Eat, Pray, Love

and eat well together and we tell each other the nicest stories we can remember about former
spouses, just to take the sting out of all that conversation about loss.
He says, “Do you want to do something with me this weekend?” and I find myself saying
yes, that would be nice. Because it would be nice.
Twice now, dropping me off in front of my house and saying goodnight, Felipe has
reached across the car to give me a goodnight kiss, and twice now I’ve done the same
thing—allowing myself to be pulled into him, but then ducking my head at the last moment
and tucking my cheek up against his chest. There, I let him hold me for a while. Longer than
is necessarily merely friendly. I can feel him press his face into my hair, as my face presses
somewhere against his sternum. I can smell his soft linen shirt. I really like the way he smells.
He has muscular arms, a nice wide chest. He was once a champion gymnast back in Brazil.
Of course that was in 1969, which was the year I was born, but still. His body feels strong.
My ducking my head like this whenever he reaches for me is a kind of hiding—I’m avoid-
ing a simple goodnight kiss. But it’s also a kind of not-hiding, too. By letting him hold me at all
during those long quiet moments at the end of the evening, I’m letting myself be held.
Which hasn’t happened for a long time.
Eat, Pray, Love