Page 58 of After His Eulogy
I stay over. He doesn’t ask me to and I don’t ask him if I can. I am at the desk and he is in the kitchen, and at some point it isnine and at some point it is ten and at some point he says, “Stay,” and I say, “Okay,” and that is the conversation.
We go to bed. We do not have sex. We get into the bed in our clothes for a while. Then we get up and brush our teeth and get into the bed for real. He turns off the lamp. I lie next to him in the dark. He is on his back. I am on my side facing him. His hand is on my chest, palm down, the way he puts it when he is going to keep it there.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“I want to tell you tonight because I do not want to wait until morning. I do not want it to be a thing I tell you over coffee. I want to tell you in the dark when neither of us can see the other one’s face. Because I am better at saying it that way, and you deserve me at my most able to say it.”
His hand on my chest doesn’t move.
I lie there for a second.
“I am not leaving you again.”
He does not say anything.
“I want you to hear me say it. I want you to hear me say it tonight, after the call, with the flag lodged and the clock running and Mendez deciding what is going to happen to us. I want you to hear me say it before any of the next things happen. Before the move. Before the choice you have to make. Before any of it. Tonight. In the dark.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve been the person who left. For two years. Here in this town since October. Every time I haven’t called Mendez. Every time I’ve rerouted around something. Every time I’ve stood in a post office holding a postcard. I’ve been the person who leaves people for their own good. The person who decides for otherpeople what they get to know and what they get to keep. I did it to you. I did it to my mother. I did it to the version of me who lived in our apartment. I’ve been that person.”
He is very still.
“I am telling you tonight that I am done being that person.”
He is quiet.
“Mendez may move me. He may not. He may move both of us. He may say I have to go alone. He may say something I can’t predict. I don’t know what he’s going to say. I want you to know what I’ve decided before he tells me what’s going to happen — because if I decide it after he tells me, I won’t know whether I decided or whether the decision was made for me. I want to decide it now, in the dark, with the information I have.”
“Okay.”
“Whatever Mendez says. Whatever happens. I am not leaving you. If they move me, you come with me, or I do not go. If they tell me I can’t have contact, I’ll have contact. If having contact means leaving the program, I leave the program. If they tell me you’re a vulnerability and I have to choose, I choose you. If they tell me the people who are looking are closing in and the only safe thing is for me to go alone, I will not go alone. I’d rather be found with you than safe without you. I think. That’s where I’ve gotten to. That’s the decision. I’m telling you tonight so you know it’s the decision and not a thing I drifted into.”
He is very quiet. His hand on my chest has not moved.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“You do not have to…“
“I know.”
“You do not have to make the decision for both of us. I have not asked you to make it like that. I have been deciding for myself. I have been telling myself that whatever you decide, I would…“
“I know.”
“You do not have to commit to leaving the program to make me stay.”
“Griffin. I’m not committing to leaving the program to make you stay. I’m committing to it because it’s the truth. I’ve spent two years being someone who leaves people I love for their own good, and I’ve learned what that does. To you. To me. I’m not going to do it again. The program doesn’t get to be the reason I do it again. The threat doesn’t get to be the reason. Mendez doesn’t get to be the reason. I’m telling you tonight because if I don’t say it tonight, I’m going to spend the next six months — however long — every time something gets hard, asking myself whether the right thing is to leave again. I can’t live like that. I can’t be in this with you and have the leaving on the table. The leaving has to be off the table. I’m taking it off tonight. Putting it down somewhere I can’t pick it back up.”
“Okay.”
