“Screw them, then.” Jake moved his hands up my back and neck, tilting my face to look at his. “Because I’ll be there.” When he leaned down to kiss me, my whole body rang.
Together, the two of us were unshakable, a power couple. I treasured having him on my arm at parties and events; I saw the way other women ogled him whenever we were out on the town, the envious stares they’d shoot me. My friend Debbie referred to him as “a snack and a half,” and it was easy to see why. Jake wasn’t oblivious to his good looks, but he didn’t seem to know just how handsome he was, either. At least not back then. He wasn’t arrogant or assuming; when girls were flirtatious, his response was friendly, but he didn’t flirt back. It was part of why I loved him so insanely. And why I trusted him, too.
I went to as many of Jake’s shows as work allowed, always finding my way to the front of the crowds, which became more and more packed as Danner Lane’s following grew. Onstage, Jake was committed, radiant, alive. He said it grounded him to know I was there, but he rarely acknowledged me—he was too in the zone. I loved seeing him play, loved watching his fingers brush the steel strings of his guitar and knowing what those same hands would do to me later. I treasured that of all the enraptured girls in the audience, only I got to have him.
I started looking for two-bedroom apartments over the summer, with the idea that we’d move in together when my lease was up in the fall. We never really talked about it—it just seemed like a logical, unspoken next step. We were spending every night in the same bed; we were ambitious; we were in love, tethered only to each other. Our future was bright.
“Let’s make Jake-and-Sisi babies,” he whispered one night in July, when we’d been dating a year.
“You want to have babies, now?” I laughed. We were lying in bed; he was playing with my hair.
“Not now. Just, someday. Think about it—how awesome would our kids be?”
And I did think about it. In truth, I’d been thinking about it for weeks, since that night on the East River path: the dream of our life together taking hold in my mind, rooting there, blooming. I would be a loving, adoring mother—the opposite of my own, who spent her days numbed out on Oxy and chardonnay, almost as oblivious to my existence as my father.
With Jake by my side, we’d be an invincible team. We’d fill the void of unconditional love in each other and funnel it down to our children. We’d create the family neither of us had ever had.
The sounds of a lively summer night in the city drifted in through the open window—girls clicking along the sidewalk in heels, cackling with drunken laughter as they headed to meet their friends or crushes at whatever bar or club was calling them. It was fun out there, no question—I’d been a party girl in college and knew just how extraordinary such nights could be. But in that moment, nothing could’ve lured me from the solace of Jake’s warm body, his heart beating steadily against my chest, loving me.
I felt it then, as he ran his fingers through my hair: the certainty that our lives were bound together forever, that this perfect man who held me safely in his arms would be the father of my babies. Besides, he’d just said so himself.
But that October, when I crafted an email with a carefully curated list of StreetEasy links and sent it to Jake, something shifted. He didn’t respond. And for a few torturous days after that, he was distant. He blamed his preoccupation on drama with the band, but I knew something was seriously wrong when he didn’t come over after his shifts at the restaurant three nights in a row. He finally called, said we should meet in Tompkins Square Park when I got off work.
“I don’t want to move in together, Sisi,” he confessed that evening, shifting uncomfortably on the park bench beside me. I’ll never forget the way it felt to hear Jake say those words.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “Jake, I know those apartments I sent are on the pricier side, but you know we can make it work with my trust fund; you wouldn’t need to pay more than you already—”
“This isn’t about money, Sisi.”
I felt my throat dry up and tighten, like it was fighting to swallow sand. “Maybe it’s too soon,” I managed.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, staring at the ground, the dead grass curling below our rickety bench. He reached for my hand, and the relief in my body was so immense I wanted to cry. He wasn’t breaking up with me.
For the rest of the fall, Jake and I fell back into a routine. The passion had cooled, but I knew we would find it again. We were just busy. Danner Lane’s momentum was continuing to build—they were playing more local shows than ever and were finally on the brink of signing a record deal. And I was swamped at work, up for a big promotion. I re-signed my lease at East Fifth Street for another year. We were still so young, I had to remind myself. What was the rush to move in together, anyway? I didn’t mention the idea to Jake again.