I gave back the jacket today.

On our 5th date, you wore it underneath another one. It was November on Cape Cod, and back then I was so tolerant of the weather that I could usually still walk around in short sleeves in late Fall. But this particular day, it was colder than usual, and you offered it to me to wear when I shivered.

It’s a plain black zip-up fleece jacket. The left pocket has a hole on the inside. The inside of the collar is gray. No hood. You couldn’t remember where you got it from, and I didn’t recognize the logo on the tag. It wasn’t anything fancy; honestly, the material felt thinner than most fleece jackets I’d seen. But it was soft and warm and smelled like your Speedstick deodorant.

You weren’t used to the cold in Massachusetts (you tell me it never dipped below 60°F in your hometown in Brazil) and I remember many chilly days huddling together, me in your fleece jacket, you in the old leather one that used to belong to your father. You’d remind me that it was your jacket, and I’d playfully remind you that I knew that, but it’s mine now.

When we got married, we didn’t have a wedding; we decided to just sign the papers and begin our life together. I wore the fleece over the dove-gray floral dress I bought on Amazon for $20 when we went to the Falmouth Town Hall to pick up our papers, wore it to the church where your brother preached when we asked him to sign them. I tied it around my waist by the sleeves as we carried the furniture into our first apartment together. The world was ours for the taking back then, the possibilities felt infinite.

When I started working at Panera Bread, I’d wear it when my manager started training me to be a manager and I had to stand in the freezer to count inventory. I’d pull my hands inside the sleeves when they got too cold from counting bags of flash-frozen broccoli cheddar soup (we never made it fresh, sorry). You laughed the day I came home with it splattered with the frozen coffee drink that an angry customer threw at me. I took a selfie to commemorate it.

It was the only jacket I wore during my pregnancy with our son, that winter when I was so sick I thought we’d both die. You’d hold my hair back and I’d try not to vomit on your jacket. It was baggy enough to hide all the weight I’d lost during my struggle with hyperemesis gravidarum. People always looked at me with such concern when they’d see my ribs, the bruise-like rings under my eyes, the tiny hands pressing against a shrinking belly from the inside like a camper fighting to hold up their collapsing tent. I could hide it in that jacket. I could smile and pretend that my baby and I were fine.

It kept me warm when the three of us moved to Boston for the job I loved (you hated it) and the wind barreled through alleyways like a raging bull. You’d tease me, asking what I’d do in this weather without your jacket. My jacket, I’d correct you, and you’d stick your tongue out at me. I’d wrap it tight around myself and our son as I carried him close to my body when the temperature dropped.

By the time I was pregnant with our daughter, you stopped reminding me that it was your jacket. It had become mine. I wore it on days where my body didn’t feel quite like it was meant to belong to me. It made me feel androgynous, and I loved that. Sometimes I’d be drenched in sweat, sweltering in the humid 90°F heat of the city, but I’d still zip it on over my growing belly, often with nothing underneath to try and keep us cool. I’d smile at the thought of her feet pressing to kick the same fabric her big brother once did.

I wore it when I told you I wasn’t a woman for the first time. You weren’t sure how to react in the moment. I told you to call me your spouse, to use they/them pronouns for me. When I got anxious and huddled down into the jacket, I realized it no longer smelled like you; it was all Dunkin’ iced coffee and B&BW’s A Thousand Wishes body spray.

I’d put it over the back of the armchair where our cats liked to lay together, and it would get covered in their black and white fur. Our son would put it over his head and run through the house like a shadowy figure. When we moved to North Carolina and the weather was warmer, I turned into a wimp and needed it more than ever on chilly days. I remember the times I’d put it on without thinking, as simple as breathing, as much a part of me as my own skin. I remember the nights you’d unzip it slowly to draw out the tension, to make me feel deliciously impatient. All those times you told me how beautiful or handsome or whatever I asked you to call me, and it’d just be me, baggy jeans and your my fleece jacket.

Until the day I left you.

You looked at me differently in your jacket after that. You started reminding me that it was yours again. You’d huff that my insistence at keeping it meant I still wanted to fix our dying marriage. I’d explain that no, it did not, but that having it meant a lot to me anyways. I said every man loses a good hoodie (or in this case, fleece jacket) to an ex, and I was your first ex, so you just didn’t know. You didn’t understand, but you didn’t fight me when I wore it on the day I moved out of our old apartment.

I still wore it from time to time. Sometimes I’d look at it and feel sentimental for the baby kicks it felt with me, for the times I’d bury my nose in it when the wind picked up, for the days when you and I were as happy as we could have been. Like a child’s baby blanket, and in a way, I suppose it was (I think 19 counts as a child). It was with me while I grew over the 8 years of our relationship, through the good times and the bad times. It was with me while I figured out my gender and sexuality. I had dreams of a future where we’d both sit by the fireplace in my dream house with our future wives, laughing together while the children play. I’d have that same jacket on, and everyone would be happy.

But, there came a day when putting it on wasn’t easy anymore. When I’d open my phone to yet another abusive text message and look down at the jacket and feel like I needed to burn it. When we would fight until I felt so utterly exhausted that I’d throw it across the room before crumpling into bed. When you’d prove over and over that remaining just friends with me was never your intention, when you’d beg me to come back to you. When I’d put it on to go on a date and momentarily wonder if it was even appropriate to wear the jacket with anyone else. When I discovered how good I felt in flannels, and how much I liked that one nice crewneck sweater with my college’s logo on it. It sat in a corner on top of a folding chair for a while in my bedroom, waiting for me to make a hard decision.

Today, you cried when I gave you back your jacket.

You cried, because I think when I handed you that shopping bag with it folded neatly inside, you finally understood.

The 10 years of history that was in the stitches of that jacket have been washed away.

We are strangers. We are only connected by a custody schedule and our children. We will never again be anything more.

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