I could feel him through the line. I could smell him. He was becoming 3-D, shaped by my memory of the constant study of his face and his movements and his moods. He floated in front of me like a ghost, coming through the thin connection of our phones.
I wanted to run to him. To walk out of this place and get in my car and go straight to his house. Burst into his plant room while he sat at that desk and throw myself at him and take whatever he was willing to give me, no matter how small, or temporary, or insignificant. I could feel my body and my heart and my mind wrestling with one another. One screaming for him, the other one too afraid to act, and the last one arguing rationally that this would be a terrible, terrible idea.
And he probably wasn’t even there. Just a phone, abandoned on a desk. And me, making things up.
I pulled the cell away from my ear and looked at the screen. Then I pressed the End Call button.
Hanging up with him and going to bed alone felt like the saddest thing I’d ever done in my life.
I waited until dinner after work the next day to talk to Mom and Benny. Mom had made pollo encebollado, chicken thighs in a tomato onion base. It was my favorite dish. Of course she’d made ten times more than we could ever eat and it was all going into the quickly filling deep freezer in the garage. Oh well. At least I wouldn’t keep wasting money on DoorDash.
I’d given this situation with Jacob a lot of thought. I’d decided to move in with him, just for a few months.
He was right. My mom would definitely blow our cover to his family if I was still living here. Moving in with him was the only way to make sure his family didn’t catch us in this lie I’d told. It was so stupid. I should never have done it. Amy just made me so mad and I wanted to rub it in her stupid face.
Anyway.
I’d promised Jacob that I would make this fake relationship believable. And I was the one who’d made the claim we were living together. He was obviously stressed about it or he wouldn’t be insisting on it so much. Plus, this house was officially crowded with Mom and Benny in it. Mom could do Benny’s dialysis; I didn’t have to be here. So I was going to Jacob’s after dinner.
We were finishing up eating and I wiped my mouth with a napkin.
“So I have something I need to tell you guys,” I said.
Mom paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Are you pregnant?”
“No, I am not pregnant.”
I couldn’t help but note that she looked disappointed.
Mom was extremely traditional. If I were pregnant and unmarried, she would not be happy. But apparently me being childless and unmarried at my age was even worse.
I let out a long breath. Then I looked at my brother. “Benny, Jacob is your kidney donor.”
I heard Mom’s fork hit the plate.
“He didn’t want anyone to know,” I said. “But he’s given me permission to tell you. Also, he’s asked me to move in with him and I’ve agreed. I’m leaving. Tonight.”
My brother looked stunned. Mom had her hands over her mouth. Then she got up and headed straight to the fridge.
I twisted in my chair. “What are you doing?”
“Packing food for him. Briana, make him a plate.”
“Mom, I’m not going yet—”
“Si, claro que se lo vas a llevar!” She was pulling Tupperware out of the fridge. “If you do not go and feed that man right now, I will go there and feed him myself.”
I groaned. Jacob didn’t know it yet, but his freezer was about to be full of Salvadorian food. Forever.
I looked back at Benny. He was just blinking at me.
“You don’t have to make a big deal about it,” I said to my brother. “He’s introverted too. He won’t like a big show of gratitude or anything.”
Mom pulled an insulated bag from the pantry and went for the deep freezer in the garage. When the door to the garage closed, Benny licked his lips. “You’re not doing anything stupid for me, are you?”
I wrinkled my forehead. “What?”
“You’re not like, hooking up with him for this. Right?”
I shook my head. “No.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe me. “Why’d he ask you on that date?” he said. “The other day?”
I leaned forward. “Benny, I need you to believe me when I tell you that Jacob would never do anything to take advantage of me. I am deeply in love with this man. And only five percent of that is because of what he’s doing for you.”
I realized in that moment that it was true.
It was amazing that Jacob had so many endearing qualities that donating an organ to my brother only represented the smallest reason why I loved him.
Benny peered at me for a second. Then he looked away from me and nodded.
“I’m sorry I’m leaving you here with Mom,” I said quietly.
He sniffed. “It’s okay. I get it. Tell him thanks.”
“I will.”
I put a hand over his. “I want you to know, though, that I would have done anything I needed to do to make this happen for you.”
He nodded again.
And I guess I sort of already was. Because in making this arrangement with Jacob, I’d signed up to break my own heart.
Chapter 34
Jacob
Someone knocked on my door. Lieutenant Dan jumped up and started barking.
I was in my plant room journaling. It was almost nine p.m. Probably Jewel. My other two sisters had already been here in the last twenty-four hours.
I sighed, set my pen into the pages, and shut the notebook. I got up and opened the door to…Briana?
She had two suitcases, a cooler, a duffel, and an insulated shoulder bag.
“Hey—”
“I’m moving in,” she said. “But just for a few months.”
My grin ripped across my face. Instant happiness.
She came in carrying the duffel and the cooler, an excited Lieutenant Dan hopping around her feet.
“What’s in the cooler?” I asked.
“More Salvadorian food than you and I could ever eat. And it’s going to keep coming.”
I beamed as I took her luggage straight to my bedroom closet. I cleared out a space for her on the rack and consolidated a few drawers so she could have them.
I couldn’t even describe how happy I was to have her here. She would be the last person I saw before I went to bed and the first person I saw when I woke up.
I pictured my bathroom, steamy after her shower, smelling like her perfume and her shampoo. Her things scattered through my house. A sweater on the back of a chair. Her shoes by the door. Her lipstick on my cups. These little insignificant things that felt so huge and meaningful.
I came back down the hallway as she came out of the kitchen. “I managed to get it all to fit in the freezer,” she said.
She looked around the living room with hands on her hips. “I think it’ll fit here.”
“What will fit here?”
“The air mattress.”
She began pulling a crumpled rubber wad and a black pump out of her duffel bag. My smile faded. I thought she would sleep in my room. In my bed. With me.
“You don’t have to sleep on the floor,” I said. “We can share my bed. It’s big enough.”
“No. I think it’s more appropriate if we don’t share a room.”
“But we’ve done it before. And that bed was way smaller—”
“It’s just better, Jacob.”