Page 9 of Green
3
Gemma
*Two Years Later*
Theo’s always telling people that the first time I saw him he was totally naked, but I was so stoned, I swear I couldn’t fully-remember exactly what his totally naked body looked like. Aside from that fleeting clear view of his butt, I mostly remember seeing an orange-yellow aura and moving kaleidoscope patterns. Which was annoying. And also a blessing. It was an annoying blessing.
And it was probably a survival technique.
I have a feeling that if I had been more clear-headed I would have been so hyper-aware of the light brown hairs on his chest and the way his voice always sounded like he was flirting with someone on the phone. I would have been more aware of the butterflies in my stomach instead of how I truly believed I could feel each and every hair follicle growing out of my scalp.
That was the first and last time I’d ever been stoned, but every time I walked out the front door of that apartment or looked at that hallway, I had this vague vision of him standing there, all six plus feet of him, almost every inch of his golden skin and toned runner’s body facing me, but it was and always will be his eyes that captivate me. The warmth of them. I mean. I would never let a strange naked man into my home if he didn’t have warm, kind eyes. Or if I weren’t stoned.
Did I ever feel guilty about feeling so comfortable with him, even though I had a boyfriend? Nope. Because there was never any doubt in my mind that I was Andrew’s girlfriend. I had been, basically, since we were five. It was never a choice. It was a convenience. It was a family thing. It was uncomplicated. Even when I quietly married someone else. It just was.
I can remember the exact moment I feared that I was falling in love with Theo Walker. It wasn’t before I told him I’d marry him, and it wasn’t during the marriage ceremony kiss—I managed to swiftly talk myself into believing that we were just doing it all for the green card and the cameras and the judge. I convinced myself that I was in Friend-Love with him—that it was no different from the love and adoration I felt for my best friends in kindergarten and high school, that it was just more significant because we were older and living together.
It was not long after we were married, during the interview with the immigration officer, when I got that undeniable feeling in my belly and I thought to myself:Oh shit. I think I’m actually in love with this guy.This is terrible.
He was wearing his olive bomber jacket—my favorite—the one that makes his eyes look like tiny pools of rich melted chocolate, and if I were any other woman I would have tried to lick his yummy sexy eyeballs. His signature jacket used to be a worn-in black leather biker jacket, but when I told him that I preferred the bomber jacket, he started wearing it more often. I had been staring at it, completely spaced-out while Theo was answering some question about our bank accounts and showing the guy our utility bills, and I didn’t even hear the government official the first time he asked me what I was thinking about. He had been asking such perfunctory questions by rote until then, I was caught off guard. I blushed and told him I was thinking about how handsome Theo looked in that jacket, and how he started wearing it more after I’d mentioned that I liked it. I told him that whenever he was up in Toronto visiting his parents, I’d pull that jacket out of his closet and inhale it because it smells like him.
It was true. Well, it was true that I’d done that once.
“You never told me that,” Theo said, in a hushed voice. The way he looked at me, it made my insides melt. He took my hand and squeezed it, and I swear I saw the immigration guy’s lower lip quiver.
A woman who was outside the office when we came out had said that was the shortest interview that officer had ever given—presumably because it was so obvious to him that we were a real couple—but I saw the guy hurry off to the men’s room as soon as we were done, so I’m pretty sure he just cut it short because he had to pee.
But he didn’t even ask if he could see video evidence of our marriage ceremony. I was glad of that. I still hadn’t seen the wedding video that Ethan shot and edited for us. I barely remembered our marriage ceremony, and I didn’t remember Theo’s vows at all. I was trying so hard to not look nervous and maintain a look of love on my face that I just had Beyoncé’sHaloplaying in my head whenever I wasn’t talking. Chloe kept telling me that I need to watch the video to see how cute we were, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
Despite realizing that I was in love with him, it had never occurred to me to break up with Andrew because of it, and I had always been aware that our marriage had never been about romance, so I never romanticized it. Since the immigration interview, I’d kept the engagement and wedding rings in their boxes in the drawer of my bedside table. I’ve always been a practical person, and so has he. It was one of the many reasons this arrangement worked for us. The In-Loveness had always somehow been this separate thing that existed outside of our friendship, my relationship with Andrew, and our secret green card marriage.
It became like a useless third nipple that I had learned to live with by hiding it and telling myself that it was just some evolutionary fluke that I can have surgically removed if I ever decide I can’t live with it anymore.
Regardless, the hug that Theo gave me when we got out of that interview room was the best hug I’d ever been given in my life—including parental and grandparental hugs. It was so genuine and intimate, and it was like he was squeezing all my love out of every pore.
“Love you,” he whispered, as he kissed the top of my head.
“Love you,” I mumbled into his chest, as I inhaled the scent of his jacket. It was somehow soothing and stimulating at the same time. Like the color green. Like him.
I also remember the exact moment I realized I needed to make myself fall out of love with Theo Walker. It was when Andrew got drunk at my cousin’s wedding and told me that he had been seeing other women off-and-on for three years. I didn’t think: “You lying turd—I knew it!” I didn’t think: “How could you do this to Us?” I didn’t think: “Our parents will be so upset. We’ll have to tell them we had a friendly break-up, that we just grew apart.” Although, I did think that later. I thought: “Oh shit. I’m secretly in love with my secret fake husband and I don’t have a boyfriend buffer anymore. This is a fucking disaster.”
And then I thought: “I hate how Theo always eats apples all the way down to the core and makes fun of me because I leave so much uneaten—like that makes him better than me. I need to focus on that. Plus he’s always writing notes to himself on Post-its and then calling me and asking me to find them and read them to him. It’s like—write it on your phone, dummy—you’re the millionaire tech nerd!”
But then I remembered that I once found a Post-it note that saidI miss you Gemmawhen he was up in Palo Alto, and then I started crying and Andrew thought I was crying because we were breaking up. And then he cried, promised me he “was always safe with the other girls, so you don’t have to worry” and I was like: “Wow, you’re so considerate, thank you,” and then I got champagne-drunk, and then we angrily made out one last time in the bathroom at the wedding reception and it was just terrible.
We shared a cab back to my parents’ house. When Andrew and I said goodbye in my parents’ driveway, while the cab waited at the curb, we hugged each other for a long time, and that time I really was crying because of him. Because of Us. Because that part of my life was over. I hard-core ugly cried right there in the purple Ralph Lauren dress that I’ve worn to all non-L.A. weddings, in front of the only man I’d ever had sex with, and Mrs. Francis who I know was peeking through her old lace curtains across the street. A huge part of my life was over, and had been for a long time, but I hadn’t let myself admit it until now. I had remained devoted to theideaof being Andrew’s dedicated long-distance girlfriend for years, because I didn’t want to have to deal with my real feelings for Theo.
“I loved you,” he said as he held me so close. “I always loved you.”
“I know. I loved you too.”We just never fell in love with each other,is what we didn’t say. What we’d never said.
He cleared his throat when he let go of me and looked down at the ground, hands on his hips. “So, you, uh…You’re still gonna be married to Theo for another year or so, huh?”
It was so strange hearing him say Theo’s name. We almost never talked about him. “Yeah. About a year.”
He nodded his head. “Yeah. I guess…I guess I’m glad you have him.”
“What do you mean? I don’thavehim.”
