Zucchini by Marybeth Bass

Zucchini by Mar ybeth Bass

We fell in love. Not in that boy-meets-girl cliché way; we fell in love in the soul. We tied our souls together with commitment and yet we’ve never translated our emotional intimacy into physical intimacy.

Granted, he went by a different name when we met, but I’ve loved every name he’s worn. He came into my life, loving my voice as it wrapped, fork-tongued, around the words he wrote in the audio recordings that I made to preen for his attention. I would read to him his writings and he would apostle my name over the hills (he hasn’t heard me in a long time; I only know his voice as it was before it cracked and broke in testosterone metamorphosis).

Our attachment grew faster than we anticipated. And he became my brother, my foundfamily, so quickly— like stars that orbit one another too fast will collide, he and I have collided many times over, and yet we’ve reconciled one more time than that, sending Hallmark cards and voice recordings to fill the gap we leave between ourselves. Despite what we may fight about, there’s never been a grand recanting. He promised that we would always be brothers, and we loyally agreed that we want one another in our lives for the long run.

He started jog ging around the same time I started working. He sent me old man selfies in the thick Albany drizzle, and I sent him pictures of me alone with the pizza ovens late night, not a manager in sight.

Right before that—I laid in bed with him and we gig gled about things I can’t even recall. And we puddled into the corner of his sofa, my head on his chest, his arm around me, and we watched Hocus Pocus and there was nowhere else I’d rather have been. That was our thing, to have his arm around me, to cuddle like contented lovers, spurring the production of oxytocin.

Before even that—we had a weekend away with friends and thirty-thousand attendees in D.C., and we were a set for a weekend. He grabbed my hand when he came near, announcing his presence, and our fingers would lace like fine little doilies one may see at weddings.

He’s got a husband now and I know that he’s so damn happy, therefore I am happy. He still infects me with his emotions because we share little particles within ourselves that must’ve been created together. The iron in my blood called to the iron in his. We were inexorably pulled together. Back before, we were dust and the iron we share was born from the selfdestruction of a supernova. Billions of years would pass for us to be reunited.

It’s of his affection that I mostly frequently daydream; the way his hands felt every time he speared his hot fingers through my cold ones.