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I laughed a little too loudly. When I turned around, he was leaning in the doorway. He had his arms crossed and he was gazing at me with those soft brown eyes.

There is something so intimate about being in a man’s bedroom. Probably because there’s really only one reason why you would be…

I cleared my throat. “Don’t you have a plant room?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Come on.”

He pushed off the doorway and took me across the hall. When he opened the door, I sucked in a shock of air.

It was beautiful.

There must have been a hundred potted plants in there.

It was a sunroom with an antique desk pushed against a window overlooking the wooded yard. He had creeping vines, plump succulents, wide-leafed plants, and hanging baskets of ferns. A small fountain trickled in the corner. It was a little humid and it smelled earthy.

This place was a secret enchanted garden.

But then his whole life was, I realized.

This was his private world and almost nobody had access to it. It was by invite only, designed to be small and hidden away and only for him. I felt privileged to be here.

There was a large glass jar sitting on a wooden stand in the corner. It had several plants inside. The top was corked. “What’s that?”

“It’s a terrarium,” he said from behind me.

“How do you water it?”

“You don’t. It’s a self-sustaining ecosystem. It waters itself.”

“Huh. Cool. My kind of plant.”

I turned to look at him. “You have a very beautiful life, Jacob.”

Something that I couldn’t read moved across his face. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

I nodded at the desk. “Is this where you write to me?”

He slipped his hands in his pockets. “Yes.”

I smiled. I liked the idea that his words were born here, in this magical room. It was so him.

Jacob knew who he was. He felt so fully formed. Grown-up.

His life was made up of hundreds of thousands of tiny choices, each thing in it selected by him and only him, so it was exactly what he wanted.

Imagine being the woman he picked to join him here. Having a gentle man like this one choose you to be a part of his private, insular world. To be as special as each thing he carefully surrounded himself with. How lucky that woman would be. And I wondered how Amy couldn’t have felt that way. How she could have had the love of a man like this one and not wanted it.

I smiled softly around the room.

I liked that Jacob knew what he liked. He knew what he needed and he built a life around him that reflected that.

I’d done that once. I’d built a life.

Picked out furniture and framed photos and put vacation souvenirs on shelves. And then the man I’d done it with gave it to someone else. And now I lived in the shattered and fading remnants of my childhood instead. I lived with peeling linoleum and shag carpet and ugly furniture I hated.

I wanted to be this whole again. I would. As soon as Benny was healthy again, I’d move on. Move out. Find a place to make like this one. Be like Jacob.

Be like the old me.