“Then it goes bad.”
“Ellis.”
“What do you want me to say?” His voice cracked, just barely, along a fault line he’d been patching for weeks. “I watched your mom hang up on you. I watched you cry in your kitchen and then get up the next morning and go to work like nothing happened. If you can do that, I can sit across from my parents at their dining room table and tell them the truth about who I am.”
“That’s not a competition.”
“No. But it’s a standard.” He uncrossed his arms. Took my hands. His fingers were warm from the stove and dusted with Parmesan, and the absurdity of having this conversation while risotto cooled behind him wasso perfectly our life that I wanted to freeze it. “You were brave enough to tell your mom even though you knew it might go wrong. I owe myself the same thing.”
“You don’t owe anyone…”
“I owe myself, Jett. I’ve been lying by omission for my entire adult life. Every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every phone call where my mom asks if I’m seeing anyone and I say ‘not really’ because the truth is too complicated. I’m done. I’m tired of being comfortable with dishonesty.”
The risotto was going to be overcooked. Neither of us cared.
“Sunday.”
“Sunday.”
“And you’ll call me after?”
“I’ll call you after.”
“Even if it’s bad?”
“Especially if it’s bad.”
I pulled him into me. He came willingly, unfolding from his defensive posture and settling against my chest with his face in my neck. His breathing was uneven. Not crying. Calibrating. Running the scenarios the way he always did, because Ellis approached emotional devastation the same way he approached sprint planning: identify risks, prepare contingencies, accept that some variables are outside your control.
“For what it’s worth,” I said into his hair, “I think your dad is going to surprise you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because a dad who coaches Little League and frames prom photos doesn’t do that because he loves the version of you he invented. He does it because he loves you. The actual you. Even the parts he doesn’t know yet.”
Ellis pulled back enough to look at me. His eyes were wet, but he wasn’t crying. Just full. Brimming with whatever mixture of hope and terror lives in you right before you jump.
“I’m taking the LIRR out there.” He checked his phone. “Sunday morning. The 9:47 from Penn Station.”
“You already checked the train schedule?”
“I’ve been checking it every day for a week.”
Of course he had. Preparing for the jump by memorizing every detail of the cliff.
“I’ll be at your apartment when you get back.” I squeezed his hands. “With food. Thai or otherwise.”
“Not Thai. I can’t eat pad thai during emotional crises anymore. You’ve ruined it.”
“Smash burgers?”
“That sounds good.”
I kissed him slow, intentional, a kiss you give someone before they walk into something alone. His hand came up to the back of my neck and held on, and for a moment we were two people in a kitchen with overcooked risotto, a fern named Jack, and a Sunday that was going to change everything, one way or another.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
