“Yeah,” I say, looking at the state of my pants. “Me too.”
“Text me later?” she says, like she’s nervous I won’t want to. As if the last several months and hundreds of hours on the phone have all been some lead-up to this and now that I’ve gotten what I want from her, I’m going to disappear.
Will she want me to? Will she still want to be as close to me, now that we’ve done this? Now that my desire for her is no longer plausibly deniable?
Now that I’ve maybe cost her a real relationship and then only been able to give her simulated sex in return?
It was easy with him. God, all I want is to make it easy with me, too.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Always.”
Because I’m not going to be the one to walk away from her. I’m not going to enforce any limits on how much we talk, on how close we are, even if I should. Whatever she wants from me, however she’ll have me, I’m hers, and I think I’ll always be hers.
We hang up, and I take a long, hot shower, standing under the water and trying to breathe and telling myself I have not irrevocably fucked up my cherished relationship with my best friend in the world for one night of messing around, and not even in person.
Not that it made it less intimate to me, I’m realizing. Not that it made it less important, or mean less.
That meant everything to me, because she means everything to me. But she’s been seeing other people and sleeping with other guys and I didn’t know, I had no idea that was even happening. Meanwhile the idea of touching another woman makes me feel sick.
I don’t know how to live like this. And my stupid excuses for not seeing it all the way through are starting to feel less and less important.
When I climb out of the shower, a towel wrapped around my waist, my phone dings, the special ding I have assigned only to Maya. I look down at the screen, resting on the bathroom counter.
Did you mean all those things you said?
It’s not really a choice. I have to tell her the truth.Yes, I respond.I meant every word.
There’s a long pause, during which I can picture her holding her phone, closing her eyes, trying to figure out how to gently tell me she doesn’t feel the same.
I think we need to talk in person, she says.
My heart stops beating. Does she want to let me down in person? Would she make me fly all the way there just to tell me she’s never liked me like that, that this was just a one-time thing?
I can fly out tomorrow, I send, just as I receive back:
I can come out to LA.
No,I say.I can come to you.
Clearly, I think. I’ve proven that well enough. But I don’t know if we’re laughing about that. I don’t know if we ever will be.
That would be great, Maya answers, and I fight to breathe.There are tears in my eyes, and I don’t know if they’re hope or fear or some terrible mixture in between.
We can’t go on this way. I told her that when she told me aboutTed. Obviously we can’t keep taking up this space in each other’s lives if we’re not going to be anything more than friends. After tonight, I’m not sure that we’re capable of it.
But I’m not ready to lose her from my life entirely. I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready for that.
Which means I know what I have to do. It’s time to stop holding back, to put all of my cards on the table. I’m terrified, but I need to know, now, if she could ever love me the way that I love her.
I want to be with her for the rest of my life, and I need to know if she could ever feel the same.
Eleven
Kevin
The first thing I do when I get dressed is to book myself a plane ticket to Denver for the next day. I text Maya the time I’ll arrive and tell her I’ll get a rental car at the airport and then take her to dinner, if that’s all right.
Sounds great, she replies, which gives me absolutely no information about what’s going to happen.
