The first time I said I loved Jonah, we were sitting on the curb outside a closed hardware store with a takeout pizza between us.
We were twenty-six. I had just come home from a date that went nowhere, and Jonah had helped me carry a broken bookcase up the stairs. He had asked whether I wanted to hear what he thought of the man I'd been dating.
"No," I'd said. "You're biased."
"I'm not."
"You've known me since you had a bowl cut."
"That doesn't make me biased. It makes me informed."
I'd laughed. We ate the pizza with our hands and drank warm soda from paper cups.
Then he said, "I don't think I can keep being your friend in exactly the same way."
I'd looked at him. "Why?"
"Because I love you."
The words had sat between us, simple as a fact.
I said it back.
For almost a year, I t
