Luke picks up a long-handled spoon and stirs the sauce that has been simmering on the stove for the last twenty minutes. He’s sexy when he’s cooking, maybe because he’s so skilled at it. “It’s a new recipe. You’re going to love it.”

“I’m sure I will. I love everything you make.”

And I love you.

The thought pops into my head against my will. Those three words keep cropping up and taunting me. I can’t say that to him. First of all, he hasn’t said it to me. And even if he did, I still don’t think I could say it. I’m not even sure it’s true.

I’ve never told a man that I loved him before. It seems odd, I’m sure, given my age. Men have told me they loved me before, and I have not said it back—men, compared with women, are statistically much faster to express sentiments of love, despite stereotypes to the contrary. I have counseled patients on this before, and I always advise them you should never say “I love you” to another person unless that is what you’re feeling.

I have never told a man that I loved him because I have never felt that I loved any of my prior significant others.

If I spoke to a therapist about it, I’m sure they would have a lot to say about the lack of intimacy in my life. I was never close with my parents. My father was a mail carrier, and my mother worked as a receptionist. Neither of them attended college, much less obtained multiple advanced degrees. They never quite knew what to make of me.

When I was younger, I was convinced I had been switched with another child at birth. Or perhaps adopted, based on the fact that my mother was told in her twenties that she would never bear children, and I was conceived as a miracle baby. I dreamed about someday being reunited with my biological parents, who would finally understand me.

But of course, this was all a childish fantasy. Instead, my mother developed ovarian cancer when I was in college. My father, who never understood the purpose of college to begin with, pressured me to drop out to help him care for her during a brutal course of chemotherapy. I refused, and she died almost exactly one year after her diagnosis. Six months after losing the love of his life, my father died of a heart attack.

Luke has also experienced loss. Even though he doesn’t like to talk about it, I have weaseled some details out of him about his late wife. They were college sweethearts. There was a car accident. She died instantly.