She touches everything, memorizing it as if she might not ever see it again. I want to reassure her that she will, but I don’t. I’m too caught up in how sorrowful her face is. I don’t follow her down the hall because I feel like this is a moment she needs to herself. And then I hear her voice. She is singing. I’ve never heard the song, but she is telling me she came to my house and asking me if I would forgive her for doing it. Her voice is haunted. I’ve never heard Saylor sing with such emotion.
I cautiously walk down the hall to where she is. She is looking out the window of my bedroom, staring blankly into the backyard, her voice even more pained. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t know what’s triggered her song or her actions. But, as I listen to the words, I feel her painful emotions and they’re like a knife through my heart. When she is finished singing, I stand for an eternity waiting for her to say something. Do something. Fucking something.
“When I was a little girl, I imagined living in a house like this. With a husband and a family.” She is whispering and I have to strain to hear her. When she turns from the window, a distant look is in her eyes.
“You told me that you didn’t know what love really was.” She looks up at me, and the sadness in her eyes is so intense that I’m forced to look away. But when she speaks again, I’m drawn back to her. This time I focus on her mouth rather than her eyes.
“Real love is wanting someone to experience the same, deeply powerful feeling that you do. The one that takes your breath at certain moments and speeds your heart at others. And it’s wanting it without any regard to who that person chooses to share it with. That’s the love I have for you, Dirk. And I would give anything in the world for you to feel what I feel. Even if it isn’t for me.”
She leaves me alone and I know she is letting me process her words. There is no need. I know what she feels, because I feel it too. I don’t need a definition. I don’t need to think about why I’ve never felt it before. Because it doesn’t fucking matter.
It’s taken me thirty years to have a feeling like this, and it’s been worth every second. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because what I have shouldn’t be wasted on anyone but her. She deserves it all and she has it. It’s not just a four-letter word. It’s not just a feeling or an emotion. It’s not just something you say. It’s a necessity. A vitality. A need that can’t be filled. A reason. A purpose. It’s a sunset. A clear blue sky. A rainbow. It’s everything that’s anything that makes you happy. Everything that’s anything that makes you whole. It’s the only thing that can save my soul, and the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
Love.
I’m tripping over my feet trying to get to her. I don’t want another second to pass in this life without telling her how I feel. She already knows it, but I want to say it. I want the words to sound as beautiful to her ears as hers did to mine. I find her in the living room, touching the furniture and memorizing a place that I won’t let her forget.
“You once said you would give anything for me to feel what you feel.” She opens her eyes to look at me, and I can see everything she told me, spelled out in the sparkling green pools.
“I feel what you feel. I have no pride when it comes to you. You have everything. I love you, Saylor. And the only reason I’m telling you those words is because I want you to have it in every way I’m capable of giving it to you. But they’re just words. I’ll show you I love you and I’ll spend every fucking day of the rest of my life convincing you that what I have is just for you. You’ll never have to worry about me feeling like this for anybody else, because there will never be anybody else. If what I feel for you is love, then you are what love is. And it doesn’t exist if you don’t.”
I stand there, waiting for a reaction. In movies, I’m sure this is the part where she runs and jumps in my arms and we kiss. In a book, this is where she gets teary eyed and says Oh, Dirk, in that way that makes women swoon and men want to vomit. But, in real life, her reaction is only a knowing smile, then a sigh, a lip bite, a sadness that pools in her eyes and a wrinkle in her forehead.
“I am not love,” she says, and I notice she is getting fidgety. Her arms are crossed over her chest, her bottom lip tucked in her mouth, and she is staring down at the floor, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“What you feel for me is love. What you felt for Black, that’s love. Your brothers, you love them. Love is all around you, Dirk. It always has been. What you think is respect and loyalty and all that shit—that’s love. Maybe not the way you feel it for me, but you have it for them too. If I don’t exist, love will still be here. And you will find it in the family around you.” She looks determined. Like she wants me to believe in love more than anything. Yet she hasn’t actually ever said the words to me. Only in a roundabout way.