T H E N I G H T
I L O V E D Y O U
I don’t know when I first fell in love with you. I only know that it was after I had already fallen in love with J. And I’m sure I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if the order of things had been reversed.
My car broke down late on that Friday for what turned out to be the very last time. The little Citröen that I’d inherited from my grandmother, and which I’m sure you still remember from the lemon-yellow paint job that seemed the perfect match for the name. I called J., hoping to catch him still at home, but he’d been called in early to work. In the middle of a four-long stint of nights for his ER rotation, he’d be pulling a sixteen-hour shift tonight, already on his way to the hospital. He told me to call the auto club or just get a cab home, an impatience in his voice that I’d been getting used to lately, as work overwhelmed him. But I won’t describe where J. and I were at that point as a “rough patch” or any of the other clichés, because that would make it sound like I was trying to shape an excuse for what happened between you and I.
I have no excuses. Because what happened was what I wanted. I have no regrets. But because you and I never talked about it afterward, I can only hope that you understand that.
I hope you knew it then. I hope you know it now.
Looking at my life from the place I’m at now, I know that J. is better for me than you would have been, even as I knew it then. J. is steady and unconditional in his caring, which is what I’ve always needed after a lot of years of heartbreak at the hands of parents I happily don’t see anymore. You were the antithesis of steady. Unpredictable, slightly manic, running on raw emotion so much of the time that it was all but impossible for any of us to keep secrets from you. Harder still to know when you were keeping secrets from us.
Of all the guys he ever counted among his friends, I think J. trusted you more than he did any other. And even given what happened between the two of us that long-ago night, I know that J.’s trust in you is the greatest gift he ever gave me.
I was trying to find the number for a cab company when my phone rang. I saw your name, and my mood lightened just a little bit.
I picked up and you told me it was my lucky day. You had dinner reservations that night at the Georgian but your date had cancelled, so it was up to J. and I to make use of them. I laughingly told you that you were adding insult to injury, explaining J.’s work schedule and my own tale of automotive woe.
“ Sit tight,” you said. “I’ll be right there.”
You were downtown that week, working only a half-dozen buildings over from the law office where I was temping. You had just started another in a long series of systems analysis contract jobs that you never got tired of complaining about. I don’t know whether you ducked out early after calling me or were already on your way home, but you were there even before I’d finished sorting the contracts I needed to read that weekend into my backpack.
You rolled down the ramp of the parking garage on your bike and pulled in to a smooth stop beside me. You were in black like always, your helmet and leathers matching the matte finish of the Norton that was worth more than my car and J.’s combined. You smiled as you pulled your helmet off, giving me a kiss on the cheek like you always did. And though you spent an obligatory few minutes under the Citröen’s hood, when all attempts to get the engine to turn over started to drain the already-dying battery, you told me to call it quits.
“ Come on,” you said, and you pulled your spare helmet from the webbing at the back of the seat. You swung onto the bike and started it up, motioning me on behind you.
I had never ridden with you before, though I’d thought about it more than I ever admitted. I had always loved bikes, most recently the little Yamaha
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