I have to really think hard to process what she’s saying—it’s deep, and I’m not going to give it a cursory, half-assed answer. “So suddenly experiencing physical sensations which are inherently connected to emotions…it would be pretty jarring.”
She nods. “Yeah, very. I’m suddenly forced to be fully physically present. I can’t just float along mentally. I have to be here. I have to feel things. When it’s you and me and we’re doing stuff, and I’m all caught up in it, it’s amazing. But when I start thinking? It gets a lot harder.” She finally looks at me again. “I’ve never had to worry about what I look like—it’s never mattered. My life has been about just…surviving the pain, honestly. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but that’s just the reality. But now, suddenly, I’m aware of my body, my sexuality, what I look like, how I feel about what I look like. And it’s hard, Wes. I know…I guess this is stuff most people go through much younger, much earlier, but I’ve been caught up in other stuff. So I guess I don’t think that I can easily just ‘get over it.’”
I wince. “I’m sorry, Jo. That was pretty harsh of me. I just…I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”
“I think I’ve heard that line before,” she says, grinning.
I laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s not original, but it’s true.”
She takes my hand, tangles our fingers together. “I’m trying. And when we’re…” She pauses, licks her lips, smiles. “When we’re together, when you’re kissing me and touching me and stuff, I feel beautiful. You make me feel beautiful.”
“Because you are. You really, really are.”
“So just be a little patient with me, when I sometimes have trouble understanding that and feeling that way when we’re not caught up in the heat of the moment. It’s not an easy thing to feel. For anyone, for any woman, I think, feeling beautiful is difficult. Because there’s…there’s just so much involved in it.”
“Yeah, that’s something I’m coming to understand.”
I need to be home. I need to be somewhere private and safe with Jo. So, I drive with purpose, determined to get home as quickly as possible. Which means stopping for gas, picking up crappy drive-through junk food which upsets my stomach more often than not, and hitting the freeway again. I drink coffee like it’s all that’s keeping me alive, which to a degree feels accurate. The world narrows, as it tends to on long road trips, down to Jo, me, the road, the act of driving which becomes second nature. Conversation wanders, sometimes trails off as we listen to podcasts. She dozes a lot.
Hours pass in rotating sensations—sometimes, fifteen miles seems to take the whole day, and then suddenly we’re passing a state line that I’d thought was still a hundred miles away. Midday fades into afternoon, and then into evening. I’m not even sure where we are—I’m just blindly following the blue line on the GPS on the screen. I’m barely aware of the scenery, more focused on the road as Jolene sleeps beside me; this isn’t a doze, this time, it’s a deep sleep, mouth slack. Her head is pillowed on a sweatshirt against the window. The evening sun shines on her head, turning her hair into glowing, fiery strands of red-gold.
Like this, asleep, she seems so delicate. Porcelain.
My heart squeezes, aches with some strange, thick, hot, full-to-bursting feeling. A need to protect her. To make whatever time she has left magical.
Every moment has to matter, deeply.
I realize that perhaps I’ve already fallen in love with her, and I just don’t know how to recognize the signs. What it feels like. What it is. What it means.
Is this it? How do I know?
It makes it crystal clear that I’ve never been in love. I’ve never told another person that I love them, so that’s pretty obvious. But you can be in love and not tell them, right? Because maybe you’re scared, reticent to trust and risk being hurt. But the way I feel, so suddenly, and so intensely, for Jolene…it puts my emotions into perspective.
Is love possible, when you just met someone? When you barely know them, in terms of time? Yet I feel like I know her, on a level I shouldn’t after only a few days. I shouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense. Yet I just…know her. I feel her soul. I could no more walk away from her than I could lift a building onto my back. It’d be walking away from myself. Worse, maybe.
It’s after four in the morning when I pull through the gates of home. She’s been asleep the whole time, which I think is good. I hope. I don’t know. She doesn’t seem to be in pain or sick, just…sleeping.
I pull to a stop in the garage, immediately closing the garage door and shutting off the engine. She doesn’t stir. I decide to leave our stuff and just go inside. I don’t want to wake her, though. She shifted and leaned the seat back, so her weight isn’t on the door anymore, allowing me to open her door, unbuckle her, and scoop her into my arms.
“Hmm? Wha—? Whattimezit?” she mumbles. “Wes?”
I cradle her against my chest. “I’ve got you.”
“Tired.”
“I know. It’s okay. Just rest.”
“Are we there?”
“Yeah, we’re home.”
“Your home?”
“Yeah.”
To my bedroom, the main floor master suite off the kitchen. I don’t bother with lights, even though the predawn leaves the house thick with gray shadows and black patches. I know the way well enough to navigate in the dark. I’m exhausted. Beyond exhausted.
I settle her onto the bed, tug the blankets out from underneath her, and cover her with them. She rolls to her side, sighs deeply.
“Wes?” Her voice is small.
I shuck my shoes and shirt, leave my shorts on, and climb into bed beside her. “I’m here.”
“Closer. Hold me.”
I press my nose between her shoulder blades, wrap my arm over her hip, and she clutches my hand against her chest. “I’ve got you.”
“Are you afraid?” Her voice is soft, quiet, faint.
“Of what?”
“Loving me, and losing me.”
“Of loving you? No. Of losing you? Yes.”
A long quiet, so long I’m sure she’s fallen asleep. “But you love me anyway?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“I don’t care if it’s crazy.”
“Me either.” I kiss the back of her neck. “I thought you were tired.”
“I am. But I can’t fall back asleep. I’m stuck, half asleep, half awake.”
“You did sleep for a long time.”
“How long?”
“From like three in the afternoon till we got home. It’s after four in the morning.”
“Should have warned you. I do that, after I’ve been sick. I can’t really rest when I feel like that, so even though it seems like I’m doing nothing but sleeping for three days or whatever, I’m not really sleeping, not restfully. So then, when I’m feeling better and can sleep, my body’s just like, bam, you’re down until you’re caught up.”