Love. I still haven’t told Jake—in fact, I haven’t said it to a single man since Tae. Not because I didn’t feel it—I felt it all the time. Love or not, I felt it with Josh in San Francisco, walking Marina Green at dusk. I felt it with Emil, during those six days I spent mostly in a loft downtown. I feel it with Jake when he puts toothpaste on my brush in the morning if he wakes up earlier than me, or hands me the remote after dinner.
And then there was Hugo.
But it always feels like the word is intrinsically tied to power, like I will be ceding mine by laying it down.
Jake told me he loved me two months ago, over Mexican at Pink Taco on the Sunset Strip. I had chicken fajitas, and Jake was eating fish tacos. A basket of chips and guacamole sat on the picnic table in between us. We were out on the patio, traffic speeding past.
I was telling Jake about work that day, and about this charcoal cleanse Irina was on. From what I could tell it involved drinking large volumes of charcoal dissolved in water, and an array of vitamins that took up half a bowl.
“Does she ever consult a licensed medical professional?” he asked me.
“Depends how you defineprofessional,” I told him. “And also perhaps what constitutes a ‘license.’?”
“Ideally something as official as what we use to drive.”
“Oh,” I said. “Most don’t even have that. Carbon footprint, and all.”
“So you’re saying that in a weird way she’s actually an environmentalist?”
I spooned some guacamole onto my plate. Chips have salt. I was counting them. “I’m saying that you could find the good in anyone.”
Jake put down his seltzer. He looked at me from across the table so long without speaking that I knew what was coming next. I could feel it. The way you can tell it’s going to rain.
“I love you,” he said. So simply. He let it sit there, stretch out across the table, a whirl of dazzling, glittering words.
He kept smiling at me. But not in a way that made me feellike he was waiting for my response. In fact, his smile got bigger with my silence, like just the act of saying it was his joy, like he’d been holding it inside—this display of sparkle—for longer than he could bear.
“You mean more to me than I know how to express right now,” I said. Because it was true. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. It was that there were things I had to tell him before I told him that.
Because the thing is, Jake doesn’t know. He doesn’t know I am sick. He knows only that there are two scars on my chest—a childhood surgery, I told him, the same lie I’ve told them all. Something old that is no longer relevant or active. My ICD, once noticeable, has hidden with age. Even the scar from the battery replacement surgery is easy to miss. My breasts cover it; it’s simpler to skate around now. He knows that I do not run—I hate exercise, I say, shopping is my cardio. He knows that my medications—hidden, taken with care and discipline—are for my mental health. When I have to go to the doctors—for tests, weekly sometimes—only Irina and my parents are aware of my whereabouts.
Every time I’ve tried to tell him the truth, I pull back.He doesn’t deserve this.And then:He doesn’t deserve me—he does not deserve everything that comes along with me.
Jake has already lost someone. How can I tell him that someday he will lose me, too? I finally have a relationship that is not defined by time.
“I’m starving,” I tell Hugo and Jake. “Let’s order.”
“They make a grilled halibut and a steak off-menu that are excellent,” Hugo says. “Jake, do you eat red meat?”
Jake shrugs. “Sure, not often.”
“I’m on keto these days.” Hugo pats his stomach. “I need to be better about it.”
“Keto?” Jake asks. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Hugo gives me an incredulous stare. “You’re kidding.”
Jake looks to me and back. “Not up on diet culture, I guess.”
I see Hugo react. The slight flare of his nostrils when he’s pissed. “It’s not really a diet.”
Jake waves him off. “I didn’t mean—Look, I pretty much eat anything.”
Hugo looks back down at the menu. “Lucky you.”
I feel the tension at the table. I pick up my water glass. “Where does everyone stand on cheese?” I ask.
“Solidly pro,” Jake says.
