An enormous smile occupied the entirety of his face. It rose into his cheeks and lifted his bright blue eyes, but still I was lost in my interpretation. There was no bitterness, not even a hesitation in any of his responses. He seemed truly delighted.
“You can’t use this as an excuse to pay for something else,” I said, allowing myself to slightly relax for the first time all day. Being immersed in Jacob’s charisma was like medicine.
After a few short seconds I became tense again. I still hadn’t even really gotten to the hard part.
“What's wrong?” he asked, his brows coming together. “You should be dancing on the table, but you look about ready to pass out.”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to stall and move forward at the same time. “It means that I’ll have to move away.”
“The job’s in Silicon Valley, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah, it is.” I nodded.
“That’ll be good for you,” he replied. “I bet you’ll thrive up there. It's a great place for people interested in computers.”
“I hope so,” I said, biting my lip. “It’s kind of intimidating and I'm just not sure I should take it.”
“But it’s what you’ve always wanted,” he said. He reached out and touched my hand with his. The touch grounded and terrified me at the same time.
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed. I picked up an empty straw wrapper on the table and began fidgeting with it.
“Getting a chance to follow your dreams is no small feat,” he said. “I’m really happy for you.”
“Thanks Jacob,” I said, still feeling like we hadn’t yet tackled the beast hiding in the shadows. The straw wrapper tangled and twisted in my fingers. “But...”
“But what?” he asked, setting down his food and studying me.
“Well,” I began. The straw wrapper ripped between my fingers. “What does this mean for… for us?”
“You’re asking if you moving away and taking a demanding job changes things between us?” he asked. I was so nervous I couldn't read the tone of his voice.
“Yeah,” I said softly, as if speaking too forcefully might jeopardize his response. I stared at my broken straw wrapper, afraid of what he might say next.
“Do you want it to?” he asked. The quiet pain of the question made me raise my eyes to his in an instant.
“No,” I said without even having to think. I looked up to meet his eyes. “It's the last thing I want.”
“I don’t want it to, either,” he assured me. “I don’t want to lose you, that’s for sure.”
For a moment I marveled at that. At the way he’d said, ‘don’t want to lose you.’ The words were like the first crack of sun through heavy clouds. Jacob had done it again.
“I don’t want to lose you either,” I said, hope that didn't feel foolish building in my chest for the first time.
“Really?” I held my breath, needing him to actually say that we weren't breaking up. “You still want to date me even though I'll be insanely busy for the next two months?”
“Really,” he assured me. “Now that I've found you, I'm not letting you go.”
My heart was still fluttering, but now it was for
an entirely different reason than it was five minutes ago. We were a couple. He didn't want to break up, even though I was going to be leaving. He wanted to try and make it work. Suddenly, all my worrying seemed to be for nothing and I felt a little bit silly.
“I’m sure it’s the start to a wonderful career,” he said, grinning like he was the one who had just got his dream job. “It's going to be amazing. It's going to open up so many wonderful opportunities for you.”
“Yeah, I can’t even think that far right now,” I replied with a shrug. “I still have to make it through the intern program before I’m even offered a full-time position. And it's a killer of a program.”
“Would you ever consider working for a different company down there in the Valley?” he asked. “A different game developer, maybe?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, probably. But it’s hard to think like that right now. I’ve literally wanted this job ever since I realized I wanted to work in computer programming.”