One True Loves Page 19

  Jesse watches as my dad signs the words “bed” and “children.” My dad then scoops up Ava and takes Sophie’s hand and disappears up the stairs.

  “All right,” I say. “We will see you all later.”

  Jesse waves good-bye to everyone as I take his other hand and lead him out. But when our feet hit the street, Jesse appears lost in his own thoughts.

  “Everything OK?” I ask.

  Jesse snaps out of it. “What?” he says. “Yeah. Totally.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  I assume he’s going to ask about the sign language or their cochlear implants. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t even mention the fact that they are hearing impaired. Instead he says, “I don’t know . . . it’s just that . . . wow.”

  “What?”

  “Those are my nieces.”

  My appetite came back just before we hit the Massachusetts border. Jesse and I drove through a fast-food place and now we’re pulled over on the side of the road.

  I’m eating a hamburger and french fries.

  Jesse ordered a bacon cheeseburger and a Coke but he hasn’t had much of either.

  “I think we’ve actually stopped here before,” Jesse says.

  “At this exact one?” I ask him.

  Jesse nods. “After the senior prom.”

  I laugh. The prom feels like a lifetime ago. We told our parents we were staying over at friends’ houses but escaped early and drove up to the very cabin we’re leaving for now. Olive and I had gone to Victoria’s Secret the week before. She was trying to find a bra to fit under her dress but I ventured toward the more adult lingerie and bought a black strappy G-string, saving it for prom night. It was the first time I had really tried to be sexy. Jesse didn’t even notice it that night. All he cared about was that we were alone, no one to hear us or stop us.

  “Sometimes when I think about what I wore to prom, I wonder why you and Olive didn’t try to stop me. Remember I had those temporary butterfly tattoos all over my body?”

  He laughs. “Honestly, I thought that was hot as hell. Remember, I was eighteen.”

  “I don’t think you’re remembering just how trashy I looked.”

  “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he says. “You were the hottest girl there.”

  I shake my head and finish my hamburger, balling up the wrapper and throwing it into the bag.

  “Hold on,” I say. “I think I have a picture. I need you to truly remember what I’m talking about. I need you to admit that I looked incredibly cheesy.”

  Jesse laughs while I turn around and grab the duffel bag I put in the backseat. I pull it onto my lap and shuffle through it, grabbing the envelope I took from my apartment and searching for the picture I’m talking about. I can’t find it at first, even though I know it’s there.

  I toss the bag back into the backseat and dump the contents of the envelope onto my lap.

  “Whoa,” Jesse says. “What is all of this?”

  “Just stuff of yours, ours,” I say. “That I kept.”

  Jesse looks touched. “Wow,” he says.

  “I never forgot about you,” I say. “I could never forget about you.”

  He looks at me briefly and then down at my lap, to the photos and papers I’ve saved.

  He doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said. Instead, he grabs a picture from the pile. “Is this from New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam?” he asks me.

  I nod my head.

  That night, we kissed other people at midnight because we were in a fight. At 12:07 a.m., we made up in the bathroom of a dingy bar in De Wallen and made out sitting on top of the sink. The photo is a selfie from the wee hours of the morning, when he and I were sitting out on a bench by the river.

  Jesse picks up a candid photo of us on top of a mountain in Costa Rica and a picture of him on a beach in Sydney. You can tell I am the one taking the picture. You can tell, just from the smile on his face, how much he loves me.

  “God, look at us,” he says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Do you remember when this photo was taken?” Jesse says, showing me the one of him on the beach.

  “Of course I do,” I say.

  “That was the day we decided we were never going to make a backup plan, so that we had to pursue our dreams,” he says. “Remember? We were going to take jobs that allowed us to see the world.”

  “I remember.”

  I riffle through a few more pictures until I find another envelope inside. It’s addressed to him in my handwriting. It is the letter I wrote him before I went out on my date with Sam. I push it aside, allowing it to make its way, without being noticed, back into the larger envelope it came from.

  And then I find the photo I’m looking for. Our prom. Me with my butterflies.

  “All right,” I say. “Look at this picture and tell me the truth.”

  We are standing in front of a large glass window, overlooking Boston. You can see city lights in the background. Jesse is in a cheap tux with a wayward boutonniere that I pinned on him in my front yard as all of our parents watched. I’m right beside him, turned slightly to the side but looking at the camera. I am standing in a bright red dress, with way too many clips in my hair and a series of already-faded and splotchy fake butterfly tattoos down my back.

  A victim of early-2000s fashion.

  Jesse immediately starts laughing.

  “Oh, my God,” he says. “You look like you have some sort of skin condition.”

  I start laughing. “Nope, just fake butterflies.”

  “I remember thinking that those butterflies were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.”

  “Oh, I remember thinking I was the coolest girl at the prom,” I say. “Just goes to show things aren’t always the way we remember them.”

  Jesse looks up at me, trying to see if I meant anything by that. I decide to ignore how much it resonates.

  “But you,” I say. “You nailed it. Handsome then. Handsome now.”

  Jesse smiles and then turns back toward the steering wheel, getting ready to get on the road.

  I gather the rest of the contents of the envelope and try to put them all back. But, of course, some fall to the floor and others get caught on the edge, unwilling to be crammed in.

  I pick up what’s fallen, including my ruby ring, put it all back in the envelope, and then throw it in the backseat. Only then do I see that I’ve left something on the center console between us.

  It’s an almost four-year-old article from the Beacon.

  “Local Man Jesse Lerner Missing.”

  Next to the headline is an old photo of him standing in his parents’ yard, waving, his right hand perfectly intact.

  I was still in LA when the article was published, but a copy of it made its way to me shortly after I got back to Massachusetts. I almost threw it away. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of anything with his picture on it, anything that bore his name. I had so little of him left.

  I grab it and fold it back in two, the way it has lived in the envelope for years.

  Jesse watches my hands as I do it.

  I know that he saw it.

  I put it in the backseat, with the envelope. When I turn back around, I open my mouth to tell Jesse about it, to acknowledge it, but he looks away and starts the car.

  He doesn’t want to talk about it.

  Do you ever get over loss? Or do you just find a box within yourself, big enough to hold it? Do you just stuff it in there, push it down, and snap the lid on it? Do you just work, every day, to keep the box shut?

  I thought that maybe if I shoved the pain in there hard enough and I kept the box shut tight enough that the pain would evaporate on its own, that I’d open the box one day to find it was empty and all of the pain I thought I’d been carrying with me was gone.

  But I’m sitting in this car right now and I’m starting to think that the box has been full for the past three and a half years. I’m pretty sure that the lid is about to come off
and I’m scared to see what’s inside.

  After all, Jesse has a box, too.

  And his is packed tighter than mine.

  Jesse’s family cabin.

  I never thought I’d see this place again.

  But here I am.

  It’s about two in the morning. The roads to get here were so quiet, you’d think it was a ghost town.

  The cabin, an oddly shaped house that resembles more of an oversized chalet, is warm and inviting—wood siding, big windows, a wraparound deck. It has the slightly mismatched sense that it used to be a tiny home but has weathered a number of additions.

  There’s not a single lit lamp on the property, so Jesse leaves the high beams on in order for us to get our stuff.

  I grab my bag. Jesse grabs a few things from the trunk. We head toward the front door.

  “You chilly?” he says as he fiddles with the key. “I’ll get a fire going after we get in.”

  “That sounds great,” I say.

  The key turns and clicks, but the door sticks. Jesse has to lean into it to push through.

  When it finally gives, the first thing that grabs me is the familiar woodlike musk.

  Jesse walks through and turns on all the lights and the heat before I’ve even had a chance to put my things down.

  “Settle in, I’m going to go turn off the lights in the car.”

  I nod and rub my hands together, trying to warm them. I look around at the stone fireplace and the cabin furniture, the afghan blankets that cover most of the chairs. The bar is stocked with half-empty bottles of liquor. The wood plank stairs are so old you can tell they creak just by looking at them.

  There’s not a single thing about this place that surprises me, not a single thing that feels out of place in comparison with my memory, except that I am a different person than I was the last time I was here.

  I think I understand a little of how Jesse must feel coming back. I can see now what he meant back at my parents’ house, how it is equally weird how much things don’t change as how much they do.

  Jesse comes in and shuts the door.

  “This place should heat up in a few minutes, I think,” he says. “Although it goes without saying that I haven’t been here in years.”

  “The last time we were here was—”

  “Our wedding,” Jesse says, finishing my sentence.

  I smile, remembering. Jesse smiles, too. After the reception, we spent the night at the inn so, in fact, the last time we were here was when we had sex—he in his tux, me in my wedding dress—on the kitchen counter that is currently just off to my left. I remember how romantic it seemed. Now, I find myself sort of cringing that we had sex on the counter. That’s where people prepare food! What were we thinking?

  “So how about this fire?” I say.

  “On it!” he says as he walks over to the fireplace. It’s dusty and bare, with a stack of old wood next to it.

  I watch him as he moves. I watch as he selects the pieces of wood. I watch him stack them. I watch him strike a match.

  “Are you tired?” he asks me. “Do you want to go to bed?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m oddly awake. You?”

  He waves me off. “I’m not exactly on Eastern Standard Time.”

  “Right,” I say.

  Jesse steps to the bar. “Wine, then?”

  “Gin?” I say.

  “Oh, wow,” he says. “All right.”

  He pours me a glass of Hendrick’s. He pours another one for himself. I sit down and grab the afghan that’s hanging on the back of the couch.

  Jesse ducks underneath the bar and grabs a tray of ice from the freezer. He has to hit it against the counter in order for any of the ice to pop out.

  “It might have been months, maybe years, since someone made a cocktail in this place,” Jesse says. “This ice isn’t exactly grade-A material.”

  I laugh. “It’s fine, honestly.”

  He brings me my glass and puts his down. He moves toward the fire and stabs at it with the poker. It starts to build into a gentle roar. I straighten my posture and grab my glass. I gesture for Jesse to get his.

  “To you,” I say.

  “To us.”

  I smile and we toast. I shoot back a quarter of the glass. Jesse tries to do the same and winces. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s actually been quite a long time since I had liquor.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, throwing the rest of the contents of the glass into my mouth. “I’ll get you caught up.”

  Soon, the fire is warming up the whole room. Our sometimes stilted conversation grows more uproarious and loquacious as the alcohol hits our system. In no time, the two of us are reminiscing about how bad the cake tasted at our wedding and I’ve had three glasses of Hendrick’s.

  Jesse is sitting at one end of the couch with his feet on the coffee table. I’m sitting on the other end with my feet underneath me. My shoes are off; my sweater is on the floor.

  “So tell me,” he says. “What stamps have you acquired on your passport?”

  I am sorry to disappoint him. “Uh, none actually. None since you left.”

  Jesse is clearly surprised. “Not even to Southern Italy?” he asks. “You were up for that piece about Puglia.”

  “I know,” I say. “I just . . . you know, life sent me in another direction.”

  We are quiet for a minute and then Jesse sits forward, his torso leaning toward me.

  “I’m sorry I took that job,” he says. “I’m sorry I left you. What was I thinking? Leaving the day before our anniversary?”

  “It’s OK,” I say back. I want to add, “I’m sorry I got engaged to someone else,” but I can’t bring myself to say it. The apology would only draw attention to the most vulnerable and insecure parts of me, like a teenager wearing a bikini to a pool party.

  “Do you have any idea what it’s like to wish for someone every day and then finally see yourself sitting next to them?” he asks me.

  “Lately, it feels like that’s all I know,” I tell him. “I still have trouble believing that all of this is real. That you’re here.”

  “I know. Me, too,” Jesse says. He grabs my hand and holds it in his and then he says, “You cut your hair.”

  I find my hand moving to the back of my head, along the nape of my neck where my hairline ends. I do it as if I’m too shy to have hair so bold. Something about the way I move irritates me. It’s as if I’m not entirely myself, as if I’m performing a role. “Yeah,” I say. I can hear there is an edge to my voice. I soften it. “A few years ago.”

  “And it’s blonder,” he says. “Your hair wasn’t really blond before.”

  “I know,” I say. “But I like it.”

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” he says. “At the airport.”

  “I recognized you the moment you stepped out of that plane.”

  “You are so different,” he says, moving closer. “But you’re also everything I dreamt of for all of those years. And you’re right in front of me.” He puts his hand to my face and looks into my eyes. He leans in to me and presses his lips against mine. My brain gives way to my heart as I sink into him.

  He pulls away. “I think we should sleep together,” he says. He looks me in the eye and doesn’t shy away.

  I know that if I say yes, there is no turning back.

  It will change things between Sam and me forever.

  But I also know that what we’re talking about is inevitable. I will sleep with him, whether it’s this second or tomorrow or in two weeks. It will happen.

  I want to know what Jesse feels like now—a desire that is only heightened by the memories I have of what he felt like then.

  I know the consequences. I know what this might cost me.

  I’m going to do it anyway.

  “I think so, too,” I say.

  Jesse smiles and then laughs. “Then what the hell are we doing down here?” he says. He stands up and puts his hand out for me, like a gentle
man.

  I laugh and take it. But the moment I’m on my feet, Jesse has lifted me right back off of them, swooping me up into his arms.

  “When was the last time you did it in a twin-size bed?” he asks. It is a joke. And I know better than to answer. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s not such a good sign how often I’m cherry-picking the truth.

  Jesse rushes us out of the living room to the stairs.

  “Oh, my God!” I cry out, stunned at how easily he can move about the house with me in his arms. “You’re gonna drop me!”

  He doesn’t listen. Instead, he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He pushes open the door to the room that was once considered his. Jesse throws me onto the bed and lands on top of me.

  Nothing I’ve ever done has felt as much like home as this, being underneath him, feeling his lips on mine, his hands running down my body.

  He unbuttons my shirt and opens it wide.

  My body has changed since he left, the somewhat natural process of time. But I don’t feel shy or embarrassed. I feel invigorated. As if I want to be as naked as possible, as quickly as possible—as if I want to show him all of me.

  I watch as he takes his own shirt off, as he puts his arms over his head and pulls. I am surprised to see that he’s even skinnier than I imagined and that there is a tangle of faded puce scars running down the left half of his torso. They look like lightning bolts tied up in knots. He wears so much of his pain and hardships on his body.

  “All those years that I missed you,” he says as he runs his nose gently down my collarbone, “I missed your face and your voice and your laugh.”

  My body is hot, my face is flush. His hands feel so much better than I remember. His body fits into the corners of mine effortlessly, like our limbs were formed around each other, ebbing and flowing in relation to the other.

  He tears the button of my jeans open with a flick of his wrist. “But more than anything I missed the feel of you,” he says as he pulls my jeans off of me, struggling at first to get them around my hips and then flinging them across the room. He wordlessly takes off his own. He lies back down and presses his whole body onto mine.

  “I missed the way your hands feel on my back,” he says. “And the way your legs feel around me.”