Maybe Jacob and I would end, right on schedule. Just like we’d always planned. Only now it wasn’t fake. Now it was too real.
“I have something for you,” he said. He gave me a flat package wrapped in brown paper that he had stashed under the blanket.
I wiped under my eyes. “What is this?”
“It’s something I want you to have. I marked where you should start, but you can read anything you want.”
“You got me a book?”
“It’s a story, yes.”
I sniffed. “Okay.” I tucked it under my arm.
“If you start now, you’ll be done by the time I get out.” He put a hand on top of mine, which was clutching the rail of his gurney. “I love you,” he said. “I’m always going to love you. No matter what.”
Then they wheeled him through the doors, and he was gone.
I didn’t want to go sit with my mom and Zander and Alexis in the waiting room. I needed a minute alone. So I followed signs for the hospital chapel and took a seat in a pew.
It was serene and quiet. There was a large blue stained-glass window over a small altar. Flowers. Nobody else was in the room, which was good because I was probably going to cry here since I couldn’t seem to stop.
I set the package Jacob gave me on my lap and stared at it blankly.
It had a brown hemp string around it. I took the end in two fingers and pulled and pried the paper off. It was a notebook.
It was a journal.
His journal.
“Oh my God…” I whispered, picking it up.
It was his diary. Why?
I ran a finger over the brown leather. It had his initials pressed into the cover. The leather was soft from handling and the whole thing felt almost warm in my hand, like the hours he spent with it absorbed him.
I opened it to the page with a green Post-it sticking out. It said, This is the day I met you. Start here.
He wanted me to read his diary.
I was breathless.
I couldn’t read this. It felt like a violation. These were his most private thoughts in here, this was more invasive than looking at his search history, I couldn’t.
But he wanted me to. I couldn’t give him much right now. I couldn’t make him promises or even promise that one day I could. But at least this I could do. So I opened it to the page he marked, steadied myself, and started to read.
It was a love story. Our love story.
The day he met me and the first time he laid eyes on me.
…She was so beautiful it caught me by surprise. I just stood there, I forgot what I was even doing…
He wrote about how shocked he was when I told him to bring cupcakes and how grateful he felt. The way his mood lifted when I replied to his first letter. Then a recap of every letter I wrote him and how they made him feel. How he cherished every single one and he had them saved in a special drawer in his desk.
The time I DM’d him on Instagram and then talking to me on a patio in the rain—He sat in the rain? Just to talk to me? He’d been eaten alive by mosquitoes. I remembered that, seeing all the bites on his arms. He didn’t tell me.
I laughed when he talked about how he’d obsessed for hours about what to eat in the supply closet with me. Then it was the moment he decided to donate his kidney to Benny, and how he did it for me. Not Joy. Not Benny. For me.
…Seeing her so happy when she heard the news made everything I’ll go through worth it for that one moment alone…
He wrote about how his heart raced every time he saw me across the ER or every time I touched him, how hard it was to pretend he wasn’t falling in love with me.
…I feel my heart twisting around her in a way that is completely out of my control and can never be undone. I can’t put it away and I can’t unknow it and I can’t slow it down. I don’t even want to…
Then asking me out and me saying no and how crushed he was, but he didn’t want to give up, so he followed me to Wakan.
…I had to go. I didn’t care that it was outside of my comfort zone or that even asking if I could be there with her was inappropriate, because any day I’m not with her is just wasted time. And I’ll already never get all the time I want…
Then the moment he realized he was in love with me. I was passed out drunk and he was holding me in front of the fireplace at Grant House. He said his back hurt for a week from leaning on that hope chest, but he got to hold me so it was worth it.
…It’s funny to think that even sitting there on the floor with her, uncomfortable and tired, was better than sitting anywhere else in the world without her. I didn’t even want to go to sleep because I’d rather be awake and with the woman I love than risk being alone in my dreams…
Then the next day we were on the phone with the silence stretching between us. He’d stayed on the line because he couldn’t stand to be the one to disconnect. I thought he’d been the one who’d forgotten to hang up. But he hadn’t. He just didn’t want to let me go.
…I stayed, just listening. I sat there thinking that I was lucky to still be with her in the silence. And I realized that this is what true love feels like. Clinging even to the stolen moments you’re not supposed to have…
He wrote about loving when my perfume was on his clothes, some random time that I kissed him on the cheek and it was everything. How hard it was to not be able to touch me. How much he liked making me smile. How he’d search for little things to get or to do for me.
…I sent Briana flowers today. I always bring her things just because. But nothing with her is just because. There are a thousand reasons in every second of every day…
Hating every time I texted Levi. There was a long entry from the morning of the bachelor party when he couldn’t sleep because he was so worried I wanted someone else. Then another long entry from later that night after the futon in the basement. His confusion and fear and hurt. It was like being there with him, seeing it through his eyes, feeling everything he felt.
And then we were together.
And he was so, so happy. He had less time to write because he was spending so much time with me.
…I thought I’d been in love before. I’d called it love, I’d believed it was love. But Briana is the lesson. She’s the one who taught me what it really feels like to live for someone else…
Then I saw Nick and Kelly.
Jacob wrote pages and pages about how he felt when I wouldn’t talk to him. How afraid he was that he was losing me. How he would do anything to bring me back and his heart was breaking because I was so sad and he missed me so much and he felt helpless.
…When she ghosts me, she haunts me. I can still feel her all around me only I can’t see her or touch her and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can’t go the rest of my life like this. This isn’t living. Nothing is anything without her…
This part was hard to read. I put the journal facedown on my thigh. It took me a minute to regain my composure. When I did, I picked up the diary, wiping under my eyes.
And now he was at my house and I was telling him about the baby. He was happy.
I smiled through tears.
He was worried about me and the pregnancy, but he said he’d love me and be with me no matter what. He’d Googled cribs and strollers and a body pillow for me, and he’d ordered lollipops on Amazon that were supposed to help with nausea. It made me laugh-cry. He was excited. He wanted to take care of me.