One True Loves(51)

“But I don’t want you to share those things with me because you have to, because you feel it’s right to honor a promise we made months ago. I want us to share all of that together because it’s what makes you happy, because you wake up every day glad that you’re with me, because you have the freedom to choose the life you want, and you choose our life together. That’s what I want. If I don’t give you the chance to leave right now, then I don’t know,” he says, shrugging. “I just don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable again.”

“What are we saying here?” I ask him. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

“I’m saying that I’m calling off the wedding. For now, at least. And I think one of us should stay somewhere else.”

“Sam . . .”

“Then you’ll be free. To see if you love him the way you love me, to see what’s left between you. You should be free to do that. And you can’t do that if I’m with you or if I’m pleading for you to stay. Which I don’t trust myself not to do. If I’m with you, I will try to get you to choose me. I know that I will. And I don’t want to do that. So . . . go. Figure out what you want. I’m telling you it’s OK.”

My instinct is to grab on to him tightly, to never let go, to put my hand over his mouth in order to stop him from saying all of this.

But I know that even if I can stop the words from coming out of his mouth, that won’t make them any less true.

So I grab Sam by the neck and pull his head close to mine. I am, not for the first time, deeply grateful to be loved by him, to be loved the way he loves.

“I don’t deserve you,” I say. Our foreheads are pushed so close together neither of us can see the other. I am looking down at his knees. “How can you be so selfless? So good?”

Sam shakes his head slowly, without peeling away from me. “It’s not selfless,” he says. “I don’t want to be with a woman who wants to be with someone else.”

Sam cracks his knuckles, and when I hear the sound of it, I notice that my own hands feel tight and cramped. I open and close them, trying to stretch out my fingers.

“I want to be with someone who lives for me. I want to be with someone who considers me the love of her life. I deserve that.”

I get it. I get it now. Sam is pulling his heart out of his chest and handing it to me, saying, “If you’re going to break it, break it now.”

I want to tell him that I’ll never break his heart, that there is nothing to worry about.

But that’s not true, is it?

I pull away from him.

“I should be the one to go,” I say. I say it just as I can’t believe I’m saying it. “It’s not fair to make you leave. I can stay with my parents for a while.”

This is where everything starts to shift. This is where it feels like the room is getting darker and the world is getting scarier, even though nothing outside of our hearts has changed.

Sam considers and then nods, agreeing with me.

And just like that, we have transitioned from two people considering something to two people having made a decision.

“I guess I’ll pack up some stuff,” I say.

“OK,” he says.

I don’t move for a moment, still stunned that it’s happening. But then I realize that staying still doesn’t actually pause time, it’s still passing, life is still happening. You have to keep moving.

I stand up and head to my closet to gather my clothes. I make it to our bedroom before I start crying.

I should be thinking of outfits to pack, things to wear to work. I should be calling my parents to tell them I’m going to be sleeping at their house. But instead, I just start throwing things into a duffel bag, with little attention paid to whether the clothes match or what I might need.

The only thing I take on purpose is the envelope I have of keepsakes from Jesse. I don’t want Sam to look through them. I don’t want him hurting himself by reading love letters I once wrote to the boy I chose all those years ago.

I walk back into the kitchen, saying good-bye to Mozart and Homer on the way.

Sam is in the exact same position I left him.

He stands up to say good-bye to me.

I can’t help but kiss him. I’m relieved that he lets me.

As we stand there, still close to each other, Sam finally allows himself to lose his composure. When he cries, his eyes bloom and the tears fall down his cheeks so slowly that I can catch every one before they reach his chin.

It breaks my heart to be loved like this, to be loved so purely that I’m capable of breaking a heart.

It is not something I take lightly. In fact, I think it might be the most important thing in the world.

“What am I gonna do?” I ask him.

I mean, what am I going to do right now? And, what am I going to do without him? And, what am I going to do with my life? And, how am I going to do this?

“You’ll do whatever you want,” he says, brushing the side of his knuckle under his eye and taking a step back from me. “That’s what it means to be free.”





By the time I pull into my parents’ driveway, it’s almost two a.m. Their front light is on, as if they’ve been waiting for me, but I know that they leave it on every night. My father thinks it wards off burglars.