Page 46 of XOXO, Yours

"But?"

"But she doesn't—" I stop. Try to find the right words. "She has feelings for me. I know she does. But she won't let herself have them. She keeps the whole thing at arm's length. She wants everything to be casual, but I’m just not built that way. I don't know how much longer I can keep showing up for something she won't let be what it actually is."

Mom is quiet for a moment, and I can see her thinking—not formulating advice, just actually sitting with it, which is something I've always loved about her.

"Can I tell you something?" she says finally.

"Yeah."

"When your dad and I first met, I was not in a good place." She says it plainly, no drama attached to it. "I was twenty-three and I'd just come out of a relationship that had done a number on me, and the last thing I thought I wanted was someone new. Your dad asked me out four times before I said yes. The fifth time, I said yes because I was tired of saying no, and also because he showed up with a plant."

I look up. "A plant."

"A very sad little succulent from the grocery store checkout line." The corner of her mouth turns up. “It wasn’t a gift for me. He said he'd read that succulents were hard to kill and he needed something in his apartment that would survive his learning curve. Things hadn’t been going well, so he’d taken the little cactus on an adventure.

“He didn’t even ask me on a date that day; instead, he asked if we could be friends. I was so charmed by the cactus on a field trip that I readily agreed." She pauses. "The point is, he didn't push. He didn't try to convince me I was ready or argue me out of my own fear. He saw me, saw my struggle, and offered me something real. He just kept showing up, and when I was ready, I could see that he'd been there the whole time."

"So you're saying I should keep showing up."

"I'm saying there's a difference between showing up and making yourself available to be hurt indefinitely." She holds my gaze, steady and clear. "You can love someone and still need them to meet you somewhere. You can't pour yourself into a person who keeps the door closed and call that a relationship. That's just loving someone alone, and you deserve better than alone."

I sit with that for a long moment.

"So what do I do?"

"Tell her the truth," she says, simple as anything. "All of it. And then let her decide what she does with it. You can't choose for her, and you can't love her into being ready. All you can do is say what's true and give her the space to find her own way there." She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand once. "And if she's the one, she'll find it."

She takes her iced tea and goes back down the hall, easy and unhurried. I sit at the kitchen table for another twenty minutes, turning everything she said over until it settles into something I can use.

I decide to write her a letter. I’m not sure she’d actually listen to all of my words if I was speaking them. But a letter she can read at her own pace.

It takes me four drafts to get it all right.

I fold the paper in half, then write her name on the front. Drive to her house before I can talk myself out of it, in the early Saturday morning quiet when the neighborhood is still half-asleep. I leave it on her porch between the terra cotta pot of half-dead basil she's been meaning to water for weeks and the welcome mat that says come back with a warrant.

I sit in my truck at the end of her street for a few minutes, engine running.

Then I drive home.

Jules,

I've started this four times. The other three versions were either too much or not enough, which is maybe the story of everything between us—the distance between too much and not enough, and how we've been living in that gap for months now.

I'm going to try to just tell you the truth, plainly, the way you've always been honest with me even when honesty cost you something. You deserve at least that much back.

I love you.

I'm not telling you that to pressure you or to change the terms of something you've been comfortable with. I'm not telling you because I expect you to say it back.

I'm telling you because it's true and it's been true for a while and I'm tired of knowing it and not saying it. Keeping it inside feels like lying, and I don't lie to people I love.

So, I love you. I’m in love with you. With your sharp edges and the softness you hide underneath that you think nobody sees. I love that you told nine-year-olds their color mixing was wrong and then quietly fixed it so they felt like they figured it out themselves. I love that you talk to your half-dead basil plant. I love the way you laugh, completely unguarded and full of joy.

I love the way you smell and the way you always seem to have paint somewhere on your body. I love the way it feels when I’m inside you. But I love the quiet moments on your couch eating cold tacos just as much.

Here's the other true thing: I can't keep doing this.

Not because I don't want to be near you—I will always want to be near you. And not because I'm angry, or hurt, or trying to punish you for needing what you need. But because I know what I want, Jules, and it's all of you.