How to Say I Do

by Tal Bauer

I was okay with that. I was. I was a big boy, and I could have said adios at any time yesterday. There was no need to hike to the lagoon with him, or take him to dinner after, or even to answer his probing questions with anything other than the emotional two-step I’d danced for years. I didn’t need to tell him all those truths about my life. I could have made my excuses and said a polite goodnight and taken myself off to bed, and this would have been over and done with. I certainly didn’t need to walk him back to his villa. Or ask him what we’d be doing tomorrow, all the while holding my breath and crossing my fingers and toes that he’d want to keep honeymooning with me. But I had, and I did, and… It was enough, I thought, to fall in love, even though he wouldn’t fall, too. It was enough to go a little crazy inside myself, and to feel like the world had lit on fire, and for these few days, to pretend that anything was possible.