One True Loves(65)

What I am feeling, what we are doing, is sending signals all throughout my body, like a shot of caffeine, the rush of sugar, the burn of liquor. I can feel my brain rewiring.

This is what I want.

This is what I’ve always wanted.

I will always want this.

We fall asleep sometime around six in the morning, just as the sun is waking up the rest of the world.





I wake up to the creak of the front door closing and the thud of two shoes hitting the interior floor. I open my hungover eyes to find that there is no one in bed beside me.

I slowly roll out of the sheets, find my underwear, and slip it on along with Jesse’s shirt from yesterday. I head down the stairs as I start to smell coffee.

“There she is,” Jesse says from the kitchen. He walks closer and grabs me, lifting me up. I wrap my legs around him. I kiss him. He tastes like mint and it reminds me just how awful my morning breath is. I look at the clock on the microwave. It’s almost two p.m. Afternoon breath, I guess.

I haven’t slept this late since we were in college. I wasn’t hammered last night, but ever since the age of twenty-nine or so, my body can’t shrug off a drink like it used to.

I pull away from Jesse and he puts me down.

“I should probably brush my teeth,” I say.

“You noticed that, too, huh?” Jesse says, teasing me.

“Hey!”

I lightly hit him on the torso and find myself wondering if I’ve hit the scar that runs down his body, wondering if it’s sensitive, if I’ve hurt him. I want to know what those scars are. I want to know if his teeth are OK after years without dental care or whether he’s suffering from vitamin deficiencies. And then, of course, there’s his finger.

I also know that I can’t ask. I promised not to ask.

But he has to talk about it eventually. If not with me, then with someone else. I know that he is pretending to be OK, but no one would be OK after what he’s been through. He can’t pretend forever.

“I’m kidding,” he says soothingly. “I have waited years to smell your morning breath. Everything about you, morning breath, stray hairs . . . I love it all.”

When he disappeared, I kept his hairbrush for months. I didn’t want to throw away something that had any of him on it.

“I love you, Emma,” he says. “I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“I love you, too,” I say.

Jesse smiles. Toast pops out of the toaster with a swish and a ding.

“All right,” Jesse says. “Coffee, orange juice, toast and jam, and I got us microwaveable bacon. I will be honest, this stuns me. Microwaveable bacon. Am I crazy or did they not have that a few years ago?”

I laugh as I move into the kitchen. “I think it’s relatively new, yeah.”

“I thought so. OK, sit down at the counter and I’ll make you a plate.”

“Wow,” I say, impressed.

I sit down as I watch Jesse move around the small kitchen as if his life depends on it. He pours two glasses of orange juice. He pulls the toast out of the toaster. He gets the strawberry jam and searches for a knife. And then he opens the bacon and puts it on a plate and into the microwave.

“Are you ready for this? Apparently, this is going to be perfectly crisp bacon in a matter of seconds.”

“I’m ready,” I say. “Dazzle me.”

Jesse laughs and then grabs two mugs for coffee. He pours the coffee and hands it to me. I take a sip just as the microwave beeps.

Jesse moves around the kitchen and then he’s right next to me, putting two full plates of food on the counter, complete with perfectly crisp bacon.

He sits down and puts his hand on my bare leg. There was once a time when I wasn’t sure where I ended and Jesse began. When we were so intertwined, so very much one being in two bodies, that my nerve endings barely lit up when he touched me.

Now is not that time.

Instead, my skin warms underneath his touch. His hand absently moves just slightly higher up my thigh and it gets hotter, brighter. And then he takes it back to eat his toast.

“Breakfast for lunch,” I say. “Very charming.”

“What can I say? I’m a charming guy. I also, while I was out, got you a twelve-pack of Diet Coke because I know Emma Lerner, and Emma Lerner needs a steady supply of Diet Coke in the house.”

My name is not Emma Lerner and I don’t drink Diet Coke anymore and I’m not sure how to respond to any of it, so I don’t.

“What else did you get?” I ask him.

“Actually, not much else,” he says. “I figured we could go into town for dinner.”

“Oh, awesome,” I say. “That sounds great.”

“I’m thinking me, you, a bottle of wine, maybe lobster.” I look at him, surprised. “We are in Maine,” he adds, explaining himself.

“I didn’t know that you ate shellfish,” I say. But the minute I say it, I realize how stupid that is to say.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Lobster will be good.”

“Well, then, great. Maine lobsters and wine it is. And what’s on the docket for this afternoon?”

“Anything you want,” Jesse says, finishing the last of the toast and giving me the rest of his bacon. I greedily chomp it down. I want even more than what’s on my plate.