The Lover's Dictionary Read Free Page B

head that California and Nevada were in love. I told my mom, and she had no idea what I was talking about. I ran and got those two pieces and showed it to her — California and Nevada, completely in love. So a lot of the time when we’re like this” — my ankles against the backs of your ankles, my knees fitting into the backs of your knees, my thighs on the backs of your legs, my stomach against your back, my chin folding into your neck — “I can’t help but think about California and Nevada, and how we’re a lot like them. If someone were drawing us from above as a map, that’s what we’d look like; that’s how we are.”
    For a moment, you were quiet. And then you nestled in and whispered,
    “ Contiguous .”
    And I knew you understood.

corrode , v.
    I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open, and it started to rust.

covet , v.
    This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.
    Sometimes, with you, it’s stupid things. Like shoes. Or a bigger-screen TV, like the one we see at someone’s apartment. Or a share in the Hamptons, even though we can’t afford a share in the Hamptons and would hate it there.
    But every now and then I’m caught off guard. Like when we’re over at my cousin’s house and her kids are running everywhere. Her husband brings her coffee without her asking for it. They seem exhausted, but you can tell the exhaustion is worth it. And the kids — the kids are happy. They are so happy on such a base level that they don’t seem to understand that it’s possible to have anything other than a base level of happiness. I catch you desiring that. For your past? For your present? Your future? I have no idea. I never know what you really want, if I can give it to you, or if I’m already too late.

D
    daunting , adj.
    Really, we should use this more as a verb. You daunted me, and I daunted you. Or would it be that I was daunted by you, and you were daunted by me? That sounds better. It daunted me that you were so beautiful, that you were so at ease in social situations, as if every room was heliotropic, with you at the center. And I guess it daunted you that I had so many more friends than you, that I could put my words together like this, on paper, and could sometimes conjure a certain sense out of things.
    The key is to never recognize these imbalances. To not let the dauntingness daunt us.

deadlock , n.
    Just when it would seem like we were at a complete standstill, the tiebreakers would save us.
    If Emily’s birthday party and Evan’s birthday party were on the same night, we’d go to the movies instead of having to choose. If I wanted Mexican and you wanted Italian, we’d take it as a sign to go for Thai. If I wanted to get back to New York and you wanted to spend another night in Boston, we’d find a bed-and-breakfast somewhere in between. Even if neither of us got what we wanted, we found freedom in the third choices.

deciduous , adj.
    I couldn’t believe one person could own so many shoes, and still buy new ones every year.

defunct , adj.
    You brought home a typewriter for me.

detachment , n.
    I still don’t know if this is a good quality or a bad one, to be able to be in the moment and then step out of it. Not just during sex, or while talking, or kissing. I don’t deliberately pull away — I don’t think I do — but I find myself suddenly there on the outside, unable to lose myself in where I am. You catch me sometimes. You’ll say I’m drifting off, and I’ll apologize, trying to snap back to the present.
    But I should say this:
    Even when I detach, I care. You can be separate from a thing and still care about it. If I wanted to detach completely, I would move my body away. I would stop the conversation midsentence. I would leave the bed. Instead, I hover over it for a second. I glance off in another direction. But I always glance