I held my breath. I didn’t know what exactly was coming to fruition, but now I knew that something was.

My stunned face and kissy face emojis, profound as they were, elicited another poem from Sammy:

I did think, let’s go about this slowly.
This is important. This should take
some really deep thought.
We should take
small thoughtful steps.

But, bless us, we didn’t.

Mary Oliver

Oh my God. She knows what we’re doing.

“More!” I replied, too excited.

“I can’t believe you’re actually down for all of this!”

I was sort of one poem past a “duh” but here it was. Proof. It was no longer unclear whether or not Sammy felt the same way I did about our connection. I was now living in another dimension, a new person, still holding the breath of the other one.

I needed clarification on something very, very important which I hoped wasn’t offensive in asking:

“Is Superbloom aware of how close we’re becoming?”

“She is…thank you for asking. And Anthony?”

“Yes, he knows.”

She exhaled.

“How is she so cool with this,” I asked Sammy. She said that her wife was holding it all with “celebration and tenderness.”

Sammy told me that she had been working for days now on composing a letter to me which had taken far longer to write than the amount of time we’d actually spent together. There was something she needed to explain to me which would take some thoughtfulness on her part and some understanding and care on mine.

“I really don’t know you well enough to be emptying myself before you. But there is something in me that wants to be true before you, no matter the outcome.” She continued, “Have you ever had a ‘soul’ friend before? Outside of Anthony?”

I stalled. That Sammy imagined Anthony as my soul mate was such an illustration of the fact that we didn’t know much about each other. There were things I must be presenting about myself that weren’t true.

I asked her to describe what she meant by ‘soul friend.’ Sammy became nervous.

“Oh goodness,” she said. I’m starting to get an overwhelming feeling of being ridiculous…interesting. Are you texting me with Anthony, by chance?”

“No, I’m alone. And you are not ridiculous. I’m hanging on your every word.”

There was a long pause and then, the last minute of the last hour of her birthday, Sammy said: “Teetering on what would best serve you and us right now….”

I told her to take her time. It seemed that her deadline had been moved up. Otherwise, that letter may have taken weeks to write. But we were having this discussion right here, right now.

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