. Human beings need other human beings to truly live, to truly be. That's the truth between the lines.

And I didn't believe her.