Surely he will get sick of my grief sooner or later. And then he’ll leave, and I’ll be alone again. A person can only take so much crying and hyperventilating and panic.
Every day is the worst day when you’re dreading the next.
Even just thinking about telling him I love him makes me want to crawl into a hole and never see the light of day again. Even though it’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last twelve hours.
Even though itistrue.
Imagine if Grant heard you that love someone else. He’d never forgive you for loving another. Or is it you who’d never forgive yourself?
Imagine if you had to choose. Just like in your dreams. You can only pick one. The dead man or the one who is here. You just have to be brave enough to choose.
Imagine if…
Imagine. And on the train ride home, imagine was all I do.
Different scenarios in which Jae walks out on me. In the morning. In the afternoon. In the dead of the night, with all his bags packed like a teenage runaway.We’d be fighting after a long night, or he’d get tired of me looking at old photos and memories, and say he’d had enough. He’d leave me all alone again. But still, this is only my second to worst fear.
My worst fear is if his way of walking out is being dead.
I couldn’t take another funeral. I couldn’t take another casket. I couldn’t take another health scare. Not that I wouldn’t, but Icouldn’t.There isn’t a scenario in which I think I could be okay if Jae died. He is the first person I’ve let in since Grant died. Him being gone would crush me in the worst way.
I’ve already spent so much of my life being sad. I can’t spend the next part of whatever is in store for me being sad. The thing about opening yourself up to another person, is that you actually have to stay open. You are not a door. You cannot open and close at will. I love him and I want to be with him, but the vulnerability that comes with it is a thousand knives in my carefully arranged armor. I know I love him. I know I can’t do this a second time. The answer was seemingly simple.
I die before him.
Unfortunately, death is not the kind of thing you can arrange.
My mind doesn’t know how to grapple with this kind of uncertainty and before I can do the worst and start crying on the subway, I open my phone and text Jae. I will confess and deal with the repercussions after, self-inflicted or otherwise.
Can you come over before the dinner service? I’ll be home in 10.
I’ll see you in 20.
It’s only 3:10 when I get off the train, so I stop at the corner shop on my way home and pick up real groceries. Apples andcarrots and peanut butter fill my basket. On a whim, I purchase a pie crust and as many little limes as I can carry.
I barely lug the stuffed bags into my lobby, my granny cart long forgotten in the corner of my apartment, and unlock my door one handed. Lily greets me happily, and I’m happy to see her too. I dump my groceries onto my kitchen island and bend down to scratch her head.
I’m startled when my door swings open and Jae appears in the doorway, dressed in his chef uniform.
“Hey!” He closes the door behind him and crouches down to my eye level. He scritches Lily lovingly. “How are you? What’s up?”
“I’m making dessert.” I gesture at the ingredients for a key lime pie piled on my countertop.
We stand and Jae wraps his arms around my waist. “Good thing. I’ve been craving a key lime pie and a kiss on the lips.” He places a soft kiss to make his point. “My girlfriend is the best.”
I feel the doubt and grief crop up in my chest like seeds in the soil.
Girlfriend. The last time you were somebody’s girlfriend, he died. But it wasn’t his fault. Cancer doesn’t discriminate.
“So, I looked at a place in Gramercy today.” Jae tells me.
I falter in his arms.What’s to say that won’t happen now?
“Are you sure you want me to be your girlfriend?” I ask him, doubt riddling my voice like static.
“What?”
“I’m just…” I don’t know how to say anything without word vomiting all of my grief, doubt and insecurities. So that’s exactly what I do.
