people. Of consciously choosing good. Of that ideal being the motivating factor of my life. I know I said that Dr. West changed my life, and that’s true, but Ezra changed it, too.
We sat down on his couch then, and Ezra popped up to offer me a glass of water or wine. I took the wine. I hadn’t slept with anyone since your father. It had been years. Eight of them. And I’d been afraid—afraid that I’d do it again: break someone else’s heart, break my own. But I thought there was no one in this world I’d met who was better than Ezra. And the idea of losing him, of not having him in my life, overwhelmed my fear of getting hurt, of hurting someone else.
“Did you ever watch Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood?” I asked him when he came back with the wine. “When you were a kid?”
He nodded as he sat back down next to me. “I loved the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. There was a guy who lived in a clock with no hands because make-believe was whatever time you wanted it to be. I tried to take the hands off the clock in our living room after I saw that.”
“Daniel Striped Tiger,” I said. “He’s the one who lived in the clock.”
Ezra’s eyes lit up. “You loved it, too!”
I smiled. “Maybe not as much as you did, but I always remembered the episode where Mr. Rogers said that if the news gets too scary, you should look for the helpers in the story. The police officers and firefighters and doctors and the regular people who reached out to give other people a hand. When I was older and my mom was sick, I remembered that. I looked for the helpers, and things felt a little more manageable.”
Ezra put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed.
“You’re one of the helpers,” I said to him. “You’re one of the people who makes life less scary.”
He put his wine down and kissed me. Then he whispered, “You are, too.”
I hadn’t thought about myself that way before. Ezra gave me a gift in that moment. He let me see myself through his eyes. And made me realize who I wanted to be. I wanted to be one of the helpers, just like he was.
I put my wineglass down and kissed him back, running my fingers over the soft button-down shirt he was wearing, first down his back, then down his chest.
“Do you want to see my bedroom?” he asked. “I mean, we can stay here if you want, but it might be more comfortable—”
I cut him off with a kiss and then stood, reaching my hand down for his. He got up and led me to the bedroom, which I could just make out in the dim light. The bed was made; there was a glasses case on the nightstand on the left side, with a lamp, a digital clock, and a book I couldn’t read the title of.
We sat down on the edge of the bed, and then we were lying on it, and then our clothing was off and we were touching each other, skin to skin. His body was tighter and thinner out of clothes than he looked while he was wearing them.
“Look at you,” he said, pulling back for a moment. I felt seen, almost too seen, and wanted to pull my shirt back on, but then I took a deep breath and gave him the gift of my vulnerability.
He leaned over and ran his tongue around my nipple and I remembered how wonderful it felt to be intimate with someone, how powerful the connection could be when it was something you both so wanted.
He slid his finger inside me and moaned in anticipation of what was to come. I flashed back to you, to your dad, to that one time. “Do you have—” I started.
He reached into his nightstand drawer. “This?” he asked, holding up a square of foil.
“Yes,” I breathed, as he ripped it open.
When he slid inside me, it felt like the first time all over again, like my desire had been reawakened after lying dormant for so long.
Afterward he said, “I guess this means I have to marry you now.”
I looked at him, not sure how to respond.
“Just kidding,” he said. “Bad joke.”
But I wasn’t sure if he really was joking. And, actually, I kind of hoped he wasn’t.
If I married him, I could always be the person he saw me as. I could