It was surgery day. Mom and I came down last night and got Benny admitted. Jacob was driving down with Zander.
I ate a dry bagel from the hotel’s breakfast buffet, had a decaf coffee, and managed to keep both things down. I realized if I never let my stomach get empty I was less nauseous, so I took a box of Cheerios with me and ate a few at a time every couple of minutes like I was feeding a fire.
I tried not to think of adapting to this pregnancy. I didn’t know whether it was a long-term situation. I didn’t know if I’d be carrying around boxes of Cheerios in a week. I was just dealing and not allowing myself to think beyond one day at a time. One minute. One second.
When we got to the hospital, Mom ran down to the cafeteria to get me some tea. I headed to the surgical waiting room and found Alexis sitting in one of the gray chairs. I practically fell into my best friend’s arms. “Thank you for coming.”
I’d told her everything last night on the phone, sitting alone in the hotel parking lot in the car while Mom was sleeping. Alexis was planning on coming and visiting after Benny and Jacob were in recovery, but after we talked, she’d changed her plans and drove down this morning instead.
“Zander was just here,” she said over my shoulder. “He went to go talk to the surgeon. Jacob’s already checked in.”
Just hearing that Jacob was close made the floodgates open again. I dropped into a chair and buried my face in my hands.
I felt like a sponge. I couldn’t stop crying. And every little thing just wrung me out. I knew I wasn’t in my right mind. I was barely hanging on, and nothing was making it better.
I didn’t care that Benny was getting his transplant today. I didn’t care that I was still pregnant and holding, almost six weeks in, or that Jacob seemed to still love me—for now. No matter how many good things were happening around me, this fear just swallowed me and held me in its dark belly. Everything felt hopeless. And I didn’t know how not to feel like that.
I felt Alexis sit next to me. “Are you still thinking about breaking up with him?” she asked softly.
I sniffed and nodded into my hands. “Oh, Briana.”
“I know.”
It was all I could say.
“It’s normal to be scared,” she said gently. “You’ve been hurt, it’s hard to feel safe again. This is just the flinch.”
I wiped under my eyes with the top of my shirt. “Maybe the flinch is the only thing that keeps you from getting hurt again.”
“Maybe the flinch is the only thing that keeps you from being happy.”
I looked at her and she held my gaze steadily. “Bri, you are the bravest woman I know. So be brave.”
My chin quivered.
She reached over and pulled some tissues from a box and put them in my hands. “He really loves you. I could tell before I even met him. I could tell by the way you talked about him that he did. Even Daniel saw it.”
I clutched the Kleenex in my lap for a long moment, just staring at the translucent spots my tears made on the tissues as they fell.
“I have to go,” I said, my voice weak. “I have to go see him before they take him in.”
I rallied what little of my strength I had left and stood.
Alexis looked up at me from her seat. “Bri? When he tells you he loves you, believe it. Be brave and believe it.”
I took a deep breath and gave her a nod, even though I knew I wouldn’t.
I wandered the halls until I found his room. Jacob’s face lit up the second he saw me. It made me feel guilty and horrible and exhausted.
He was in a hospital gown with a blanket over his lap. His handsome face was tired and maybe a little anxious. But mostly it was searching. Like he was hoping to see something on my face that I know he didn’t see.
I sat on the chair next to his bed while they finished putting in his IV. It was one of those quiet moments where I used to think we were agreeing to be harmless to each other. Only I wasn’t being harmless to him. And I didn’t trust he wouldn’t be harmless to me.
When the nurse finished up and finally left us alone, he held out his palm. I scooted as close to his bed as I could. I took his warm hand, and he threaded his fingers in mine and squeezed. He leaned over and kissed the top of my head and I had to pinch my eyes shut.
“How are you?” he whispered. “Better,” I lied.
I looked up at him. His gentle brown eyes. The face that once made me forget to be cautious and afraid.
I wanted to go back to that time. Be blissfully oblivious. I couldn’t go back.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, forcing conversation. “Are you nervous?”
He held my gaze. “I’m not scared of what’s going to happen in there. I’m scared you won’t be there when I come out.”
My chin trembled and I had to look away from him. “I love you,” he said.
Tears welled in the corners of my eyes.
“You know, love shows up, Briana. And even if you keep me away from you, my heart will still be where you are. So just let me be where you are.”
I was crying again. “I love you too,” I said. “I really do.”
I put my head on his bed and he put a hand on my hair and we just sat there in silence. And I got the feeling he was happy he was even getting this.
A nurse pulled back the curtain. “All right, it’s time to go. Are we ready?”
Jacob nodded, but he never took his eyes from me. They began to wheel him out, and I got up to walk next to the bed. I held his hand until we got to the double doors of the staff-only area. I leaned down and kissed him with tight lips, trying not to cry.
Maybe Jacob and I would end, right on schedule. Just like we’d always planned. Only now it wasn’t fake. Now it was too real.
“I have something for you,” he said. He gave me a flat package wrapped in brown paper that he had stashed under the blanket.
I wiped under my eyes. “What is this?”
“It’s something I want you to have. I marked where you should start, but you can read anything you want.”
“You got me a book?” “It’s a story, yes.”
I sniffed. “Okay.” I tucked it under my arm.
“If you start now, you’ll be done by the time I get out.” He put a hand on top of mine, which was clutching the rail of his gurney. “I love you,” he said. “I’m always going to love you. No matter what.”
Then they wheeled him through the doors, and he was gone.
I didn’t want to go sit with my mom and Zander and Alexis in the waiting room. I needed a minute alone. So I followed signs for the hospital chapel and took a seat in a pew.
It was serene and quiet. There was a large blue stained-glass window over a small altar. Flowers. Nobody else was in the room, which was good because I was probably going to cry here since I couldn’t seem to stop.
I set the package Jacob gave me on my lap and stared at it blankly.
It had a brown hemp string around it. I took the end in two fingers and pulled and pried the paper off. It was a notebook.
It was a journal.
His journal.
“Oh my God…” I whispered, picking it up. It was his diary. Why?
I ran a finger over the brown leather. It had his initials pressed into the cover. The leather was soft from handling and the whole thing felt almost warm in my hand, like the hours he spent with it absorbed him.
I opened it to the page with a green Post-it sticking out. It said, This is the day I met you. Start here.
He wanted me to read his diary. I was breathless.
I couldn’t read this. It felt like a violation. These were his most private thoughts in here, this was more invasive than looking at his search history, I
couldn’t.
But he wanted me to. I couldn’t give him much right now. I couldn’t make him promises or even promise that one day I could. But at least this I could do. So I opened it to the page he marked, steadied myself, and started to read.
It was a love story. Our love story.
The day he met me and the first time he laid eyes on me.
…She was so beautiful it caught me by surprise. I just stood there, I forgot what I was even doing…
He wrote about how shocked he was when I told him to bring cupcakes and how grateful he felt. The way his mood lifted when I replied to his first letter. Then a recap of every letter I wrote him and how they made him feel. How he cherished every single one and he had them saved in a special drawer in his desk.
The time I DM’d him on Instagram and then talking to me on a patio in the rain—He sat in the rain? Just to talk to me? He’d been eaten alive by mosquitoes. I remembered that, seeing all the bites on his arms. He didn’t tell me.
I laughed when he talked about how he’d obsessed for hours about what to eat in the supply closet with me. Then it was the moment he decided to donate his kidney to Benny, and how he did it for me. Not Joy. Not Benny. For me.
…Seeing her so happy when she heard the news made everything I’ll go through worth it for that one moment alone…
He wrote about how his heart raced every time he saw me across the ER or every time I touched him, how hard it was to pretend he wasn’t falling in love with me.
…I feel my heart twisting around her in a way that is completely out of my control and can never be undone. I can’t put it away and I can’t unknow it and I can’t slow it down. I don’t even want to…
Then asking me out and me saying no and how crushed he was, but he didn’t want to give up, so he followed me to Wakan.
…I had to go. I didn’t care that it was outside of my comfort zone or that even asking if I could be there with her was inappropriate, because any day I’m not with her is just wasted time. And I’ll already never get all the time I want…
Then the moment he realized he was in love with me. I was passed out drunk and he was holding me in front of the fireplace at Grant House. He said his back hurt for a week from leaning on that hope chest, but he got to hold me so it was worth it.
…It’s funny to think that even sitting there on the floor with her, uncomfortable and tired, was better than sitting anywhere else in the world without her. I didn’t even want to go to sleep because I’d rather be awake and with the woman I love than risk being alone in my dreams…
Then the next day we were on the phone with the silence stretching between us. He’d stayed on the line because he couldn’t stand to be the one
to disconnect. I thought he’d been the one who’d forgotten to hang up. But he hadn’t. He just didn’t want to let me go.
…I stayed, just listening. I sat there thinking that I was lucky to still be with her in the silence. And I realized that this is what true love feels like. Clinging even to the stolen moments you’re not supposed to have…
He wrote about loving when my perfume was on his clothes, some random time that I kissed him on the cheek and it was everything. How hard it was to not be able to touch me. How much he liked making me smile. How he’d search for little things to get or to do for me.
…I sent Briana flowers today. I always bring her things just because. But nothing with her is just because. There are a thousand reasons in every second of every day…
Hating every time I texted Levi. There was a long entry from the morning of the bachelor party when he couldn’t sleep because he was so worried I wanted someone else. Then another long entry from later that night after the futon in the basement. His confusion and fear and hurt. It was like being there with him, seeing it through his eyes, feeling everything he felt.
And then we were together.
And he was so, so happy. He had less time to write because he was spending so much time with me.
…I thought I’d been in love before. I’d called it love, I’d believed it was love. But Briana is the lesson. She’s the one who taught me what
it really feels like to live for someone else…
Then I saw Nick and Kelly.
Jacob wrote pages and pages about how he felt when I wouldn’t talk to him. How afraid he was that he was losing me. How he would do anything to bring me back and his heart was breaking because I was so sad and he missed me so much and he felt helpless.
…When she ghosts me, she haunts me. I can still feel her all around me only I can’t see her or touch her and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can’t go the rest of my life like this. This isn’t living. Nothing is anything without her…
This part was hard to read. I put the journal facedown on my thigh. It took me a minute to regain my composure. When I did, I picked up the diary, wiping under my eyes.
And now he was at my house and I was telling him about the baby. He was happy.
I smiled through tears.
He was worried about me and the pregnancy, but he said he’d love me and be with me no matter what. He’d Googled cribs and strollers and a body pillow for me, and he’d ordered lollipops on Amazon that were supposed to help with nausea. It made me laugh-cry. He was excited. He wanted to take care of me.
He wasn’t like Nick. He didn’t wish the baby would go away. He wanted me. He wanted us.
By the time I got to his last entry, hours had passed and tears were streaming down my face. I found an envelope there and opened it with shaking hands.
Dearest Briana,
I know you’re scared. You have every right to be. But someday, decades from now, when our grandchildren are grown and our hair is gray, and we’ve spent a lifetime being harmless to each other, you’re going to find this letter yellowed and wrinkled, forgotten in a shoebox. You’ll read it and you’ll remember how frightened and unsure you were once. How afraid you were to give yourself to someone, how hard it was to trust again—and you’ll smile. Because I’ll still be there. And we will still be in love.
Yours truly, Jacob
I completely lost it. I set down the letter and sobbed into my hands. He let me look into his soul. And the only thing in there was us.
I knew right then and there that I was going to fall up.
I had to let go of any grasp on my old life, on my old insecurities or fears or scars, or I was going to miss out on the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Him.
Maybe I wasn’t ready. I might never truly be ready. But I was going to do it anyway.
I was going to be brave.
