Like an angered three-year-old, he started crying before I could say another word. “I knew this would happen. I knew you’d do this to me.”
He kept babbling, completely irrational. Every redeeming word, thought, or sentence I uttered was followed with a shout of disapproval. There was nothing left to chew. He was done listening. I was fighting a war I knew I would lose. I left the room as he lay crying on our bed, still yelling.
…
I slept on the couch. Five Year took the bedroom. I didn’t remind him of my decision to move out, or that I was actively looking. Why bother. It was hard enough to keep the peace throughout our home. If we did converse, it was brief. The word love was no longer used. I worked extra hours avoiding him. He worked extra hours avoiding me.
On lunch breaks I would tour new apartments and areas throughout the city, imagining my new home. I’d forgotten what it was like to live my own life. Maybe I never knew, but the thrill of looking for a place had me hopeful — heartbroken, but hopeful. Five years together no longer mattered. It was time for fresh starts and clean slates.
chapter twelve
shelter
Anthony kept his word. We kept it at bay. No secret rendezvous, only brief e-mails and a couple of phone calls. I had been so busy playing nurse, and then finding an apartment, that I was preoccupied. Two weeks was all it took. Two weeks and I missed Anthony.
I called, pleading, “Meet me in the stairwell?”
…
“Two blocks from work!” Nudging him, I added, “Come on, indulge my enthusiasm.”
“A new home, eh? That’s exciting.” He didn’t really indulge.
“Yeah, we’ll see. Fingers crossed.”
“Did you come up with any birthday plans yet?”
“Not really. I still have a couple of days to think about it. I might have dinner with friends. How about you? How are you? Since the accident it feels like we haven’t spent much time together.”
“We haven’t,” he said halfhearted. His hand drifted to his tummy.
“Sorry,” I said, lowering my tone to match his.
“That’s okay. I’m okay. Work’s been crazy lately.” He sounded upset.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, not really. Just some health stuff. I haven’t been feeling very good. I didn’t want to tell you. You already have a lot going on…”
“Really? Is it your stomach again?”
“Yeah, the stomach aches are getting worse,” he mumbled. “Umm, this is kind of awkward but I’m bleeding when I take a number two.” We both sat there, mute for a moment. “I went to my doctor last week, and he scheduled a colonoscopy.”
“Oh.” I am a jerk, sometimes. I am. I should have reached out sooner.
“I get this feeling it’s something serious. Too many stomachaches in a row.”
I noticed how his hand settled on his stomach for comfort.
“Maybe it’s an ulcer or hemorrhoids or something?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you scared?” I looked him directly in the eyes, trying to see if I should be, too.
“I don’t know. Kind of.” He now examined his hand to his tummy.
“When’s the colonoscopy?”
“On Monday.”
“Do you have a ride? I can take you. My boyfriend leaves on Saturday to visit his grandma. I could probably get out of work?” I explained this all in one long breath.
“No, that’s okay. I think Jay can pick me up.”
I felt a little disappointed.
“If you need anything, will you please call me?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Can I have a hug?”
“Always.” He grabbed me tightly.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, July 18, 6:04 p.m.
Subject: you’re not here, but I’m sending an e-mail
my LEAST favorite thing?
is when you are not here,
and at the doctor’s…
I am sending you all the love
and strength my body can offer…
can you feel it?
damn I miss you…
I wish I could hold your hand right now,
and tell you
everything
is going to be okay.
…
Anthony called, still groggy. In one long run-on sentence he explained the colonoscopy. From the anesthesia countdown to the monitor presenting his colon, he was awake during the entire process as the camera looked for obstructions. He said they found a lump and took a biopsy.
“You okay?” I questioned.
“I am now that I’ve heard your voice.” His voice was sleepy and sweet. “Jay’s here, so can I call you later tonight?”
“Yeah…”
“Okay.”
“Anthony?”
“Yeah?”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you more.”
…
It was reassuring to hear his soft voice on the other end of the line. I told him I got the house. “The one two blocks from work. I move in August.” I described the yard for Gladys, the perfectly square layout, and the pink exterior. He told me I looked sexy in pink. We talked until one in the morning, eager, playful, and hopeful for days ahead. I said so. He said so. Half-awake, half-asleep, we joked about running away for my birthday.
“Weren’t we supposed to elope in Mexico?” we said in unison.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 9:07 a.m.
Subject: shelter
it still amazes me
how far down some roads
we have traveled,
while there are so many other roads
we have not even touched…
staying up on the phone,
talking to obscene hours,
and nearly falling asleep
ear to ear with each other…
it is something we should have done
a long, long time ago…
it seems as though
to make up for what
we cannot do together,
we take the things we can do,
and run with them as far
as they can be taken…
exploding within our limitations…
the song i am sending
is one that brought us to mind,
one that made me think
that perhaps it is a good thing
we are both taking on great difficulties
at the same time in our lives…
similarity?
“you will shelter me, my love
and i… i will shelter you…
i will shelter you…”
"Shelter"
Ray Lamontagne
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 12:21 p.m.
Subject: similarities
the “great difficulties”
we are both enduring
may get uncomfortable at times…
may make the “us” we’ve created,
and so desperately hung on to, difficult.
but I do believe it is the similarities that will
bring us closer…
to the end of the roads
we have yet to experience.
and through it all I will secretly wish
for another late night conversation…
because those moments with you,
are simply beautiful.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2:34 p.m.
Subject: the heels of happiness
the challenges…
the similarities…
yes, i think those are the things
that bring us together unconsciously,
that will bring us together ultimately…
it freaks me out a bit
to talk in that tense…
the future…
i know it freaks you out too…
and besides,
it is so much better to live it
as it unfolds than it is
to talk about what we expect it to be…
and i can feel your fear,
that we are growing too fast…
that if you loosen the leash
just a little bit,
we will run completely
out of control…
and i know you feel,
that with every inch
you and i sink deeper into each other,
the delirious pleasure
of surrender…
of hope…
of love…
but on the heels of happiness
comes the fear of having let in too much
confusion…
complication…
second guesses…
know that i am here.
for you.
when you are ready.
if you are ready.
no assumptions.
no expectations.
with hope.
and fears.
but mostly hope…
and love.
lots of fucking love…
…
Running downstairs to his bay, I couldn’t move fast enough.
“What did the doctor say?”
He hesitated, filling his lungs with air, then puffed out one big breath.
“They found a malignant tumor on my colon.”
chapter thirteen
happy birthday
Anthony, can we go back to that moment? Can you tell me again what you said after, “They found a malignant tumor on my colon,” because I have no idea.
I assume the details of your conversation with the doctor. My mind just repeated the word tumor. Tumor. Tumor. I didn’t know what to say so I told you my mother has cancer. I have no idea why I said it. I thought it would be helpful. How was I supposed to react when you told me they found a tumortumortumor?
I think people give hugs. I’m sorry, I gave you a pep talk instead. Trying to sound hopeful instead of random. I said, “You’ll beat this. I know you will. I promise you will. You’re only thirty.” I felt like a cheerleader.
I ended up hugging you. Not just any hug, mind you, but a hug that I believed could cure. Asthma. Arthritis. Even cancer. I think you did too, because you squeezed as hard as you could.
“Fuck.” You tried not to cry. “I have cancer.”
“We’ll beat this. I promise.”
…
You left work early. I muddled through the rest of the day in a fog, and then went home promptly at 6:00 p.m. The house was empty except for Gladys, sleeping on the couch. I must have watched her sleep for hours before I wrapped my arms around her tired body and cried. I cried through the evening, sobbing through my TV dinner, slipped on PJs, and then cried myself to sleep.
I cried at the thought of losing you, babe. I cried at the thought of never having you. I wished I was smarter, knew the right words to say — that I didn’t say the word cancer. I wished I was stronger emotionally and would’ve left Five Year sooner. I wished life wasn’t so fucked up and complicated, wasn’t so much bullshit. I wished we didn’t have to pretend we were anything but what we were. In love.
I wished I would’ve gone to your bay and kissed you all the times I wanted to, made out with you in the stairwell. I wished many things.
I woke to the sound of my cell phone. Thought it a dream to hear your voice on the other end telling me to come outside.
“What?”
“Just go outside already.”
“But I’m sleeping. I’m in my PJs.”
“There’s a surprise for you outside your door.”
I stumbled out of bed, slid on slippers. “This better be good. What time is it anyway?” I swung open my front door.
At exactly midnight with two pints of ice cream and a single candle illuminating the inside of your truck, I saw you.
“Come on, get in,” you yelled out the window. “It’s not right to celebrate your birthday alone.”
I climbed in.
“Okay, which flavor, Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey?”
I followed all the rules, man’s, God’s, my parents’ — I no longer cared about consequences as I crawled over to the driver’s side. Like a child in your lap, I kissed you. Hard. Unlike I’d ever kissed anyone. Ever.
“Don’t let go of me, even if I ask you to,” I muttered in between skin and lips. Devouring you with kisses, ice cream melting in the passenger’s seat.
“Happy birthday.” You started to sing as you grabbed me, not letting go.
chapter fourteen
no woman no cry
My cafe friend asked me if I felt as certain about Anthony as she did with her new love, if I felt as giddy and girly. It’s a question I hesitated to answer. I’ve been asked it before and God only knows why I can’t answer it honestly. I simply say yes. I give a one-word response. It was a superficial answer and I wish I could revise myself. It’s not that the question is intrusive; it’s just too personal. I have needed five years to understand the depth of what that question means.
It’s why the rest of the story is easier to tell when I imagine you, babe, at my side finishing my sentences like old times. Because to tell the passionate, difficult truth, I need you to help me; reminding me that our love is a universal human experience and it deserves to be opened up and shared.
So here we go, Anthony. I’m counting on you to listen, and to help me finish what we started together, five years ago.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, July 22, 5:36 p.m.
Subject: full
you…
sigh
(cue heart swoon)
an interesting week we’ve had,
with ups and downs…
late nights
closeness…
that’s what it is…
a closeness
much closer than before…
don’t know when we broke through
whatever it was we had to get through,
but you feel…
amazing
unguarded…
or rather,
i feel
like
i am in your heart…
deep in your heart
Of the conversations, it’s the little ones you look back on. The ones you wish you could go back to and have again. Maybe the conversations don’t even have real importance or hold much weight, but you remember it. It marks a time. A place. A feeling. You remember the words and the sentiments. I remember the voice I used to comfort you, Anthony, and I certainly remember my fears. However, in this one conversation, it’s the words, “what if,” that I remember most.
…
“Come closer,” I cooed. I was sitting on the top step of our stairs with my arms opened to embrace him. “What’d they say?” Trying to get Anthony’s attention, I shook his body while I embraced him. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Telling my roommates was difficult, harder than I imagined. They were sweet, strong, supportive but then they started talking about how we’re like a family in this house, and how everyone will be here for me — take care of me… It made me sad and scared.”
“Why scared?”
“Scared I’m going to let them down somehow. Seems foolish, but… what if I won’t be able to take care of them?” There it was. Maybe we were thinking about other what ifs, but this was the first.
“What do you mean?”
“What if I am too sick to be their friend — what if I’m too sick when they need me?”
Anthony fiddled with his fingernails, and his hands shook and I knew he was scared to talk such nonsense but I thought he was absurd
and so selfless.
“I think you’re absurd.”
Neither of us knew what to say. Instead silence filled the space between an exhaled sigh as he hid his face in my neck, rubbed his nose into my hair. He did that when he needed comfort, and I would press my cheek against his forehead, nuzzling back for the same sense of relief.
“My boyfriend gets home tonight…” We both sat upright. “I’m afraid to move out. I have no idea why, but I feel trapped, too weak to leave, or stir up conflict.” I kept barfing out words like unhappy, unsatisfied, and uncomfortable. Any word I could conjure starting in un. “Most of all I feel uneasy. I’m not a cheater. I don’t feel like I’ve cheated.”
“You haven’t,” he said, snickering. “Trust me. I know.”
“No, seriously.” I elbowed him, half-grinning. “I need to tell him this is really happening. I’m moving out. I owe him that. I need to tell him he’s not a horrible person, just not the person for me. How do I say that? After five years how do you tell the person you love that it’s simply not enough. I’m scared of his reaction. He acts like a child these days. I don’t know why this is so hard. I’m scared I guess.”
“You’ve said, ‘I’m scared,’ a couple times now.”
“I know. I know. Sorry. This probably seems so trivial.”
“You are far from trivial. I am here, whenever, or however you need me to be, even if only a friend. I thought we’ve worked that out by now.”
“I know.” I nestled into his shoulder with a soft, slow exhale. “Then there’s you, sweet, snuggly you.” I loved the way he tickled the tip of his nose against my neck. “Are you going to tell your mom tonight?”
“I’ll try.”
“Anthony, you’ve told friends. You’ve told your brothers. It’s time.”
“I know.” He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t blame him. “Okay, we’d better get back to work. Meet me in my truck later?”
“Yes.”
He headed to the sixth floor while I stood on the seventh.
“Are you still scared?” I yelled down the stairwell.
“Trying not to be. You?”
“Terrified.”
From: [email protected]
Even if I Am Page 6