One True Loves(80)

I fall asleep in his arms, listening to him read the end of the book, happy to learn that Cole grabs Daphne by the shoulders and says, finally, “My God, woman, don’t you know it’s you? That it’s always been you?”

Falling out of love with someone you still like feels exactly like lying in a warm bed and hearing the alarm clock.

No matter how good you feel right now, you know it’s time to go.





Errr Errr Errr Errr Errr.

The sun is shining brightly in my face. And Jesse’s watch is beeping.

The cover of The Reluctant Adventures of Cole Crane is bent back, underneath his leg.

The fire is out.

“Time to get up,” I say.

Jesse, still trying to adjust to wakefulness, nods his head and rubs his face.

We both head into the kitchen and grab some food. I drink a full glass of water. Jesse drinks cold coffee from the pot. He looks out the kitchen window as he drinks and then he turns back to me.

“It’s snowing again,” he says.

“Hard?” I ask. I look around to the front window to see that there’s a fresh blanket of snow on the driveway.

“We should get on the road soon,” he says. “I think it looks pretty clear right now, but we don’t want to wait too much longer.”

“OK, good idea. I’m going to get in the shower.”

Jesse nods but doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t follow me up the stairs to join me. He doesn’t make a joke about me being naked. Instead, he moves toward the fireplace and starts to clean up.

It is then, as I start walking up the stairs alone, that I feel the full weight of the new truth.

Jesse is home. Jesse is alive.

But Jesse is no longer mine.

Within forty-five minutes, Jesse and I have gathered our things and are ready to go. The dishes are done, the remaining groceries are packed up, the mess we made has been cleaned. Even The Reluctant Adventures of Cole Crane is back on the shelf, as if it had never been read. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear we were never here.

Jesse grabs the keys and opens the front door for me. It is with a heavy heart that I pass through it.

I don’t offer to drive because I know he won’t let me. He’s going to do things his way and I’m going to let him. So I get into the passenger seat and Jesse puts the car in reverse.

I take one last look as we pull away from the cabin.

There are two tracks of footprints leading from the front door.

They start out close together and veer off in different directions as our feet head for opposite sides of the car.

I know those footprints will be gone soon. I know they might not make it to tonight if it keeps snowing like this. But it feels good to be able to look at something and understand it.

The footprints start off together and they grow apart.

I get it.

It’s fine.

It’s the truth.





Two True Loves

Or, how to make peace with the truth about love





Jesse and I are almost to New Hampshire by the time we start actually having a conversation. We’ve just been listening to the radio, stuck in our own heads for the past hour and a half.

I have thought mainly of Sam.

About the stubble that always grows on his face, about the fact that he’s clearly going to go gray early, about how I am eager to go back to spending my evenings with him at the piano.

I hope that when I tell him he’s the one I want, he believes me.

It’s been rough going but I have finally figured out who I am and what I want. In fact, never has my identity felt so crystal clear.

I am Emma Blair.

Bookstore owner. Sister. Daughter. Aunt. Amateur pianist. Cat lover. New Englander. Woman who wants to marry Sam Kemper.

That doesn’t mean that it’s without pain and sadness. There is still loss.

I know, I know deep in my gut that the moment when I get out of this car, when Jesse drops me off and says good-bye, I will feel as if I am breaking.

I feel the same way I did when I was nine and my mom took me to get my ears pierced for my birthday.

My party was that night. I had a blue dress that I had picked out myself. My mom and I picked out fake sapphire stud earrings to match. I felt very grown-up.

The woman put the gun to my right ear and told me it might hurt. I told her I was ready.

The pierce shot through me like a shock. I wasn’t sure which was worse: the pressure of the squeeze, the pain of the puncture, or the sting of the air on a fresh wound.

I shuddered and closed my eyes. I kept them closed. My mom and the lady with the piercing gun asked me if I was OK and I said, “Can you do the other one now? Please.”

And that ache—that sense that I knew exactly what to expect and I knew that it would be awful—feels exactly like the ache inside me now.

I know exactly how much it hurts to lose Jesse. And I’m in this car, waiting to be pierced.

“When my parents have adjusted a bit,” Jesse says as we approach the state border, “and I feel like they will be OK if I leave, I’m just going right back to Santa Monica.”

“Oh, Santa Monica? Not interested in trying out San Diego or Orange County?”

Jesse shakes his head. “I think Santa Monica is my place. I mean, I thought you and I would spend the rest of our lives there. I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that you were back here. But you know what? I think it will be really good to go back on my own.” He says it as if it’s just occurring to him that by letting me go, he has freed himself of some things.