She laughed softly, not deterred. “Worked well together. Mhmmm. One more round. Then you can go be responsible and I'll forgive you for that sentence.”
“Can’t.”
“You're really gonna end it? As good as we are together?”
“We’ve discussed this, Sabrina.”
“You’ve said this before.”
“It’s final this time.”
She was quiet, pulling her dress on. “You're going to die alone,” she said.
“I’m not alone. I have my family.”
“That's not the same as romantic love. Companionship. Someone who chooses you every day.”
“I don't need that.”
She stared at me, searching for the lie. When she didn't find one, her expression shifted to pity.
“You really believe that, don't you?”
I didn't respond.
“God, Julian,” she said finally. “You're so locked up you don't even know what you really need or what you're missing. I keep thinking that one of these times you'll see it.”
And that was it.That's what I missed.She'd been carrying the theory that a different version of me existed that she could reach. I should have seen it. Should have closed the door the first time and kept it closed. Instead I'd opened it multiple times, and now I was standing in my condo with a woman who had invested in waiting me out.
“You know what I've never asked you?” Her voice was more careful. “Why you won't kiss me.”
I kept my face even. “I’ve kissed you.”
“During sex,” she said. “You'll do that. Foreplay, during, you're present, you're…” She made a small gesture that meantthorough. “I mean after. Or just because. In three years you have never once kissed me that way.”
She was right. I didn't. My parents had kissed the way people drink water. Like it was a necessity and an alternative hadn't occurred to them. My father couldn't get enough of my mother. Walking past her in the hallway, he kissed her. Coming home, going out, he kissed her. When she said something that made him laugh, and even when she frustrated him, he kissed her. Every morning before either of them had said a word to each other, they kissed. That was what kissing meant to me. The declaration underneath it. A thing you only did when you meant it inthatparticular way.
I had never meant it with anyone, and I didn't make promises I couldn't keep.
“It's just not something I do,” I answered.
She considered this for a long time. “So it means something to you.”
“Yes.”
“And I don’t mean something?”
“What we had meant what it was. Which I was always honest about.”
She nodded slowly. She didn't look wounded exactly. She looked like someone who had just received the final piece of information they needed to understand a thing.
“You need a wife,” she said plainly, like a diagnosis. “A man like you. You need someone who wakes up with you. Takes care of you. You need to be loved, Julian, really loved, and taken care of by somebody who shows up.” She shook her head. “You need love.”
“I have love.”
“Not like that.”
She didn't know about Sunday dinners with twenty people crowded around Simone's table. About coaching kids who called me Coach Wade with reverence. About my nephew Zhaire falling asleep on my shoulder during movie nights, or my niece Zaria reaching for me when she cried. She didn't know because I hadn't let her close enough to see that part of my life.
