“No worries.”
“I’ll give you my number,” I said, wanting him to know that I did want to see him again, that I was interested. “And maybe we can go out next weekend.”
Sam smiled and handed me his phone.
I called myself, so his number showed up on my phone, too. I handed his phone back.
“I should get going,” I said. “But we’ll talk soon?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds good.”
“It was really nice to see you,” I said.
“You, too, Emma. Seriously.”
He reached out his hand and I grabbed it. We shook but then let our hands hang there for a moment. The effect was somewhere between shaking and holding.
As I drove back to my apartment that afternoon, with a keyboard in the back and Sam’s number in my phone, I found myself wondering whether I could be with someone like Sam, whether Sam could mean something to me.
I had always had a tender spot for him, always cared for him. And maybe it was time that I went out on a date with a nice guy. A nice guy who had always been good to me, who I might have even said yes to back in high school if things had been different.
Good things don’t wait until you’re ready. Sometimes they come right before, when you’re almost there.
And I figured when that happens, you can let them pass by like a bus not meant for you. Or you can get ready.
So I got ready.
I thought about it all night. I tossed and turned. And then, the next morning, on my way into the store, I texted Sam.
Drinks on Friday around 7:30? Somewhere in Cambridge? You pick.
It was before nine. I didn’t expect him to answer.
But my phone dinged right away.
McKeon’s on Avery Street?
And there it was.
I had a date.
With Sam Kemper.
I had never been so excited and so sick to my stomach at the same time.
What was I going to do if I started to have feelings for someone?
Maybe it wouldn’t be Sam. Maybe it would be years in the future. But realizing you want love in your life means you have to be willing to let love in.
And that meant I needed to let Jesse go.
I could think of no other way to do it, no other way of processing it, than putting it into words. So, after work that night, I sat down on my couch, grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote a letter.
Dear Jesse,
You’ve been gone for more than two years but there hasn’t been a day that has gone by when I haven’t thought of you.
Sometimes I remember the way you smelled salty after you’d gone for a swim in the ocean. Or I wonder whether you’d have liked the movie I just saw. Other times, I just think about your smile. I think about how your eyes would crinkle and I’d always fall a little bit more in love with you.
I think about how you would touch me. How I would touch you. I think about that a lot.
The memory of you hurt so much at first. The more I thought about your smile, your smell, the more it hurt. But I liked punishing myself. I liked the pain because the pain was you.
I don’t know if there is a right and wrong way to grieve. I just know that losing you has gutted me in a way I honestly didn’t think was possible. I’ve felt pain I didn’t think was human.
At times, it has made me lose my mind. (Let’s just say that I went a little crazy up on our roof.)
At times, it has nearly broken me.
And I’m happy to say that now is a time when your memory brings me so much joy that just thinking of you brings a smile to my face.
I’m also happy to say that I’m stronger than I ever knew.
I have found meaning in life that I never would have guessed.
And now I’m surprising myself once again by realizing that I am ready to move forward.
I once thought grief was chronic, that all you could do was appreciate the good days and take them along with the bad. And then I started to think that maybe the good days aren’t just days; maybe the good days can be good weeks, good months, good years.
Now I wonder if grief isn’t something like a shell.
You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you’ve outgrown it.
So you put it down.
It doesn’t mean that I want to let go of the memories of you or the love I have for you. But it does mean that I want to let go of the sadness.
I won’t ever forget you, Jesse. I don’t want to and I don’t think I’m capable of it.
But I do think I can put the pain down. I think I can leave it on the ground and walk away, only coming back to visit every once in a while, no longer carrying it with me.
Not only do I think I can do that, but I think I need to.
I will carry you in my heart always, but I cannot carry your loss on my back anymore. If I do, I’ll never find any new joy for myself. I will crumble under the weight of your memory.
I have to look forward, into a future where you cannot be. Instead of back, to a past filled with what we had.
I have to let you go and I have to ask you to let me go.
I truly believe that if I work hard, I can have the sort of life for myself that you always wanted for me. A happy life. A satisfied life. Where I am loved and I love in return.
I need your permission to find room to love someone else.
I’m so sorry that we never got the future we talked about. Our life together would have been grand.
But I’m going out into the world with an open heart now. And I’m going to go wherever life takes me.
I hope you know how beautiful and freeing it was to love you when you were here.
You were the love of my life.
Maybe it’s selfish to want more; maybe it’s greedy to want another love like that.
But I can’t help it.
I do.
So I said yes to a date with Sam Kemper. I like to think you would like him for me, that you’d approve. But I also want you to know, in case it doesn’t go without saying, that no one could ever replace you. It’s just that I want more love in my life, Jesse.
And I’m asking for your blessing to go find it.
Love,
Emma
I read it over and over and over. And then I folded it, put it in an envelope, wrote his name on it, and tucked it away.
I got in bed and I fell asleep.
I slept soundly and woke as the sunlight started beaming in from my window. I felt rested and renewed, as if the earth and I were in perfect agreement about when the sun should rise.
When I showed up at the bar, Sam was wearing a dark denim button-down shirt and flat-front gray chinos. He looked like he might have put pomade in his hair, and when I leaned in to hug him hello, I noticed that he was wearing cologne.
I’d known it was a date. I’d wanted it to be a date.
But the cologne, the smell of wood and citrus, made it all crystal clear.
Sam liked me.
And I liked him.
And maybe it was that simple.
I knew it wasn’t. But maybe it could be.
“You look great,” Sam said.
When I got ready that evening, I’d put on a tight black skirt and a long-sleeved black-and-white-striped T-shirt that clung to the better parts of me. I took more care applying my mascara than I had in years. When it clumped, I used a safety pin to straighten my lashes, the way I’d seen my mom do when I was a child.
And then I put on pale pink ballet flats and headed toward the door.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror just as I was leaving the house.
Something wasn’t right. This wouldn’t do. I turned around and exchanged my flats for black heels. Suddenly, my legs looked longer than they had any right to be.
Feeling confident, I went back into the bathroom and outlined the edges of my lips in a perfect crimson line, filling it in with a lipstick that was called Russian Red. I’d only worn it once a few months ago when I took Marie out for a fancy dinner in Back Bay. But I’d liked it then. And I liked it now.
When I made my way back to the front door and once again caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I felt borderline indestructible.
I looked good.
I knew I looked good.
This was my good look.
“Thank you,” I said to Sam there at the bar. I pressed my lips together and I sat down on the stool next to his. “You’re no slouch yourself.”
The bartender, a tall, formidable woman with long, dark hair, came over and asked me what I wanted to drink. I quickly perused their signature cocktails list and nothing struck a chord. It all just looked like various ways to mix fruit juice and vodka.