Love, Theoretically

But that night he hugs me from behind while I brush my teeth and whispers, “You are the most magnificent thing that ever happened to me,” and I know it to be true.

I’ve never been this healthy—mentally and physically. The wonders of having insurance.

“I’m here,” Jack says. We’re alone in this hallway, me and him. Just the two of us, in any way that matters. “But take your time, Elsie. I’ll wait for as long as it takes.”

There is no universe in which I’m going to let you go. I want to be with you, on you, every second of every day. I think—I dream of crazy things. I want you to marry me tomorrow so you can go on my health insurance. I want to lock you in my room for a couple of weeks. I want to buy groceries based on what you like. I want to play it cool, like I’m

“The way you seem to always get under my skin.” “Elsie.” His eyes close for a brief moment. When he opens them, stars are born. “You think you don’t live under mine?”

“What you said was true. And it was the right thing to do. But also . . . Elsie, there’s very little I wouldn’t do for you.”

“I didn’t know you two talked,” Monica says, looking skeptically between us. “I learned a few years ago,” Jack tells her calmly, staring only at me. She’s little more than a fly buzzing around us. “And Elsie’s in the process of mastering the art of speaking for herself.”

“Cece, I can’t read anything that’s one millimeter from my nose.”

“He’s not proposing. He’s just . . .” I crumple in a chair. “Finally reckoning with his decades-long evil legacy because he wants you to be his girlfriend who sends him cute little heart emojis and sixty-nines with him every other day?” I shake my head again. The truth is, it feels like it. Like the letter is addressed to me. “No—he—he doesn’t—” “H