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Trying to stand, still on the ropes
...
When the music's loud, I'll seek you out
You're in the crowd. I'll find your mouth
And call you sweetheart. You'll call me king
If I were Adam, then you would be Eve
You would know that you were made for me.
My song was light, melodic, and simple.
"That was beautiful." I covered my lips with my fingers.
"Angel?"
I blinked away the choking wet, trying not to sound so affected. "What's up?"
"I'm glad you like it, baby." The light smile he always carried faded. "Do you remember the promise we made when we first got together?" He took the instrument from his lap to set on the dining table.
"Wasn't there more than one?"
Jake and I made many promises after our first night together in his motel room. As I struggled with landing a new foster family because the last ones kicked me out when I left to make that show, Jake promised he would help in any way he could. We promised we'd stay together even if we ended up far apart.
"We promised to always be honest with each other."
"Yeah, I remember."
It was that major moment in the drive-thru: Jake had just told me that he loved me and I was feeling so free, so desperate, I would have built him an altar and sacrificed myself upon it to have him say it again. When he gave me those words, a sense of value that rarely impressed itself in me was birthed and expanded. Oh, I felt like flying. So high.
And then, I went flying off at the mouth. I forced a pledge; one that his confidence assured me I would never have to fulfill. When Jake said my name, "Angel . . ." it was like a song. He followed with the surprising, stuttering confession, "I think . . . no, I know. I fucking love you."
We weren't in the throes of any kind of passion. We were sitting in his dads' truck, in a line of cars at the drive-thru burger stand. He had just ordered his cheeseburger and my milkshake. And he didn't look like he was nervous or like he was joking. He looked like he knew exactly what he was saying, like he'd put a lot of thought into it.
I told him exactly how I felt in that moment. At first I loved his music, but grew to love him, too, apart from the miracles he created. And he smiled, thanked me for my honesty. Then, we promised one another, at my bidding, that should either one of us ever meet someone else that we wanted more than who we were involved with, that we would be honest about it. Because Jake had talked about relationships before-not ours, but in general-and how they were fundamentally flawed because no one ever tried to stay honest. He wanted his own relationships to be built on truth. His parents were divorced. His dad had an affair and he hated how the lies broke up his family.
So we promised never to lie, no matter the cost. To always be faithful. Even if that meant one telling the other they were attracted to someone else, or just plain wanted something different. Even if it was only for a night. We never talked about how something like that might be put into practice because we didn't know. We just loved day to day and said what we meant.
Right then, as Jake nervously rubbed a water stain on Deanna's kitchen table, reminding me of that promise, I wondered if I was about to learn a lesson.
"What do you have to be honest about?" I adjusted myself in the seat across from him.
"I'm worried."
"About?"
"That girl; the guitar player. Her name's Angelica. She's cool as hell."
I didn't like the direction of the conversation. We'd already talked about her and here he was, bringing her up again. It made me feel small. "I hear hell is pretty hot."
"She's hot, too."
He could've kicked me in the stomach and it would have been less jarring. He was looking at the floor when he said it and I knew why. He didn't want to see my reaction to his honest opinion.
"Why are you telling me this?"
