At the end of the night he walked me to my car and asked whether he could kiss me. That question was one of the things I remembered later, after I had become capable of treating his respect as indifference. He did not lean in while hoping I would have the courage to pull away. He asked, listened to my answer, and smiled when I said yes. The kiss was gentle and a little awkward because I was still holding my leftovers, which made both of us laugh against each other's mouths.
For the first several months, being with Donovan felt like stepping out of a noisy room into fresh air. He texted when he said he would and never made me wonder whether a silence meant punishment. When a project at work left me overwhelmed, he brought dinner, ate with me on the sofa, and asked if I wanted advice or merely company. When his hospital had an unexpected overnight maintenance emergency, he called before his shift began and told me he would be unavailable until morning. I never had to decode him, which was a relief until I began mistaking that relief for a missing spark.
He remembered my birthday and celebrated it in the way I had told him I preferred. I disliked surprise parties, so he did not recruit a room full of people to frighten me in the name of romance. Instead, he arranged a Saturday morning at a pottery studio I had mentioned once, followed by lunch at my favorite Thai restaurant. The gift he gave me was a small wooden shelf he had made for my plants, measured to fit the window beside my desk. He apologized for one uneven corner, although I could not see anything wrong with it.
I posted a photograph of the shelf. A few friends wrote that it was thoughtful, and my mother called to ask whether Donovan might help her repair her porch railing. The post received thirty-seven likes, which I remember because a coworker had just shared a video of her boyfriend delivering a bouquet the size of a small tree to her office. Her video received thousands of views. At the time, I told myself I was not comparing anything; I merely noticed the difference in how the world seemed to reward two kinds of affection.
Donovan's family welcomed me without turning my arrival into a production. Lorraine began texting me recipes after I admired a casserole, often adding a note about which ingredient could be substituted if I was tired after work. Arthur saved the last piece of pecan pie for me on Thanksgiving and pretended he had forgotten it in the kitchen so I would not feel obliged to refuse. Zoe invited me to help choose decorations for a graduation party and began introducing me as the big sister she had always wanted. I had never felt so casually included in a family that was not mine.