What she said on the phone about love is what my therapist would call “reactive.” An understandable point of view given the circumstances, but not one I should internalize.
Still, I woke up at 4:00 a.m., my body’s customary brooding hour, so rattled I never fell back asleep. Instead, I let my mind turn over all the ways Seth and I could fail each other, or hurt each other, or be mortally wounded and die. I know I’m catastrophizing. But catastrophizing is a means of preparation. A way to pre-break your own heart, before someone else does it for you.
In daylight, though, I’m better able to accept that anxiety is not reality. So I take Seth’s hand, lead him back to the car, and kiss him for all I’m worth. Kissing him always makes me feel so much better.
“Want me to drive?” he asks. I think he can tell that I’m wobbly.
“No, I’m good.”
We pull out, and I drive fast over the desert roads, which are nearly empty, given the holiday and the hour. It’s six o’clock by the time we get back to town, and I’m starving.
“Fancy moseying down to the saloon, partner?” I ask Seth.
“I could eat an entire jackrabbit.”
“I think jackrabbit would be gamey and tough.”
“Just how I like it.”
It’s usually hard to get a table at the saloon at night, but the town is sedate this close to Thanksgiving, and we’re seated right away. We proceed to order every fried thing on the menu—pickles, onion rings, wings—plus burgers.
Seth gets up to go to the bathroom and my fingers itch to text Alyssa about him potentially moving here. I’m excited and terrified and it would make me feel better to unpack it with her. But I don’t. Telling Alyssa would distract away from Dezzie’s crisis, and that doesn’t feel right. Plus, it’s not like this is happening immediately. There will be plenty of time to work through my feelings with my friends.
And anyway, maybe it’s healthier if I work through them with, you know, Seth.
“There’s a stuffed roadrunner in the men’s room over the urinals,” he informs me when he gets back. “I felt like it was checking out my dick.”
“Well, I’m sure he was impressed.”
“Yeah. My dick is way bigger than a roadrunner’s.”
“Do we have to speak of roadrunner dick? I’m trying to eat fried pickles here.”
“Oh, sure. What kind of dick do you want to talk about?”
I smile at him and wipe aioli off my mouth with the back of my hand. “The dick who didn’t tell me he’s considering moving to LA.”
“Excuse me!”
“I’m just kidding. I was thinking about it more. How do you think it would work? Would you move into my house?”
He looks delighted to be having this conversation.
“Maybe to start?” he says, like he hasn’t thought about this, though I’m sure he has a whole PowerPoint somewhere. “And then we could see how it feels and whether we need more space?”
“I wouldn’t want to give up my house,” I say quickly. My house, in my name, is my security. I learned that the hard way from my mom. “But maybe I could keep it as a rental. And we could buy a bigger place somewhere nearby. Hmm, but traffic. Where are the firms you’re talking to?”
“Downtown.”
“Oh, that’s only twenty minutes away if you time it right.”
He nods. “Yeah. I looked into it before I reached out to them. I know how you feel about going to the West Side.”
I’ve lived in Northeast LA the entire time I’ve been on the West Coast, and at this point anywhere west of Silver Lake feels like it might as well be in Patagonia.
“Did you tell your parents about this?” I ask.
“Only Dave.”
“Is he rabidly opposed?”
I know that Dave still doesn’t trust me, even if Seth won’t admit it.
“He thinks I should do what makes me happy. And you make me astonishingly happy.”
Astonishingly happy. Sometimes I am so in love with this man it makes me woozy.
We can do this, I think. You, Molly Marks, can do this.
“Will you have to retake the bar?” I ask.
“Yeah. But I’m really good at standardized tests, as you know.”
I do know. He got a perfect SAT score. Still galls me to this day.
Suddenly, I’m excited. Genuinely happy for the first time since I heard Dezzie’s news.
“I’m really grateful you’re considering this,” I say.
