I am not losing this woman. I am not losing her.
I am not losing another person I love, especially not now I don't have to.
Jenna breaks the silence by sucking in a deep breath. “I really do want you to try and meet other people. Take other lovers. Give yourself to them.”
“Do I get a say in this?” I ask sounding everything I feel; angry, sad, disappointed, scared, frustrated, hopeless, and yet still, despite it all, hopeful.
“Of course,” she says quietly. Her hands grip my back and I can feel how many of her silent tears have soaked my T-shirt.
“You think I haven't felt like this before. You think I'm all high on how good this feels, but I'm not. You forget I have been in love before. Arnie and I fell in love slowly and awkwardly, with lots of stops and starts and mistakes made along the way. But this, this was so quick and oh-so-fucken easy. This feels more real, more mature, more solid, which makes no sense considering he and I had nearly a decade of friendship before we even kissed, and we've only had five days, but I trust how it feels. I trust how I feel about you now. I... I...” I cough, swallow down the solid ball in my oesophagus one more time. “I thought Arnie was forever, and maybe he would have been if it had played out differently. It wasn't my love ending that stopped our forever, it was his life on this planet ending. None of us areguaranteed forever, Jenna. I just want as many days as I can have with you. I don't want to waste a single day.”
“They won’t be wasted days,” she replies. “Not if we live them with love.”
She leans back and searches my eyes for a few seconds before resting her forehead on my chest again. My chin automatically falls to the top of her head, locking her in place.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you and for me to not be there,” I say in a quieter voice.
Her laugh is small and weak. “Now, I know I'm old, Marty, but I’m not that old. As far as I know I have many more years left.”
My exhale is one of defeat. “And what then, in five years?”
Jenna turns her head to look out of the door, at the swimming pool we made love in, jumped in naked, held each other in as the sun sank into the sea that stretches further than we can see. “How do you feel about coming back here?”
“In five years?”
“Five years to the day,” she says. “How's that for romance?”
“I fecking love the romance of it, but the five years part scares the shit out of me. You're asking a lot of the man who doesn't even know what he's doing next week.”
“I don't know that, either, Marty,” she says, still staring outside. “That's why I'm asking for this time so we can both get a better handle on our lives and make plans for the future.”
“Didn't someone famous say 'life is what happens when you're busy making plans'?”
“John Lennon,” she says, kissing me once, twice, her hands in my hair. “But he also said 'a dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality'.”
“Now who has an answer for everything I say?” I whisper into her lips.
I feel her tears on my cheek as she speaks. “I don't mind us being a dream, Marty. It will be the sweetest dream of my life.”
“My dreams torture me,” I say, my words full of tears. “I dream about Arnie and then wake up to remember he's gone.”
“Well, give yourself the gift of this dream.” She holds me tighter as we both shake with crying. “If you want this dream, it's yours. It's ours.”
We stay like that until our sobs ease and our tears slow. I am the first to pull back and speak again. I feel she’s carried the conversation enough and it’s my turn. It’s my turn to be strong.
“So, five years, back here? You and me?” I ask, gripping her upper arms firmly.
“I think I would like that.” I see her trying to smile, my beautiful, brave Jenna.
“And then...”
“And then... then we take it day by day.”
“Sunset by sunset?” I offer, feeling the smallest, thinnest, most threadbare piece of hope. I'm not sure it's big enough for me to hold on to, but I know I have to try.
“Sunset by sunset.” She turns her head to bury her nose against my ribcage again and I close my eyes as I feel her leave kiss after kiss after kiss there, and tear and tear after tear.
Chapter Forty-Three
