I can feel myself shaking my head, as if she could pick up on any of my nonverbal clues. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’d like to publicly comment.”
“Are you sure? The Lerners are contributing.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I hear you. I just don’t think I’m comfortable, but thank you very much for the opportunity.”
“Are you—”
“Thank you, Ms. Ivan. Have a great day.”
I hang up the phone before she can speak again. I double-check twice that my phone is off and I throw myself back down onto my pillows, covering my face with my hands, wondering if I will ever feel only one emotion again in my life.
Because lately it’s happiness and fear, joy and sorrow, guilt and validation.
It is not simply happiness. Simply fear. Simply joy. Simply sorrow.
The deafening silence in the room means that my ears can only focus on the sound of the water spraying from the shower in the bathroom.
I think of the steam building up.
I think of how warm it must be.
I think of the way the hot water must feel soothing and comfortable. I think of Sam. The way he looks when he’s wet. I think of the hot water running down his shoulders. The shoulders that carried my obscenely large desk up four flights of stairs when we moved in together. The shoulders that brought up two boxes of books at a time as he teased me that I should stop hoarding books, knowing full well that would never happen.
Sam is my life. My new, beautiful, wonderful, magical life.
I get up out of bed and I open the bathroom door. It’s just as steamy in here as I imagined. The mirror is too fogged up to see myself as I take off my shirt and slide out of my underwear. But I know what I’d see if I could: I’d see a short, blond, pear-shaped thirtysomething woman with a pixie cut and a smattering of freckles under her right eye.
I slide the curtain open just barely and I step into the shower. Sam opens his eyes. I can tell he is relieved to see me. He puts his arms around me and holds me tight. The warmth of his skin warms me up exactly as I knew it would.
His chin is nestled into my shoulder.
“I know everything is really complicated right now,” he says to me. “I’ll do whatever you want. I just . . . I need to know what you’re thinking.”
“I love you,” I say into his shoulders as the hot water hits my face and pastes my hair to my forehead. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” he says, and then he pulls himself away from me and turns toward the water.
He washes the shampoo out of his hair.
With his back to me, I grab the bar of soap and lather it up in my hands. I rub it across his shoulders and down his back. I reach forward and soap up his chest. As the water washes it away, I put my cheek on his back. I put my arms around him. I’d glue myself to him if I could. For the past three nights, I’ve had dreams of wrapping the two of us together in one rope. I’ve dreamed of tying it tight so neither of us can escape. I’ve dreamed of knots so taut they can’t be undone. Rope so thick it can’t be cut.
Sam puts his arms forward onto the shower wall to steady himself. And then he says, “Just . . . just do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t stay with me if you want to be with him,” he says. “Don’t do that to me.”
My dreams, the rope and the knots, I know exactly what they mean.
You don’t tie yourself to something unless you’re scared you might float away.
The beginning of December is one of my least favorite times of year in Massachusetts. It always feels like the calm before the storm.
The air is often thin and frigid, as if it could shatter like glass. But, today at least, it’s warm enough that the light precipitation is just a drizzle of rain and not the beginning of flurries. Although this is a somewhat unwelcome reminder that our first snow is looming.
I am wearing black jeans, a slouchy cream sweater, tall brown boots, and a black peacoat. I never wondered what I’d be wearing when I saw Jesse again because I never thought it would happen.