Page 10 of Ripe & Ready
He shows up. Over and over and over again.
No one really shows up for me.
I think about what he said when we got here and it stings. More than I want to admit.
Could that really be true?
Could someone like Derek, who lights up every room, who laughs with his whole chest, who gives so openly it looks effortless, really feel alone in all of it?
I know I’ve tried to show up. I have. Even when it scared the shit out of me. Even when it meant leaving everything I knew behind, stepping onto a plane for the first time in my life, flying halfway across the world to sweat beside him in the jungle.
That has to count for something, right?
But still… what if he meant it? What if no one else does? What if he’s been carrying that quiet disappointment for years, the kind that settles deep in your bones until it feels like part of who you are?
Derek gives everything. His time, his energy, his affection. He does it without keeping score, without asking for anything back. But maybe he’s still hoping someone will return the favor enough to prove he doesn’t have to hold the weight of the world alone.
He’d never ask. He’d never demand anything. He’d keep smiling, keep showing up, keep being exactly who he is... while quietly wondering if anyone’s ever going to show up for him.
Maybe that’s why I’m here. I think I’ve been trying to be the person who notices. The one who shows up without needing to be asked.
“I love you.” I blurt it. No build-up. No warning. Not even to myself.
Derek stops mid-step and spins around to face me, eyes wide like I dropped a live grenade between us.
“I just—” I scramble, my voice way too fast, too high. “I just thought you should know. I appreciate you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough.”
It’s not a full recovery. Not even close, but it’s something.
And then, he breaks into this smile. Blinding. Warm. Effortless. It’s honestly more than a smile, it’s confirmation that even when your heart is hanging out of your mouth everything’s okay.
“I love you too,” he says, and those words, leaving his mouth send me to another plane of existence. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
He spins back toward the store while I stand there processing my own emotional implosion in broad daylight.
He grabs a bushel of bananas off a nearby display. “Are you cramping after that hike? Potassium might help. We’ve got another day of it tomorrow.”
I nod, because what else can I do? Everything in me glitches. I may never speak in full sentences again. I told him I love him and not in the way I always planned, either. Not quiet. Not reflective. Not with him having some grand, sweeping reaction.
He acknowledged it, sure, but there was no dramatic kiss. No emotional monologue. He didn’t run into my arms like a rom-com lead. And I know I’m overthinking it. We’re literally trying to buy bananas and instant noodles in a tiny general store in the middle of Africa.
But a small part of me expected him to pause and to let those words hang in the air a little longer. Let them marinate. Instead, he went right back to the task at hand, like I hadn’t said something that cracked my entire chest open.
Friends say “I love you” all the time, right? Maybe this way was better. Safer. Easier to slip out when it can still be passed off as friendly.
Even if I didn’t really mean it that way.
He tosses a few bags of coconut chips into the basket, then adds two more bags of plantain chips for good measure. Brings them all up to the counter, flashes a smile at the man running the shop, and pays without hesitation.
Then he turns to me like everything is still exactly the same.
And maybe it is. Or maybe it isn’t.
Either way, he leads me back to the truck, snacks in hand, and I follow, quiet, uncertain, and still buzzing from the three words that slipped out without permission.
Maybe that’s the thing about love. Sometimes you don’t plan it. Sometimes you don’t time it right. Sometimes you say it and hope it lands somewhere safe.
5
