For whom the wedding bells toll
Jesse called me crying on his way home. He had been out for dinner with Vance and Fred and the talk of their upcoming wedding (Barcelona!) made him sad about us.
“I sat there laughing as they joked about how the preparations have been a nightmare, but all I could think about was how you weren’t sitting right here next to me.”
I think about that all the time, Jesse. But for some reason I didn’t say that - couldn’t say it - and instead kept quiet on the phone until he calmed down. These past few weeks have been too intense for me. There’s too much drama, too many feelings that continue unrequited because of this distance between us. The uncertainty of what the next week - even the next day - will bring makes it difficult to make sense of why we have to spend every day apart in different cities.
If only somehow we knew it would turn out all OK, this distance would be that much easier to bear. “Why don’t you give me a call when you get home? Or if you’re tired, I’ll give you a call in the morning.” And with that, I let my lover go.
Jesse looks at Vance and Fred and thinks about the life we might be living, if not for this cancer. his health. We have a dream. We want to move back to New York someday. I’ll write for The New York Times and he’ll be the vice president of Sony’s US regional headquarters. We’ll put down a payment for a small townhouse apartment and live there till we’re a couple of 80-year-old queens.
There are days I can’t tell if this tightness in my chest comes from loving him so much, or from my fear that time is running out for us. The grieving process - the imminent possibility of it, the fear of it - how do you prepare to lose someone you love?