“I hope you know by now that all of your secrets are safe with me,” Celia said as she started unbuttoning it to put it on. I think for her it was a throwaway line. But it meant a lot to me. Not because she said it, I suppose. But because when she said it, I realized I believed her. “T do,” I said. “I do know that.” People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy. And by those standards, that moment with Celia was the most intimate one I’d ever had with anyone. It made me so appreciative, so grateful, that I wanted to wrap my arms around her and never let go. “T’m not sure it will fit me,” Celia said. “Try it on. I bet it will, and if it does, it’s yours.” I wanted to give her a lot of things. I wanted what I had to be hers. I wondered if this was what it felt like to love someone. I already knew what it meant to be im love with someone. Id felt it, and I'd acted it. But to love someone. To care for them. To throw your lot in with theirs and think, Whatever happens, it’s you and me. “All right,” Celia said. She threw the shirt on the bed. As she pulled off her own shirt, I found myself looking at the paleness of the skin stretched across her ribs. I gazed at the bright whiteness of her bra. I noticed the way her breasts, instead of being lifted by the bra like mine, appeared as if the bra were there merely for decoration. I followed the tiny trail of dark brown freckles that ran along the side of her right hip. “Well, hello,” Don said. I jumped. Celia gasped and scrambled to put her shirt back on. Don started laughing. “What on earth is going on in here?” he teased. I walked over to him and said, “Absolutely nothing.”