The Lover’s Dictionary(8)
Author: David Levithan

“What?” you asked.

“I just wonder,” I said. “How do you picture yourself ?”

You looked down at the paper, then back at me.

“I don’t know,” you said. “I don’t ever really see myself. And when I do, I’m usually still an eighteen-year-old, wondering what the hell I’m doing. You?”

And I told you: I think of a photograph you took of me, up in Montreal. You told me to jump in the air, so in the picture, my feet are off the ground. Later, I asked you why you wanted me to do that, and you told me it was the only way to get me to forget about the expression on my face. You were right. I am completely unposed, completely genuine. In my mind’s eye, I picture myself like that, reacting to you.

H

halcyon, adj.

A snow day. The subway has shut down, your office has shut down, my office has shut down. We pile back into bed, under the covers — chilly air, warm bodies. Nestling and tracing the whole morning, then bundling up to walk through the empty snowdrift streets, experiencing a new kind of city quiet, then breaking it with a snowball fight. A group of teenagers joins in. We come home frozen and sweaty, botching the hot chocolate on first try, then jump back into bed for the rest of the day, emerging only to wheel over the TV and order Chinese food and check to see if the snow is still falling and falling and falling, which it is.

happenstance, n.

You said he wasn’t even supposed to be at the convention, but one of his co-workers had gotten sick, so he was filling in at the last minute. He wasn’t supposed to be at the bar when you went there with Toby, you told me. As if that in some way made it better, that fate hadn’t planned it weeks in advance.

harbinger, n.

When I was in third grade, we would play that game at recess where you’d twist an apple while holding on to its stem, reciting the alphabet, one letter for each turn. When the stem broke, the name of your true love would be revealed.

Whenever I played, I always made sure that the apple broke at K. At the time I was doing this because no one in my grade had a name that began with K. Then, in college, it seemed like everyone I fell for was a K. It was enough to make me give up on the letter, and I didn’t even associate it with you until later on, when I saw your signature on a credit card receipt, and the only legible letter was that first K.

I will admit: When I got home that night, I went to the refrigerator and took out another apple. But I stopped twisting at J and put the apple back.

You see, I didn’t trust myself. I knew that even if the apple wasn’t ready, I was going to pull that stem.

healthy, adj.

There are times when I’m alone that I think, This is it. This is actually the natural state. All I need are my thoughts and my small acts of creation and my ability to go or do whatever I want to go or do. I am myself, and that is the point. Pairing is a social construction. It is by no means necessary for everyone to do it. Maybe I’m better like this. Maybe I could live my life in my own world, and then simply leave it when it’s time to go.

hiatus, n.

“It’s up to you,” you said, the graciousness of the cheater toward the cheatee.

I guess I don’t believe in a small break. I feel a break is a break, and if it starts small, it only gets wider.

So I said I wanted you to stay, even though nothing could stay the same.

hubris, n.

Every time I call you mine, I feel like I’m forcing it, as if saying it can make it so. As if I’m reminding you, and reminding the universe: mine. As if that one word from me could have that kind of power.

I

I, n.

Me without anyone else.

idea, n.

“I’m quitting,” you say. “I can’t believe how wasted I was. This time, I’m really going to do it.”

And I tell you I’ll help. It’s almost a script at this point.

imperceptible, adj.

We stopped counting our relationship in dates (first date, second date, fifth date, seventh) and started counting it in months. That might have been the first true commitment, this shift in terminology. We never talked about it, but we were at a party and someone asked how long we’d been together, and when you said, “A month and a half,” I knew we had gotten there.

impromptu, adj.

I have summer Fridays off; you don’t. So what better reason for me to take you to lunch and then keep you at lunch for the whole afternoon? Reserving these afternoons to do all the city things we never get around to doing — wandering through MoMA, stopping in at the Hayden Planetarium, hopping onto the Staten Island Ferry and riding back and forth, back and forth, watching all the people as they unknowingly parade for us. You notice clothes more than I do, so it’s a pleasure to hear your running commentary, to construct lives out of worn handbags or shirts opened one button too low. Had we tried to plan these excursions, they never would have worked. There has to be that feeling of escape.

inadvertent, adj.

You left your email open on my computer. I couldn’t help it — I didn’t open any of them, but I did look at who they were from, and was relieved.

incessant, adj.

The doubts. You had to save me from my constant doubts. That deep-seeded feeling that I wasn’t good enough for anything — I was a fake at my job, I wasn’t your equal, my friends would forget me if I moved away for a month. It wasn’t as easy as hearing voices — nobody was telling me this. It was just something I knew. Everyone else was playing along, but I was sure that one day they would all stop.

indelible, adj.

That first night, you took your finger and pointed to the top of my head, then traced a line between my eyes, down my nose, over my lips, my chin, my neck, to the center of my chest. It was so surprising, I knew I would never mimic it. That one gesture would be yours forever.

ineffable, adj.

These words will ultimately end up being the barest of reflections, devoid of the sensations words cannot convey. Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.

infidel, n.

We think of them as hiding in the hills — rebels, ransackers, rogue revolutionaries. But really, aren’t they just guilty of infidelity?

innate, adj.

“Why do you always make the bed?” I asked. “We’re only going to get back in it later tonight.”

You looked at me like I was the worst kind of slacker.

“It’s just what I’ve always done,” you said. “We always had to make our beds. Always.”