One True Loves(79)

“If I ever come around to your way of thinking,” Jesse says, “I promise I’ll find you and tell you.”

“I would like that,” I say. “I’ll always want to know how you are.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing you’ll always be easy to find,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The fire slows and Jesse moves toward it, rearranging the logs, blowing on it. He turns back to me, the calm fire now starting to roar again.

“You think you would have ever gone to school in LA if it wasn’t for me?” he says.

“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe not. I know that I wouldn’t have been as happy there without you. And I wouldn’t have even applied to that travel-writing class without you. And I definitely wouldn’t have spent a year in Sydney or all those months in Europe if you weren’t with me. I think there were a lot of things I never would have done—good, bad, beautiful, tragic, however you want to describe them. I think there were a lot of things I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do if it wasn’t for you.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I would have just let my parents push me toward pro training if I hadn’t met you,” he says. “You were the first person who didn’t care how good of a swimmer I was. The first person who just liked me for me. That . . . that was life changing. Truly.”

He turns and looks at me intently. “You’re a lot of the reason why I am who I am,” he says.

“Oh, Jesse,” I say, so much tenderness and affection that my heart is soaked, “there is no me without you.”

Jesse kisses me then.

A kiss is just a kiss, I guess. But I’ve never been kissed like this before. It is sad and loving and wistful and scared and peaceful.

When we finally pull away from each other, I realize I’m tipsy and Jesse might just be drunk. The bottle is gone and as I go to put down my glass, I accidentally tip it over. That unmistakable cling and thud of a wine bottle hitting the floor is not followed by the familiar crash that sometimes accompanies it. Grateful, I pick up the intact bottle and our glasses.

I think it’s time to switch to the soft stuff.

I get us some glasses of water and remind him about the book.

“You really want to read a book together?” he says.

“It’s that or Taboo.”

Jesse acquiesces, grabbing blankets and pillows from the couch. We lie down on the floor, close to the fire. I open up the book I pulled aside earlier.

“The Reluctant Adventures of Cole Crane,” I begin.

I read to children’s groups on Sunday mornings sometimes. I’ve started getting more confident, making up voices for the characters and trying to make the narration come alive. But I don’t do any of that now. I’m just me. Reading a book. To someone I love.

Unfortunately, it’s a very bad book. Laughably bad. The women are called dames. The men drink whiskey and make bad puns. I barely get through five pages before handing it over to Jesse. “You have to read this. I can’t do it,” I say.

“No,” he says, “c’mon. I waited years just to hear your voice.”

And so I read some more. By the time my eyes feel dry from the fire, I’m reluctantly invested in what happens to the Crooked Yellow Caper and I find myself wanting Cole Crane to just kiss Daphne Monroe already.

Jesse agrees to read the second half while I lie in his lap with my eyes closed.

His voice is soothing and calm. I listen as it ebbs and flows, as his words fall up and down.

When he’s been reading for over an hour, I sit up and take the book out of his hand. I put it on the floor.

I know what I’m about to do. I know that it is the last time that I will ever do it. I know that I want it to mean something. For years I never had a chance to say good-bye. Now that I have it, I know this is the way I want to do it.

So I kiss him the way you kiss people when it is the start of something. And it starts something.

I pull my shirt over my head. I unbutton the fly of Jesse’s jeans. I lay my body flush against his. It is the last time I will feel his warmth, the last time I will look down to see him below me, with his hands on my waist. It is the last time I will tell him I love him by the way I sink my hips and touch his chest.

He never looks anywhere but at me. I watch as his gaze moves down my body, watching me, taking it all in, trying to pin it to memory.

I feel seen. Truly seen. Cherished and savored.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you the most romantic part of love is the beginning. The most romantic part is when you know it has to end.

I don’t know that I’ve ever been as present in a moment as I am this very second, as I make love to a man I once believed was my soul mate, who I now know is meant for someone else and something else, is meant to build his life somewhere else.

His eyes have never looked more captivating. His body underneath me has never felt safer. I trace my hands over the scars on his body; I intertwine my left hand with his right one. I want him to know he’s beautiful to me.

When it’s over, I am too tired and stunned to mourn. I crawl back into the crook of his arm and I hand him the book again.

“Read?” I say. “Just a little while longer.”

All of this. Just a little while longer.

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “Anything you want.”