Page 81 of It's a Love Story

Tears prick the backs of my eyes. I am so sad to lose him, to have let my bottled-up pain wreck this beautiful thing. The pink courtyard of his building is inviting me out, and I just don’t want to go.

I’ve broken my own rules about overtalking and being overeager. I have done all the talking in this conversation. Still, I don’t want to stop. “The thing about the painting, Dan.” My voice catches and I know it’s starting. My throat burns and I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “Is that it’s kind of a mess, you know? I loved making it and I love how you stepped in with your fancy flowers and spruced it up. And now that we’re back here and I don’t get to see you anymore, I see everything about us in it. The way I put too much water in the blue and you helped me fix it. The way I didn’t know what I was doing and you just made me try. It’s messy. You know what I mean? It’s not technically good. But it’s beautiful. That’s the whole point, and it makes me so mad that you don’t see it. Maybe I’m actually the worst. And maybe you’re a snob about movies and can’t fix a toilet. But being with you was the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His face softens, but he doesn’t move.

“And I love that you follow your heart around looking for beautiful things. I love that you’re quiet, because when you do say something, it’s perfect. I love that you want to make things that matter. I love that you know how much you matter.”

He takes a step toward me and I reach for his hand. I close my eyes for a second, just to feel his palm against mine, his fingers closing me in. When I open them, he’s watching me. “You know that thing you said about my smile?” I ask.

He nods imperceptibly.

“No one else has ever said a word about my smile. I think I only smile like that when I’m with you.”

“You’re not smiling now,” he says, his voice thick.

“Yeah, well.” His eyes are intense on mine. It gives me a quick hit of hope, because at least he cares. “I’m sorry. I wish I could unhurt you.”

His face opens a bit more, warmth returns to his eyes. “How would you do that?”

“I could write you an apology letter every day for a year?”

He smiles the smallest bit.

“I’d drop them off here, slide them under your door, to make sure,” I say. I risk a tiny step closer to him.

“What else?” He takes my other hand, and it’s heaven. I have shared my entire body with Dan, but there’s nothing that’s ever made me feel closer to a person than this offer of a second hand.

“I’ll buy you gifts,” I say. “Shampoo that’s never been tested on lemurs. Goatee cream.”

He smiles a real smile and pulls me into his arms. I rest my head on his heart and breathe him in. The laundry smell and the cedar, hints of photography chemicals. He runs his hand down the back of my hair, permanently curly now. Everything about me that I thought needed to be fixed is just right when I’m with Dan.

I look up at him and his eyes are wet. “I really missed you,” he says. “I’ve been kind of a mess.”

We’ve stepped into something. It’s the thing inTrue Storywhere they’re flawed and they screw up and they come back closer, broken hearts wide open to each other. I could do this a million times and then die in his arms. I’m not unhinged enough to say so, so I just say, “Same.”

Dan takes my face in his hands and looks at me like I’m the truest and most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He kisses me, a crashing desperate kiss, and the roaring ache in my heart quiets. I have been starved for this, and I have to keep myself from swallowing him whole. His hands are on my neck and then clutching my waist and then under the back of my shirt. I grip the top of his sweatpants, my knuckles against his stomach, such a familiar place. I would know Dan anywhere, at any time. I know him with my whole body.

My back is up against a side table, and something that may be house keys digs into my hip. A glass of water spills, and I feel the wet of it on my sandal.

“Bedroom,” he says, still kissing me.

“Yes,” I say. It’s my favorite word now, I think.

We fall into his bed, and it’s my personal heaven—crisp white sheets that smell like Dan. He undresses me, and I lie there more naked than I’ve ever been because I have said everything. It’s all out t here—how I feel, what I want, where I’m damaged. I understand now what it means to have everything to lose. He hovers over me, and I trace a finger along his shoulder. I never thought I’d get to touch him again this way. We make love without taking our eyes off of one another. We are a tangle of limbs and sheets, our hard selves dissolved for good. We are boundaryless; he’s gotten to every part of me. I have tears in my eyes afterward. I don’t know how to explain it to him, but he’s not asking me to. I’ve shared a lot with Dan about my broken parts, but actually apologizing to him has me more vulnerable than I’ve ever been.Here’s my heart,I’m saying.Do what you will with it.He wipes a tear from my cheek.

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what my problem is.” We’re nose to nose on a pillow.

“I’ve been crying all week,” he says and pulls me closer.

I wrap myself around him and wipe an imaginary tear from his cheek. “I’m sorry that makes me feel so good.”

He smiles at me. “Happy to help.” He arranges my hair like he’s going to photograph me, each curl in the right direction.

“I’m probably going to quit my job,” I say. “I’m going to do it before I’ve even thought it through. I have a million ideas I want to talk to you about, like professionally.”

“Fine, but I refuse to get dressed,” he says and pulls me close.

“I refuse to let you.”

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