I Almost Forgot About You Read Free Page A

having dinner, and I tell him I’m not sure. He asks where I’d like to sit, and I point to outside. I follow him and luckily am seated right under a giant heater. Almost all the tables are full of professionals who work nearby. The water in the bay looks black, and the waves are high and heavy. Ferries to Sausalito, Tiburon, and Larkspur are crossing paths out there. They pass right by Alcatraz. The Oakland and Berkeley hills twinkle on the other side of the bay, and to the left, through light fog, the Golden Gate Bridge still looks red even at night. I take off my coat. Instead of white wine, I order a cappuccino.
    I should’ve told Ray I loved him before he graduated. I should’ve taken the risk of finding out he didn’t love me. And what if he did? When my coffee arrives, I sip the foam and then wipe the rim of the cup with my index finger. As I listen to the waves crashing against the dock below, I’m now wondering where the other men I once loved might be. Whatever happened to them? What are they doing? How did their lives turn out? And are they happy? And are they alive? I’ve done a pretty good job of airbrushing most of them out of my memory, but now I wonder if they’ve erased me, too.
    I’ve been in love at least five or six or maybe even seven times. Two, I married. Three were full-throttle love, but then the transmission died, and the other two were over before we got started. This doesn’t include the men I only had sex with. That number is much higher.
    Over the years it became clear that sometimes you fall in love only to realize you don’t even like the person. I liked Ray before I loved him. Respected him. And he certainly respected me. He had integrity. He was honest. We talked about anything and everything. He was also a good listener. I learned to be one, too. I didn’t put on airs and didn’t have to work to impress him. He liked me as is. Which is why we didn’t play any silly games. In fact, he was probably the first guy I could say I was friends with. After Ray graduated, he went on to Yale and disappeared from my radar.
    I became a better person because of the time I spent with him, knowing him. I never got a chance to tell him that. But I think I would like to let the other men know what I gained from loving them, maybe even hating them. Right now I don’t exactly know, because I’ve never thought about it before. What I do know is that men have occupied almost thirty-five years of my entire adult life. That’s a whole lot of time. It now seems obvious that the way we’re raised has a major impact on what kind of person we turn out to be, but so does who we love.
    I want to find them.
    I want them to know they were once important to me.
    I want to tell them what they gave me.
    I want to find out what I gave them.
    I want to remember why I loved them.
    I want to find out why they loved me.
    I want to understand why we stopped loving each other.
    I want to find out why we stopped caring for each other.
    I want to find out why we hurt each other.
    I want to apologize.
    I want to explain.
    I want to forgive them.
    I want to find out if they’ve forgiven me.
    I want to figure out why it’s so hard to forgive.
    I want them to know I didn’t forget about them and I just chose now to remember.
    But more than anything, I really want to know if they’re still alive and healthy and happy and thriving and if they’ve become the man—the person—they wanted to become. I hope so. And I thank Raymond Strawberry for helping me see this.
    —
    On the way home, there’s no traffic. I feel different. Lighter. Clearer. As if I’ve just opened a lane for myself and I’m about to enter it. When we’re young, we think we’re always going to be young. We thought life was going to be one long party. One thrill after another. We knew we could get over heartache and disappointment and failure in a snap, because we were going to have hundreds if not thousands of opportunities and do-overs. We knew