“Why?” She stares at me, blinking hard. “Why, Wes? Because you feel like we’re fated to be together? Because that’s not a good reason. That feels like obligation.”
“It’s not obligation, it’s attraction. And why shouldn’t I choose you? Why not? You ask why, and I ask why not?”
“Why not?” She laughs bitterly. “Because I’m going to die soon, Wes, that’s why. It’s the emotional version of a suicide mission.”
“That’s my business.”
“But why would you want to? What is it about me that makes it worth it for you?”
“Who you are. Your strength of character. Your intelligence. Your musical talent. Your physical beauty.”
She snorts. “Yeah, okay.”
I sigh, feeling frustrated. “Jolene, for real, you need to get over this misconception you have that physical beauty and attraction relies solely on the shape of your body. I am attracted to you physically. Right now, just as you are. No, you don’t have ginormous boobs and a Kardashian ass. So what? That’s not what determines beauty. Thatcanbe one aspect of physical beauty. But it’s not everything. And a person can be beautiful without that. And you are. You are beautiful. Objectively, and also subjectively to me.” I touch my fingers to her forearm, gently. “For example, I don’t think there’s anyone who could deny that someone like—let’s say…Keira Knightley. She’s beautiful. She’s successful, talented, and beautiful. But she’s not beautiful because of her curves, nor is she less beautiful for any kind of lack thereof, right? There are many, many different types of bodies in this world, Jolene. There are many, many different qualities of beauty. You’re fixating and finding your self-worth in one very narrow aspect.”
She’s quiet for a long, long time. “I just…this is hard to put into words, what I’m thinking, what I want to say.” Another silence. “I’ve often felt disconnected from my body, Wes. It’s a…a layer of self-defense, psychologically and emotionally. I’ve spent so much of my life in pain, feeling sick, and under the influence of drugs that separate me from sensation to protect me from that pain. So then, even if I’m not in pain or drugged up, it’s hard for me to feel fullyinmy body. Connected to my…physicality, so to speak. Because it’s just easier not to. I’m more than my body. My life, my inner life, my sense of who I am…it’s not centered in my body, it’s in my mind. I can lay in bed and be sick and sort of disconnect myself from that sensation, and live in my mind. Think about things, daydream, pretend, plan. Watch movies, listen to music. Sure that uses my physical senses, but not my body, so to speak. So I’ve never…felt…centered in my physical body.”
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 Iknowher, on a level I shouldn’t after only a few days. I shouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense. Yet I just…knowher. 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’safter 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.
