Single Infertile Female: Now What?

One Month For Every Year

2012-01-30T19:41:00.000-09:00

My periods come, on average, every 32 days.

Sometimes it’s 31, and sometimes it’s 34, but all in all – they fall within a day or two of that 32 day mark.

And they have for almost a year now.

I have regular periods.

Normal periods.

Yeah, they still aren’t a walk in the park, and I still typically plan on being extra lazy when Jack decides to pay a visit, but… they are normal.

And they have been for a year.

Something I couldn't say before, when I never knew exactly when to expect my period. It took 50 days one month, and 20 the next, with no rhyme or reason at all.

Now though, I know.

I know of course, because my handy-dandy period tracker tells me, but even without that – I would know because it’s something Dr. Naturopath has been predicting all along.

Waiting for the point in time when we could see what it was my body would do in its natural state.

It was maybe half a year ago when she explained to me the one month for every year theory.

According to her, it takes one month for every year a woman is on birth control (or any hormone treatments at all for that matter) for her body to bounce back to a truly “normal” state.

Obviously with teenagers, it's a different story. Their bodies are still just figuring it all out, and it could take years from their first period before things settle down into "normal". This process is, all on its own, the way things are supposed to progress. Even though so many are quick to want to put teenagers on birth control to "regulate" them, in theory - they should be doing that on their own with time.

But for grown women who have been on hormone treatments, the one month for every year is the time frame she says it takes once those treatments have stopped for things to settle down to a natural way of functioning.

Add a few extra months for any surgeries on the lady parts, and a few more for any big hormonal surges such as those that are used with IVF.

I’ve had 4 rounds of those hormones (between two egg donations and two of my own IVF cycles) and three surgeries.

And then you’ve got to remember that I was on the pill for 12 years before that.

So, it’s safe to assume it will take up to two years from my last IVF for my body to truly bounce back to "normal".

But here we are, a little over a year later, and my body really is acting pretty damn normal.

I think in the end, my average cycle may end up being closer to 30 days (as the gaps seem to be getting smaller), and I hope to continue the trend of uncomfortable but not unbearable. I’ve got to admit though, I like being regular. Even if I don’t love my period, I like knowing that it’s coming when it’s supposed to.

That my body is finally doing something right.

I started on the pill when I was 13 years old, because my first few periods were pretty heavy and excruciatingly painful. Looking back now, I think that was the first indication that something may have been wrong, but starting on the pill so soon is what kept the endo at bay until my mid twenties.

And for that, I am thankful.

Although, I do wonder what would have happened if we had looked at more natural options from the start. If maybe it never would have flared as bad as it did, if I had started treating with diet and supplements and acupuncture from the beginning instead.

Obviously, you can’t look back like that. The world is full of what-ifs. But now, it’s kind of nice to know that my body is capable of doing what it’s supposed to do all on its own.

I’m treating stage IV endometriosis naturally, and successfully. I’ve been doing so for almost a year now, and I’m still feeling good. Strong. Healthy.

And if the one month for every year theory stands true, I can only hope that the trend will continue over the next year, as my body learns to rely on itself. As my hormones continue to stabilize naturally.

It’s been work. Effort beyond what I think most people are prepared for when they decide they want to treat naturally. But it’s been worth it, because I’m healthy right now. Without the nasty side effects of so many of the drugs thrown at this disease.

I’m healthy in a way that I know surpasses the expectations of many of the medical practitioners I have. Those who were never exactly comfortable with the idea of me doing this naturally.

It's kind of amazing though, just realizing what the body is capable of when we give it the chance to do what it’s supposed to do.

Without bombarding it with drugs and chemicals meant to take over.

I still absolutely believe that western medicine has its place, and that there are times when drugs truly are the best option. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t be the nut trying to treat cancer with fresh squeezed juices. I’m just saying, as a society we have become so reliant on pills. So convinced it’s the only way to treat… everything.

But that isn’t always the case.

And sometimes, all your body really needs to get back to normal is…

One month for every year.

Everything But The Kiss

2012-01-27T18:56:00.005-09:00

It just occurred to me that it’s almost February (seriously – where did this month go?) and I never did give you the full update on my New Years Eve!

I was so caught up in the story of the boy, that I managed to skimp on the details of that night.

To be fair – my memory is pretty foggy on said details.

It’s possible (probable) that I had far too much to drink – although, I continue to maintain that it wasn’t my fault and that I was in fact roofied.

For the record – I’m 99% positive I wasn’t actually roofied. That did happen to me once in my life, and it was a bad, bad situation; so I’m really not trying to make light of something that I do get is actually quite serious. I’m pretty sure that’s not what happened here. I just got WAY more drunk off FAR less booze than I normally would have. Likely because I starved myself for the entire week prior in order to look perfect in my New Year’s Dress.

And so far, the situation I’m describing is just sounding more and more unhealthy… But seriously, that dress hugged every single curve on my body! I did not want any extra bloat or chub going on that night!

I suppose I should start at the beginning…

It was a few weeks before New Year’s when I was with Dee and her husband and another set of friends. We were discussing New Year’s, and what we should plan to do – what with Dee and Lindsey both knocked up (Mrs. King was already planning on being in Hawaii with her family). It wound up turning out that Lindsey and her husband Blue had long-standing plans at her parent’s cabin, but me being single and still looking – that simply wasn't going to do.

I wanted to get hot and dolled up and find myself a man.

I still hadn’t been with anyone since the boy pulled his epic disappearing act months before.

OK, so that’s not entirely true. There was one guy; a man I’d met when I first moved to Alaska who I was ridiculously attracted to, but then never saw again after that initial meeting. I remember him telling me about having lived in Australia, and I had been instantly smitten.

It’s fair to note that he also happens to be one of the most attractive men I’ve ever actually seen in real life. The epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.

So when I went out with some girlfriends in November to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show (such a blast!) and spotted him in a bar after, I walked right up and staked my claim.

Liquid courage contributing to my being far more aggressive than usual.

Let’s just say… I brought him home.

In my defense, I was heartbroken and the boy had left me feeling pretty crappy about myself. Nabbing this gorgeous man was a win I needed!

And to be fair – I stood firm in ensuring that all activities that evening remained above the belt.

The next morning, we went to breakfast and then a movie with some of his friends. He was sweet and attentive and charming the entire day.

I kind of loved it.

A few days later I flew home for Thanksgiving, and when I came back – he had a ton going on. We talked for a couple of weeks, and attempted to make plans (plans that kept falling through) and then… we just kind of stopped.

Nothing came of it, and at this point – I’ve been telling people he died.

So not counting that one very brief dalliance that turned into nothing, there had been no other men in my life.

And I was determined to go out on New Year’s Eve and find myself one.

Dee and her husband both seemed open to going out, and we decided it would be fun to get a big group of people together for dinner that night and then head out to the bars just before midnight.

So, that’s exactly what we did. The three of us:

My roommate and her boyfriend:

And a few other friends as well. There were 9 of us total.

We had a blast. Big dinners like that are pretty much one of my favorite things ever. I love ordering a ton of food and picking off everyone’s plates, laughing and talking and drinking the night away.

But I can for sure say that at least at dinner, I really did not have that much to drink.

Still… I left already tipsy as we found our way to one of my favorite bars in town.

And that is where the fun began.

If you ever see me out in a group sober, you likely won’t notice me. I tend to get uncomfortable around people I don’t know, and blend into crowds as best as possible. I can be shy, and standoffish, and awkward without ever really meaning to be.

But get a few drinks in me, and suddenly – I am the life of the party.

The happiest most loving drunk you have ever met.

I talk to everyone, and always (I mean – always) have an eye out for the next man in my life.

And I have no qualms at all about going up to him myself once I spot him.

Again, something I would never do sober!

This was one of those nights though. I really don’t think I had all that much to drink, but I suppose I must have had a few. I spotted a guy across the bar who seemed marginally cute, but one of the friends we were with said he knew him from high school and that he had a less than desirable STD.

He also told me the guy was only 22.

I immediately began looking elsewhere.

It was maybe 15 minutes later when I got up to get myself another drink, and the next thing I knew – this guy had come up behind me and put his finger in my mouth.

He said he was fish-hooking me.

I was horrified.

And not even because I had just heard what was very likely only speculation about his sexual history.

No, I was horrified because some stranger had just put his finger in my mouth.

That’s disgusting!

I had no idea where that finger had been!

So I expressed to him my revulsion.

And he expressed to me a desire to get my next drink.

Which is when my lack of a filter combined with my less than sober state, and wanting only to get this guy out of my line of sight I blurted out “I heard you have herpes.”

Bad S.I.F.!

He looked at me for a second before saying “Where did you hear that from?”

Which is when I pointed to our table and said “That guy told me so just 15 minutes ago.”

I said it completely matter of factly, like this was normal bar fodder.

BAD S.I.F.!

Somehow (and I’m still not sure how), this managed to not turn into a fight.

But the guy did leave less than 10 minutes later.

And then we spent the rest of the night making fun of him and his fish hooking.

I mean, really; who does that?

I wish I could say that was the worst of my shenanigans that night, but really; it went from bad to worse.

About the time when Dee and her husband took off for the night (making it until almost one, which officially makes Dee a rock star pregnant woman in my book!) I decided to intensify the search for my next boyfriend.

In a bar, while wasted, on New Year’s Eve.

Midnight had already passed, and sadly; no one had kissed me.

But I wasn’t about to let that stop me from my quest.

I’m pretty sure I became that girl.

Wandering around a bar pathetically introducing herself to every available man she could spot.

I swear, I’ve never been that bad before. I just think… there was a lot going on for me. A lot of residual hurt from the boy that I just wanted to shove away with a new guy. And here it was, New Year’s Eve; the night we had met a year before.

He was definitely on my mind.

And I didn’t want him to be.

So, I was looking for his replacement.

In all the wrong places.

And failing desperately.

Likely because by this point, I was pretty damn sloppy.

I wound up running into a girl I’ve met only once (and briefly at that) and immediately declared myself her best friend.

When the roommate and her boyfriend decided it was time to go – I decided I should stay behind with my new friend.

This is something I do. Pretty much any time I have too much to drink. I make friends and insist my real friends leave me behind when they decide it’s time to go.

I’ve been doing this for years.

Like I said, get a few drinks in me and suddenly; I become the life of the party.

Somehow it has always worked out just fine for me. But that still doesn’t mean I think for even one second that it’s safe.

I’m so convincing though. It’s not like my friends are bad friends (they’re not!), it’s that I’m a 28 year old woman, and when I tell them I’m fine and want to stay – what are they going to say?

For the record, I have since told them all that it’s OK to push me to come with them. I know myself, and I would never put up much of a fight. Even drunk. If they said it was time to go, I would go.

Which really is preferable to me continuing to hang out in bars drunk and by myself.

Technically though, in this case, I wasn’t by myself. I did know the girl I had latched on to.

Barely.

But… latching on to her made me the invariable 5th wheel.

She kept saying it was no big deal, but waking up the next morning – I was embarrassed.

Especially because, when it came time to head home, none of us could find cabs.

At all.

We wound up hanging out in the lobby of a local downtown hotel, goofing off and taking pictures:

(Yes, my shoe is unzipped. Also, I’m fairly sure that rather than just

being elegantly posed, I had actually fallen.

Classy-class.)

We stayed there until almost 4 in the morning, when the guys finally opted to buy out an hour of the hotel’s limo service to get us home.

They didn’t make me pay a cent. And when we got to their house, they made sure the driver was good to take me home as well.

So there I was, 4 in the morning on New Year’s, pulling up in front of my house in a limo.

By myself.

Drunk, and sloppy, and… with some sort of nastiness all over the front of my dress.

I swear, it looked like I had hugged a sappy tree.

I joked the next day that if someone had roofied and later attempted to molest me – it was definitely the stain which looked far too much like chew on my dress that stopped them.

Either that, or my Spanx.

Which could possibly be a new motto for Spanx: Slowing down lazy rapists one woman at a time.

Regardless; I was a mess.

I crawled up the steps and needed to bang on the door to get my roommate to let me in, because I couldn’t find my key (it was definitely tucked right into my purse).

I immediately stripped down and crawled into bed, before violently jerking up 15 minutes later when I remembered my list.

The list I had absolutely forgotten to burn at midnight.

It was freezing outside, and I had no intention of getting dressed again (I’m not even sure I could have at this point), so instead I dug the list and a lighter out of my purse and went to the bathroom.

I burned my 14 words over a toilet, so drunk that I was resting my head on the seat as I did it.

Classy-class.

Even then, I was pretty sure that all symbolism in this act was pretty effectively ruined.

Once it was gone, I crawled into bed and… you know the rest.

I began composing a novel for the boy. Until 7 in the morning, when I finally saved it to my drafts and passed out.

Needless to say, it was the next morning (whilst recovering from a pretty horrific hangover) that I declared myself off the cock and booze.

I haven’t had a drink, or a man, since.

I realized that in the months prior, I had been nursing a pretty gnarly heartbreak. And trying with all my might to pretend as though I wasn’t.

Which didn’t exactly seem to be working.

Finding another man wasn’t going to fix this.

And neither was drinking myself into embarrassing stupidity.

So instead, I pledged myself to a few months of taking care of me. To writing my book, and training for a half marathon, and not cluttering my mind with alcohol or boys at all.

Not until my other goals have been reached.

It turned out to be the best thing I ever could have done for myself.

The thing I needed to do in order to finally feel refreshed, and excited, and well taken care of once again.

It just so happens that, I’m the one doing the caring.

For me.

Which for the record: Is something I highly recommend.

And the next time I put that dress on (because yes, I did somehow manage to save that thing after many washes), I vow:

I will not ruin its supreme sexiness with my own supreme sloppiness.

I Don't Remember Asking For a Life Coach...

2012-01-25T18:40:00.001-09:00

Have I mentioned before that I have got some pretty amazing friends?

Like; fantastic, wonderful, unbelievably amazing friends.

I’ve always been pretty lucky this way. No matter where I’ve been, I’ve always managed to find myself surround by incredible friends.

And I’ve got to say, near or far, the same is still true today.

Still, this morning when one of those incredible friends sent me a link to an article that was suspiciously of the self help variety; I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

This is the same friend who has vowed to ride my ass until my book has reached completion. So I immediately fired back to her that I remembered asking for an editor, not a life coach.

I was kidding of course. Ribbing her for sending me such a lame link.

But then, I opened it.

And not only did I immediately know why she had sent it, I also immediately loved her for doing so.

As much as you can possibly love a person who you already feel pretty damn grateful to know.

She highlighted this particular number for me:

Start giving your ideas and dreams a chance. – In life, it’s rarely about getting a chance; it’s about taking a chance. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work. Most of the time you just have to go for it! And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should be. Either you succeed or you learn something. Win-Win.

Playing up her role as my top encourager in this journey to finish a book.

But you know which ones stood out to me?

This one:

Start spending time with the right people. – These are the people you enjoy, who love and appreciate you, and who encourage you to improve in healthy and exciting ways. They are the ones who make you feel more alive, and not only embrace who you are now, but also embrace and embody who you want to be, unconditionally.

And this one:

Start actively nurturing your most important relationships. – Bring real, honest joy into your life and the lives of those you love by simply telling them how much they mean to you on a regular basis. You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people. Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty. Remember, you don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.

Life is short, and I would rather spend every single day focusing on those I can count on, rather than lamenting those I can’t.

Because really, I’m pretty damn lucky.

So I wanted to share the article with you as well.

30 Things to Start Doing For Yourself

I loved almost every single one. Enough that I’m trying to think of a way to print the list up and frame it.

It fits my life right now. The place I’m at. This stage of taking care of me, and pursuing my dreams.

A stage I have to admit, is making me happier than I’ve been in a long time.

I’m finding myself again. Day by day, rediscovering the girl I was once upon a time.

And you know what? I kind of like her.

Almost as much as I like the friends she’s managed to surround herself with.

I don’t remember asking for a life coach.

But, I think I'm pretty glad I got one.

Taking a Leap

2012-01-23T18:21:00.005-09:00

When I was a little girl and my dad would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always had two answers: An actress and a writer.

I was convinced I could do both. And well.

In grade school I won all the writing awards. I still remember being so proud of a story contest my 7th grade class had where our names were removed from our submissions and the class voted on the best one without knowing who had written what.

Mine was by far the longest (real shocker there) and I was convinced for that fact alone that it wouldn’t win.

But then… it did. Some dramatic tale about a pre-teen who had a falling out with her group of friends and had to face their torment until the day her brother died of cancer.

Morbid, right?

I may or may not have been in the middle of a fight with my circle of friends at the time.

It’s also possible I was wishing cancer upon my brother.

One can’t really be sure.

I was 12 years old after all.

But the point is, there were a lot of things like that. The district wide poetry contest I swept. The first time a magazine published something I had written, and my grandma made me give her the $10 check they sent me so that she could frame it. The teachers who were constantly sending notes home to rave about my creative writing. The time when, upon graduating from 8th grade, I composed a 30 page manifesto for all my friends detailing our friendships from early childhood.

I named it “Friends Forever” and presented it to everyone with all kinds of flourish.

This was something I was good at though. One of the few things that came naturally to me from a young age.

The acting was always there as well. I was involved in all the plays in high school, and nabbed a couple leads for myself before being named most likely to be famous my senior year.

But that was something that quickly faded away once I started college. I had loved acting, but the truth was – I had no interest in being famous.

I wanted kids and a family someday. Not a decade or more of trying to “break-in” to a difficult business, followed by a lifetime of being hounded by the paparazzi and marrying men bound to cheat on me in the end.

Because let’s face it; I was pretty sure I was going to make it. Confident in the future in a way that only a teenager could be.

So yeah, the acting became a dream of the past.

But the writing… well the writing stayed.

And I still dreamed of one day having my name on a published book.

Of making a career out of putting words on paper.

I never had quite as much confidence in this though. I knew I loved writing, and that I could pound out 2000 words on just about any subject in my sleep, but… I wasn’t sure I had what it would take to really make that dream a reality.

And then I started writing this blog. If only because I needed a place to get out all my thoughts and feelings regarding infertility.

And it was safe. Not nearly as scary. Because there is instant gratification that comes from writing a blog post and knowing immediately whether or not it has been well received.

A far cry from committing up to a year of one’s life to completing a novel, only to have it go nowhere.

I have honestly had nightmares about putting so much of myself into a book and then not being able to get an agent to read past the first chapter.

Failure has always been a pretty big fear of mine.

In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret – I don’t do anything unless I know I can do it well. Ever. And if I do try something new and I’m not instantly good at it, I’ve been known to immediately give it up.

I’m pretty sure that’s a giant character flaw on my part.

The truth is though, in my adult life I’ve only ever really had 2 dreams.

To be a mommy, and to write a book.

We all know how well pursuing that first dream turned out.

Which is perhaps why I’ve been so resistant to pursuing the second.

The thought of failing at that too literally makes me sick.

The truth is though, I have more than one partially finished novel on my laptop.

I always get to a certain point, and then I give up.

I freak out.

I walk away from whatever I’ve been working on, telling myself it’s just not good enough. That it can’t possibly go anywhere. That no one will want to read it, and I’ll end up feeling like a massive failure in the end.

Let’s face it; a girl can only take so much failure.

But something happened when I started writing about the boy. Or rather, a lot of things happened all at once.

Beginning with a very close friend of mine getting on my ass and pledging to hold me to deadlines along the way if that’s what it would take for me to finish a novel. Encouraging me if only because she knew I would never be truly content until I at least tried.

Knowing me well enough to realize... this was the only thing I'd ever been really passionate about.

Her pushing coincided perfectly with the excitement I felt in throwing so much of myself into this story. This overwhelming desire I suddenly had to spend every spare moment writing.

Which culminated in the realization that, I could do this. I mean, I practically composed an entire novel in under a month. Coming up with the words was not an issue for me.

I just needed to have the confidence in myself to try.

And for some reason, writing out the whole story gave me that confidence.

I suppose one day, I may have to thank the boy for being my muse.

Which brings us to where we are now.

I’m going to write a novel.

Or rather, finish a novel I began working on years ago.

I don’t really want to get into the details just yet, because I’m afraid I’ll talk myself out of it.

But one way or another, I am going to finish a book this year.

I’ve designed a writing calendar for myself that has me completing the entire project in 12 weeks.

I already met the first deadline this weekend.

The goal is to have a completed novel (albeit, one likely still in need of revisions and editing) by my birthday – April 11th.

I want to turn 29 being able to say that I’ve written a book.

And in a perfect world, I would turn 30 being able to say that it’s been published.

While my friends are busy pushing out new additions to their families this year, this is going to be my baby.

My big accomplishment.

My leap.

I’m still terrified of failing.

Terrified of putting so much of myself into something, and having to watch as it goes nowhere.

Thinking about the point in time when I’ll have to send this off to agents knots my stomach up like you wouldn't believe.

But I’m going to do it.

I’m going to try.

If for no other reason, than so that I can stop talking about it.

Once and for all.

I’ll know whether or not I have what it takes.

And if I don’t, well… someone better get me a drink.

Because failing at two major lifetime goals in such a short period of time, might just send me over the edge!

The only reason I’m mentioning anything here now though, is because turning my attention towards a novel is going to mean turning it away from this space.

For at least a few months anyway.

It was over a year ago when the devirginator told me that I needed to do this. When he pointed out the fact that if I spent as much time working on a book as I did working on my blog, I could have it done in no time.

I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at him and said he had way too much faith in me.

But he was right. I do a lot of writing here, and if I shift that focus even just a few days a week – it won’t be long before I find myself typing “the end”.

So while I will still be around (updating a few times a week I’m sure) I am going to be more absent than I’ve been in the past.

And I’m guessing the posts I do leave you with will be shorter in length than ever before.

Don’t worry, I won’t keep anything exciting from you.

But I also won’t likely be penning any lengthy dissections of the inner workings of my mind in the near future.

I’ll save that for the point in time when I’m lamenting not hearing back from agents!

I’m hopeful though.

More hopeful than I’ve been in a long time.

Determined to spend these next few months focused on myself.

Focused on my book.

And also, focused on training for a half marathon this summer.

You know – just for good measure.

I figure as long as I’m committed to being “off the cock” (a commitment that I plan on keeping in place until I finish this novel of mine - because boys have a way of being distracting), I should probably find a way to channel all that excess energy I typically dedicate to dating.

I’ve gotten up at 5:30 every morning for the last 2 weeks to work out.

This could get interesting.

Either way though, I’m committed right now.

To myself.

To my book.

And to conquering some old fears.

While hopefully making one of my dreams come true.

So be patient with me over the next few months.

I plan on being kind of busy, just working on me.

About a Boy

2012-01-21T18:24:00.000-09:00

If you're looking for the story about the boy... I hope you're ready to sit back and do some reading:

Part 1: In The Beginning

Part 2: Over The River, and Through The Woods

Part 3: The Whore

Part 4: The Text Houdini

Part 5: What Happens In The Woods, Stays In The Woods

Part 6: The 'L' Word

Part 7: Fun Bobby

Part 8: D-Day

Part 9: When In Doubt... Run Away

Part 10: Drunk Dial

Part 11: The Call

Part 12: Going Through The Motions

Part 13: The Fallout

Part 14: The Doctor Is In

Part 15: When Does It Get To Be About Me?

Part 16: Space

Part 17: The Heart Always Wins

Part 18: Jinx

Part 19: The Thin Line between Love and Hate

Part 20: The End

The End

2012-01-20T18:59:00.009-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

When we got off the phone that night, I was sure it was the last I would hear from him.

So of course, it was only a few hours before I received a text.

Or rather, a series of texts. The contents of which need to be shared, if only so that you can see how truly drunk he must have been in sending them.

Text 1: “You’re right. I am an a”

Text 2: “I am truly sorry for treating u like shit. U were really good to me and I took that for granite. Yes, I am a fucking asshole.”

Text 3: “You didn’t deserve this. I am really really sorry.”

Text 4: “Goodbye.”

They came in one right after another. A little past 2 in the morning, when the bars must have kicked him out.

It was the last one that probably irked me the most.

“Goodbye.”

It just felt so dramatic.

I didn’t respond. I knew he was drunk, and I was sleeping when I got them anyway. And by the following morning, I had other things to worry about.

I figured if he really wanted to apologize, he would call me sober.

The funny thing was that not long after (or before?) he sent those texts, he also forwarded me an e-mail he had sent to his mom earlier in the week. It was full of pictures from a wedding he had just attended in Texas. We had discussed his going when he'd booked the ticket a few months before, so it wasn't something I was completely oblivious about. But the only message to me in the e-mail was “Thought you might like to see these.”

I couldn’t figure it out. Why was he sending me these photos now?

And what on earth made him suddenly think I wanted to see them?

OK, so I did... But that's not really the point.

The point is, it made no sense for him to send them to my whilst also apparently telling me "goodbye".

A snippet from the night before popped into my mind. A moment when (at the height of his defensiveness) he had said to me “You’re the one who chose to get involved with someone who was mentally unstable.”

It was one of those moments when I would have laughed, if I hadn’t already been so angry.

Was he seriously blaming me? For caring about him?

And did he honestly just call himself mentally unstable?

I mean, I couldn’t argue with him. The roller coaster he had put me on was a clear indication that things were not all right in his head. And he was correct; I had entered into this knowing full well that it wouldn’t be easy. That he was broken, and that I may not be enough to heal him.

Even though so many times it felt like he was depending on me to do just that.

I had entered this mess fully aware that it was exactly that - a mess.

But still… I cared about him, and tried to be there for him (to be a friend and support him as best I knew how) and he turns around and basically tells me that I deserved to get hurt because I made the stupid choice to trust him in the first place?

It reminded me a bit of that old fable. The one about the farmer who helps the snake, only to have the snake turn around and bite him as soon as it's gotten what it needs.

The moral of the story being – a snake is still just a snake in the end.

The thing was though; I had never before seen the boy as a snake.

I had seen him as broken, and wounded, and in need of time and patience; but never as a snake.

I had never believed, even for a second, that in the end he would take me and my feelings so monumentally for granted.

I had always believed that no matter what, we would find a way to at least be friends.

I thought he had believed that too.

I never responded to the e-mail either. I mean, what was I supposed to say in response to that? I couldn’t figure out why he had sent it in the first place.

Over the next few weeks though, I began agonizing over what had happened between us. I sifted through the details like an excavator. Searching for what went wrong.

Not because I wanted to fix things, but because... I needed to understand. I needed to know how it was possible that after everything, he could just so casually discard me and walk away.

I was determined to find the answers.

To figure out which man he had been. The one I’d loved and believed loved me back, or the one who had pummeled me with almost no concern for my well-being at all.

I rationalized, and defended.

I grew angry, and indignant.

I turned it all into a joke, poking fun at myself and embracing the fact that I really had only ever been a rebound to him.

(Oh yes, that happened)

But I still couldn’t figure it out.

And as hard as I tried, I still wasn’t over it.

Over what he’d done. How callously he had treated me. And how easily he had walked away.

I couldn’t get him out of my head. His birthday came and went, and I lamented the gift I’d intentionally put so much thought into getting him weeks before. The one that was now sitting in my closet with nowhere to go.

For a split second, I considered throwing it through the window of his truck.

But then I remembered that he drove a company vehicle. And that he wouldn’t suffer the consequences of my justifiable action on that one.

So instead it remained in my closet.

Now a blatant reminder that I had cared so much more for him than he had me.

The weeks continued passing though, and I found myself beginning to wonder if he’d ever actually cared at all.

Had I really just been a rebound?

Had it been so easy for him to fool me into thinking he cared?

So easy for him to leave me?

Which is when I received another e-mail from him. It was early November now, a little after 8 on a Sunday night.

He was forwarding me pictures of a friend’s baby. All the message said was “Thought you’d like these pics. You may have seen them already. Hope you’re doing well.”

The funny thing was, these were friends I had my own connection to. People I was friends with on Facebook and had seen fairly recently as well.

He knew this. Or at least, he knew I had ties to them. I couldn’t figure out why he had felt the need to forward this on to me at all.

Unless he had just been looking for an “in”. A way to see if those doors of communication were still closed.

Which had to mean he was at least thinking of me a little bit, right? That on some level, he had actually cared?

I can’t tell you how much that question haunted me. Not whether or not he had loved me, but whether or not he had cared. At all.

Thinking he hadn’t, tore me up inside.

It ate away at me.

Because at its root, it made me feel stupid.

Used, unwanted, and abandoned.

Still, while this e-mail allowed me a moment of thinking that maybe he had cared, I knew it wasn’t enough.

Not to open up those lines of communication.

Not to even respond back at all.

He couldn’t just sneak back into my life (even as only just a friend), without first giving me what I needed.

An explanation.

An apology.

A sober acknowledgement of what he’d done.

And even with that, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to forgive.

Except… I knew I wanted to. I wanted this to be past us. I wanted for us to just be able to be friends.

Not because he deserved that from me, but because I hated feeling like I was feeling.

I didn’t want to be angry at him. I didn’t want to have so much confusion and hurt. I just wanted to be over it. To be done and be able to move on.

Partially because, even then I was slipping into moments of worrying about him.

Which I realize is pathetic to admit.

But as the holidays approached, I couldn’t help it. I was worried about how he would fare over the first holiday season without her. Worried about how he was doing. Worried about who he was reaching out to now that he didn’t have me.

I didn't want to keep beating myself up for... caring.

I just wanted it to be over.

I still couldn’t figure any of it out though.

And even as I maintained my distance and didn’t reach out to him in any way, he was constantly on my mind.

What he’d done to me.

And how it didn’t mesh at all with the man I believed him to be.

The whole situation was breaking me apart as I fought to understand it.

And it’s not like I was dealing with some unknown person here. Not like I had zero insight into who he was or what he was doing. His friends had become my friends. Those ties were still there. It was Jay and Mel I spent Halloween with. I get together with Dee and her husband at least a few times a month. His buddy’s girlfriend was just at my house this week borrowing a dress. I'm going to Pilates tomorrow with the wife of one of those core childhood friends of his.

I had insight.

But everyone else was just as confused as I was.

Not that they hadn’t seen the crash coming, because they had. As people who cared about him, they’d realized he was falling apart.

But I don’t think anyone ever anticipated he would end up disregarding me so completely.

In fact, I know most within his circle really thought we were going to work things out in the end.

I tried not to bring him up often. I tried to keep my friendships with these people separate from him. To not bring any further drama or awkwardness than there needed to be.

But everyone knew what happened.

And everyone understood where my hurt had come from.

Unfortunately, no one could give me any further explanation than what I already knew.

There had been no other girl. He hadn’t gone back to his wife (or even spoken to her at all since she’d popped up around the fourth of July). There was nothing from the outside that had come in and caused this.

He’d just gone from missing me and being so sure he was ready for "us", to determining that it wasn’t what he wanted.

Seemingly overnight.

And in making the break, he’d decided that my feelings weren’t worth even attempting to protect.

One thing was for sure though – I went from hearing from almost every one of these people at one time or another how much the boy cared about me, to now hearing that he was definitely over it.

I have no idea what's been said to make them all so sure, but… it’s been a long time since anyone in that group has reassured me of the boy’s feelings for me.

Even in the past tense.

It should be noted that these people are all still friends with the boy as well. Some of his friendships with the men in that group had endured for 20 years. I have never had any intention of destroying that, and don’t think I could even if I tried. My initial gut had been to pull away from everyone, but none of them allowed that to happen. I think they all knew what had gone down, and just hadn’t been as willing to toss me aside as he had. They’ve all been great about staying out of the middle of it, but still being friends to us both.

It really has been kind of incredible.

I still don’t think anyone gets it any more than I do though.

It just… doesn’t add up.

Which is why on New Year’s, after having far too much to drink and burning my list in the toilet (don’t ask), I found myself writing him an e-mail.

An e-mail that I began at 4 in the morning and didn’t stop until sometime after 7.

An e-mail that was over 7000 words and 15 pages long.

An e-mail that I somehow, by the grace of God, saved into my drafts instead of sending.

But when I woke the next day, I looked that e-mail over again.

Most of it didn’t make any sense. It was jumbled and repetitive and there were far more spelling and grammatical errors within than I care to own up to.

But… there was something there.

And I realized in reading it that I had not once taken the time to really let him know what he’d done to me. I’d yelled and screamed and severed ties, but I’d never explained it to him from my heart.

I’d been so concerned about being strong in the end, that I’d forgotten about being honest.

I needed that. That release. That moment where I could say to myself “Well… at least it’s out there.”

So I started writing again. This time keeping my words in check, and trying to get to the root of how he’d made me feel.

Before I sent it to him though, I sent it first to Dee.

I needed to know if I was crazy for contemplating this. Crazy for considering hitting send at all. Crazy for letting him know now, 3 months since we'd last spoken, that I was still hurting over what he'd done.

After Dee read it, she sent me a text. She said that her initial instinct had been to tell me not to send it. Not to contact him at all. But that after reading what I’d written, she thought I should. She thought he needed to hear it from me, to really realize what his actions had done. She said she knew that at his heart, he was a good person. And she hoped that he would take what I’d said and really reflect upon what he’d done. Maybe give me the explanation and apology I so desperately needed.

But she acknowledged that more important than anything else, it would give me some closure. If I never received any response from him at all, at least I would know I had said my part.

And I knew that’s why I needed to do it the most. So that I could wipe my hands of it. Walk away knowing that I’d been true to myself. True to what I was feeling.

I wound up hitting “send” not long after hearing from Dee.

Here are some of the highlights from that e-mail:

“I have to admit that I still find myself going over everything in my head; like it’s a puzzle with some of the pieces missing. I want to understand. I want to get where you were coming from. I really do. I want it to all make sense to me. I feel like we went to bed one night and things were fine, and then we woke up the next morning and you were distant and pulled away and… I couldn’t figure out what had happened. What I had done. And then, you were just gone. No phone call, no explanation, no apology for sucking me back in again when clearly you weren’t capable of fulfilling the promises you had made. Nothing. You were just gone. And I kept thinking I was being strong and keeping my head held high by not saying anything. By not demanding more from you, if only on a friendship level. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have held you more accountable for your own words. For a friendship that I really thought meant more to you than that.

You hurt me. More than I think you will ever realize. And the way you walked away from me still tears me up. Not because I want to be with you, because the truth is – you did a pretty good job of proving to me that you’re not the man I thought you were. But because I really believed that you cared about me, on even the most basic of levels. I really believed that at the end of the day you would have enough respect for me and our friendship, to not toss me away like it was the easiest thing you had ever done.

It kills me that I was so wrong”.

“I find myself now wondering what of it was real, and what was lies. Which guy was telling me the truth about how he felt about me – the one who told me how much he cared and swore he wanted a future with me, all while being so adamant that he wasn’t content with us simply being friends, or the one who walked away from me like I was nothing after proving to himself one last time that he could have me if he wanted me.

Was that really all it came down to? Was it a game to you? Because I can’t for the life of me figure out why you would fight so hard for another chance, if that’s how it was all going to end. You just disappeared. You didn’t think I deserved a sober phone call or explanation. At the end of the day, you treated me like some slut you had picked up in a bar for a one night stand. One who wasn’t even worthy of the extra effort to break it off. Not like someone who had been there for you for 6 months, and who had never been anything but open and honest and real with you.”

“I asked you to leave me alone. To let me go, so I could move on and get over everything and eventually – we could be friends. I asked you to care about me enough to give me some space. But instead, you came back begging for another chance. Claiming you couldn’t stop thinking about me. Pushing to see me when I told you I still needed time. You swore that I was what you wanted. That you were sure this time. Were you really so selfish that you would say those things, and act that way, if you weren't sure that you actually meant it? If you weren't sure that at the very least, you could do what you needed to do to protect me and my feelings? Did you never think about me at all in any of this?

I fully accept responsibility for my part. I knew better. I knew what you had been through, and I knew better than to believe the things you said to me. I was the one who should have been strong enough to keep those boundaries clear. But, I wasn’t. And for that, I do have regrets. For that, I truly am sorry. I never pursued you, but I never held you back when I should have either.

But now, I can’t help but find myself wondering – do you ever think about me? Do I ever cross your mind in even the most innocent of ways? Do you ever feel bad about what you did? About how you treated me? Does it ever occur to you that it didn’t have to be that way? Do you ever just miss having me in your life?

Or was it easy? To throw me away. Like I was nothing. Not even your friend.”

“I guess the point is, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand. But I hope you got whatever it was you needed out of us.

I just wish you had been able to get whatever that was, without treating me with so little care in the process.

Because at the end of the day, I really do wish we could have been friends. That you had cared about me enough to try even just a little to preserve that.”

I sent it to him almost 3 weeks ago. He still hasn’t responded. At this point, I don't believe he ever will.

But Dee was right. Sending it lifted a weight off my shoulders.

The weight of words left unsaid.

Sending it helped me to let go.

Well, sending it, and writing this.

I remember a few years ago, the devirginator was up here visiting me and we went to see 500 Days of Summer together.

We both walked out of that movie feeling like we had just been dumped.

It was awful. This sadness in the pit of my stomach that I couldn't even explain, because it wasn't real. It was a movie. And even if it had been real, it wasn't my reality.

Still, I couldn't figure out why anyone would ever make a movie like that. Why anyone would ever pay $10 to sit in a theater and be made to feel like that.

I wanted my happy ending damn-it!

So, I'm sorry if I just did that same thing to some of you.

I needed to write this story out. I needed to revisit the entire relationship from beginning to end. To stop shuffling through the pieces in my head, and instead look at it in its entirety.

I was beating myself up and tearing it apart and I still couldn't figure out what happened.

I needed to get it all out of me and onto my laptop.

Because that’s who I am. It’s how I process.

How I let go.

I never anticipated that it to would turn out so big. I never intended committing so much of my time to it.

It never even occurred to me that people would become as invested in our relationship as I had been.

But once I got started, I realized that there was so much there I needed to get out.

If only so that I could gain some perspective on it.

But if in doing so I made you feel as though it was happening to you as well; I’m sorry.

I'm sorry if you now have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

I'm sorry that there was no happy ending.

But, let's face it... in real life, there are no happy endings.

Not really anyway.

And I don't say that to be a cynic, I swear. I still believe in love and happiness and the whole big shebang.

It's just that, there's always something after the happy ending. It's not like a movie where the lights go up and you leave the theater believing that the couple on the screen moved forward in life never again having to face another hurtle. In real life, there is always another hurtle. Another kick in the gut. Another moment of sadness.

Because in real life, nothing ever works out quite the way you expect it to.

No matter how much you wanted the ending you wound up with.

Trust me, I really did want us to end up together.

I really did want him to be the one.

But as much as I wish I could fabricate a happy ending for you now, I can't.

This is what happened.

It's real life.

And real life doesn't work like that. People break up. Hearts get broken. And sometimes, the guy you thought had the potential to be your someone special, just ends up letting you down in the end.

I still have no idea what happened that morning. What caused the shift to occur so quickly. How it was even possible that he could go from fighting so hard for another chance to completely disappearing in the matter of a week.

I've gone over the entire thing in my head so many times. Come up with so many scenario's, without ever really feeling like I've found the answer.

I still don’t know which guy he was.

But I’m starting to think it’s not as simple as one or the other.

I saw a shrink years ago, during the period of time when my dad and I weren't speaking at all.

I was having a really hard time forgiving him for staying with my stepmother, after all she had done. I'd gone into therapy specifically because I knew I needed to let this go, but I couldn't wrap my head around how. I had these two visions in my head of who my dad was. One of him as the amazing father I knew him to be - the one who loved me and protected me and had always been there for me. The other of the man his staying with her had made me start to envision him as - the one who was weak, and flawed, and incapable of loving me enough.

The therapist pointed out then that these images of my father painted him as either my hero (perfect and infallible) or a failure (the broken man who had let me down the most). I couldn't reconcile the images of him in my head, because they were on such opposite ends of the spectrum. I couldn't figure out which man my dad was, because he was both. And he was neither. She said I needed to learn to see him as the man somewhere in the middle. The one with qualities from both men I was trying to paint him to be. And then I needed to determine if I could forgive that man. If I could forge a relationship with him.

I still remember feeling like she had just gifted me with some supreme knowledge that had somehow evaded me up to this point. She was right - my dad was both of those men I was painting him to be. Both, and neither. The man he was actually existed somewhere there in between.

And letting myself believe that, to accept it, was really the first step in us healing our relationship.

I know I've done the same thing with the boy. That in my eternal quest to figure this all out, I've painted two different pictures of him. One as the man who I loved and who loved me back - a man who was good and strong and loyal and true. And then the other as the man who broke me down - one who lied and manipulated and abandoned.

The truth is, I don't believe either image is entirely correct. I know the man he is resides somewhere in between.

What he did to me wasn’t right, but… I don’t believe it’s the definition of who he is.

Because none of us is exactly the same person we are at our best or our worst.

We all lie somewhere in between.

It's not always as black and white as we want it to be. People are more complicated than that.

And while the heart may always win, sometimes… it’s wrong.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop holding out for the day when it’s right.

I can say that from what I know, the boy is doing well. He's drinking a great deal less now, and has been spending more time working out and rebuilding his life. After months of us talking about it, he finally booked that trip to New Zealand and is leaving in two weeks. He and one of his best friends will be fishing and exploring and I'm sure having an amazing time.

By all accounts though, he's doing better every day.

I also know that for the last month or so, he's been seeing someone new.

I don't know how serious it is. How serious it will become.

Perhaps she's just the rebound chick he should have found himself from the beginning, and perhaps she's something more.

Perhaps she's the one.

I'm not sure it really matters at this point.

In fact, I've been shocked by how little the news has effected me.

I would be lying to say that there has been no jealousy there on my end, because of course there has been.

I have found myself wondering if she's prettier than me. Smarter than me. Funnier than me.

Wondering if they share the same connection I was so sure he and I had.

Even wondering if she's getting a better version of him than I did.

I'm ashamed to admit that in moments of liquid courage, I've actually asked some of these questions of those who have met her.

Mutual friends who have all assured me that - I win.

Which is such a petty thing to need to hear, but...

I win.

When everything is said and done though, I think I'm happy for him.

As strange as that may sound, I am.

I hate what he did to me.

What he did to us.

I hate him for hurting me as deeply as he did.

I hate him for taking me and my feelings so for granted.

I hate him for being so selfish. So recklessly and irrevocably selfish.

I hate him for still leaving me with no answers, explanations, or sober apologies.

But in both my head and heart, I know that he is not the villain I sometimes want to believe him to be.

He's just... damaged.

And aren't we all? To some extent?

After writing it all out, I know that there was good and bad to him.

That I never would have fallen so hard for someone who was all bad.

That I couldn't possibly have made the good all up.

I know it.

I know there is good there.

I wish that the good had won out. I wish that he had embraced it even just enough to prevent the fallout he caused.

To protect me, if only a little.

I wish he had cared about me enough to try to preserve some of the good between us.

If only on a friendship level.

But how little he did or did not care about me is irrelevant at this point.

Because it doesn't change how I felt about him.

It doesn't change the fact that I did love him.

And that even now, I hope for the best for him.

It’s still hard sometimes for me to not get caught up believing in the fate of it all. To not dwell on how we met, and how the pieces fell together after we started. There is still a part of me that wants to believe that it was all meant to be.

And the truth is, I guess it was. Just not for the same reasons I wanted it to be.

I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I believe that good can always come out of bad. And I believe that the boy and I were meant to be together.

Even if only for a short time.

I know I helped him. I know I supported him and was there for him and if nothing else - became one of his closest friends during a time when he was falling apart and needed all the help he could get. I know that, and I refuse to believe it wasn't true.

In so many ways though, I guess he helped me too. I was still struggling a lot with my own stuff when the boy and I met. I was making strides towards being better every day, but I had a lot of heartache built up. I was still at a point where just thinking about infertility would bring me to my knees. The boy helped me to shift my focus. To look outside myself. To turn my attention on someone else for a while.

Which, was kind of something I needed at the time.

Above and beyond that, I walked away with some amazing friends. Dee and I have said more than once that if the only thing to come out of my relationship with the boy was our friendship, it was worth it. I feel like I was meant to know that girl. The bond I share with both she and Lindsey is something I wouldn't trade for anything. To now have women in my day to day life who have such a real understanding of what I've experienced with endometriosis and infertility is priceless to me. But the fact that they are both also women I would have chosen as my friends without those shared experiences is truly incredible.

And I can't ever deny that I grew closer to them both, through my relationship with the boy. Dee more directly than Lindsey, but even with Lindsey... it was learning that we both had ties to this same group of people that really did initially drive our friendship forward.

There's a part of me that I suppose will always be a little bit grateful to him for being a catalyst to those relationships.

I think there were lessons I needed to learn here as well. With the ex, I left too quickly. I bailed too soon. And the lesson I learned there was that if I wasn't willing to fight for a relationship, I may end up losing someone I loved. With the boy, I know that thought was always in the back of my head; almost causing me to over-correct in some ways when it came to him. This relationship was so out of the realm of normal for me. I put up with so much more than I ever before would have. I made excuses, and I rationalized behavior, and I allowed myself to be hurt. Because I didn't want to be stuck thinking at the end of the day that I hadn't fought hard enough.

So now, the ex has taught me not to bail, but the boy has taught me that there comes a point when - you just have to.

I loved them both. I know that.

And they both taught me lessons I needed to learn.

As painful as learning them may have been.

I can only hope that those lessons stay with me the next time I find myself falling in love.

Which just for the record – will not be anytime soon.

Because I am doing myself a favor the boy probably could have benefited from as well.

Currently taking a dating hiatus.

Pursuing other adventures (more on that to come) until my heart feels healed enough to try again.

“Off the cock”, as I’ve been telling my nearest and dearest.

But when I’m ready, I’ll give it another go.

Give my heart another chance to win.

And hopefully this time, to be right.

The End

(the song that says in 4 minutes what it just took me 5000+ words to explain):

The Thin Line between Love and Hate

2012-01-19T18:22:00.005-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

I was shocked at how easy it was to block him.

For some reason I had pictured this drawn out, pain in the butt process.

But... it was simple.

For $5 a month, AT&T set me up with a program that would allow me to block up to 20 people at a time. I could manage it all myself online.

Which of course led to a friend and I testing what happened when someone who was blocked called or texted.

I blocked her, and she called.

The message made it pretty clear that I wasn’t accepting calls from that number.

She texted, and the same thing happened. She immediately received a text back saying I wasn’t accepting texts from her number.

Perfect.

The best part about the whole thing was that it blocked me from being able to call or text him as well.

Not that I thought I was going to make that mistake again, but it was nice knowing that if I tried – it would take a whole other level of steps before I would be able to.

Steps that I was fairly sure would slow me down and likely stop me in the process if I found myself suffering from a bout of momentary insanity.

At this point though, I have to admit that I still wasn’t convinced we were completely over.

But I told myself that this was the best way to enforce that space I had been saying we needed for months now.

Ever since the first time he’d really pushed – the night after his divorce.

This was the best way to keep him from getting in touch with me when he was drunk and lonely, and the best way to keep me from caving if and when he came crawling back full of excuses.

Because I was sure he would. By this point I recognized the pattern.

I was sure it would only be a matter of time.

In so many ways, this had become the cycle of abuse. I had a degree in psychology for goodness sake. I knew this. I knew how it worked.

He hurts me. Then he turns on the charm and begs for forgiveness. Then he hurts me again.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

And all I knew was that we were cycling faster and faster as time went on.

The good times becoming more abbreviated as the bad increased.

No, he had never once physically harmed me. I would never in a million years try to imply that he had.

But, I knew enough to know that this wasn’t healthy.

To know that what he was doing to me wasn’t acceptable.

Never in my life had anyone ever given me the run-around like he had. Never in my life had anyone ever put me on such a roller coaster.

And never in my life had I ever believed anyone to be so capable of completing me and breaking me apart all at once.

I wasn’t ready to say we were done. In the back of my mind, I still believed that eventually he would make this up to me.

That somewhere down the line (be it 3 months, 6 months, or even a year) he would pull his head out of his ass and go above and beyond to repair what we’d had.

But I knew we needed time.

I knew we both needed time.

And this was the only way I could think of to make that point crystal clear.

I was fairly sure he would try to call me that night, a Friday. That he’d go out drinking with his buddies, knock a few back, and suddenly decide he missed me.

I wasn’t about to let that happen. To let him open the door once more because of alcohol.

This really was the best decision.

And I knew that when he did try to get in touch with me, he would know.

Right away, he would know.

While I was aware of the fact that he obviously knew how to get ahold of me otherwise, I didn’t anticipate hearing from him once he figured out what I’d done.

I knew he would know that this time, it was for real.

So the weeks passed, and we didn’t speak.

No contact at all.

I remained confident in my belief that this was for the best.

That it was something I needed to do.

Something he needed to realize I was capable of doing.

But over the weeks, the guilt started to creep in.

I envisioned him calling, night after night, to see if I had unblocked him yet.

I pictured him hurt, and alone. Knowing of course that he had caused this, but still… suddenly feeling even more lost and abandoned in not having me to reach out to.

I knew that I had been there for him over the months in a way that wouldn’t be easy for him to do without. I knew that he had relied on me more than anyone else.

I knew that the silence between us must be painful for him.

And I started to feel guilty.

Both for having severed those ties, and for having done so with no explanation at all.

I knew he would understand. That as soon as he realized what I’d done, he would know it was because he had broken those promises to me.

But that over-communicative side of me still lamented the fact that I hadn’t given him an explanation.

Or a heads up.

Or the opportunity to at least explain himself before I shut the door.

I hadn’t given him any of that.

And I began to wonder if how I’d dealt with things had really been the right way, or if it was instead… the coward’s way.

As the weeks went by I grew stronger in my resolve that we couldn’t be together. That right now, there was nothing good that could come from us crossing those lines.

And as I grew stronger in that, I began to wonder if maybe I could be his friend.

If maybe I could still be there for him, without acting upon anything else.

I cared about him, and with us not talking… I found myself worrying about him more.

Wondering how he was doing, and hating that I wasn’t there to support him.

But I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t act on those worries.

I just… worried.

Less and less about myself every day.

It was 3 weeks after I had blocked his number when Mel sent me an e-mail to let me know that she and Jay would be in town the following night. They were going on the beer train (something that happens here once a year) and then would be heading out downtown after. She said they’d love to see me, and wanted to know if I would be up for meeting them out.

I immediately responded with a resounding “yes”. I loved these two. I loved hanging out with them. But I hadn’t been sure where my place was with the boy and I now not speaking, so I hadn’t wanted to initiate us spending time together myself.

Not long after I responded though, she sent me a text.

“Just a heads up that the boy will be with us too.”

It’s worth noting that she actually did call him “the boy”.

And that upon seeing that, my stomach flew up into my chest.

For a myriad of reasons of course, but one of them being that I caught myself wondering if she had read my blog.

I don’t keep this space a secret. There are plenty of people in my real life who read here, and I have nothing I'm trying to hide. Even those who know me only casually know that I do a lot of writing on the side.

The blog is not a secret.

But… I was 99% positive that I had never mentioned it to Mel myself.

Had the boy?

He did know about the blog, but he’d never really asked any questions about it.

I wasn’t sure if it was something he himself had ever even looked at, so I really couldn’t picture him mentioning it to others.

Especially since at the time, I had barely written about our relationship at all.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask her though, and I have to admit that I still don’t know.

Had she been reading here, or was it just a fluke?

That’s probably something I could ask now, but the truth is – I’d forgotten all about it until going back through the texts to write this.

I’d forgotten about it, because as much as it jolted me at the time, the more pressing issue still obviously remained that she was suggesting putting the boy and I in the same place at the same time the following evening.

It had been almost a month since we’d seen each other. Almost a month since we’d spoken.

And while I was feeling stronger in my resolve every day, I still wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

But… there was that part of me that wanted to. That part of me that good or bad, wanted to see him.

To know he was doing OK.

I responded back that I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, and that I would have to think about it.

If anyone understood, it was Mel. She had been through this mess with Jay years before.

She got it.

She even offered to ditch him once they got downtown, just so that she and Jay could see me.

I told her she didn’t have to do that though, and to just call me when they were heading out. I was having dinner with a friend, but told her I would definitely think about it. .

And I did think about it. I thought about it a lot.

Which is probably why for some reason, that night, I decided to unblock his number.

I was just feeling so much guilt over having blocked him at all.

And I didn’t feel like I needed it anymore. I didn’t feel like I needed that barrier there to keep us apart.

Even at the prospect of seeing him, I felt strong in my resolve to keep distance between us.

To not cross that line.

I didn’t do anything after unblocking him. I didn’t call, or text. I had no intention of doing either. And I assumed that even if he had been calling to see if I’d removed the block before, he had probably given up by now. I didn’t anticipate hearing from him any time soon.

In truth, it was a fairly meaningless act. I’m not sure what I expected to get out of it.

But I felt better, just knowing that those lines were open again.

It was a little before 9 the next night when Mel let me know they were heading out.

I was still at dinner, but told her I would text her as soon as I was done. As an aside, I asked if they were still with him.

She said they had actually gotten split up when getting off the train. She wasn’t sure where he was, but said they still might meet up with him later.

I actually thought this was perfect. I could go see them for a bit, and then if he showed – make some excuse up and head home. I didn’t have to stay hanging out with him all night though. I didn’t have to invest that much of myself into it. I could see him, know he was OK, and then leave.

Perfect.

As I was leaving the restaurant though, I sent her a text saying I was on my way, and she immediately responded by telling me he was now there.

I started to question myself.

I asked her if she thought this was a horrible idea, but then as soon as I hit “send” I felt like I had my answer.

So I replied again that I was thinking I should probably just head home.

She sent me a series of texts after that. First asking if she should ask him. And then saying that Jay wanted me to come. And then replying that the boy said he was fine with it, he just didn’t want to give me any false impressions. And finally saying that she wanted me to come so that she could see my beautiful face.

Hold up. Wait a minute.

Back the ‘F’ up.

He’d said what?

He didn’t want to give me any false impressions?

That was what he was telling them?

Like I was some sad little puppy dog who had been following him around and just couldn’t get the hint?

I almost threw up.

But I maintained my cool. Jay started texting me that they really wanted to see me. That I should just come out, and it would be a fun night for all.

Meanwhile, I was fuming.

Literally, fuming.

I responded with grace though. All smiley faces and exclamation points. Saying I just thought it was a bad idea, but I would love to see them if they wanted to grab breakfast in the morning.

I was keeping my cool.

He responded again to say that the boy was totally good with my coming and that it would be fun, but before I could reply back… I got a text from the boy.

All it said was “Come out and meet us you dork! I won’t bite!”

He didn't know when he sent that text what it would signify, but for me… it was the breaking point.

Because it was in that moment, with that text, that I realized he had no idea I had blocked his number.

Which meant, he hadn’t tried to contact me.

At all.

It had been almost 4 weeks since the night he’d declined coming over to my house, citing depression.

4 weeks

He hadn’t called.

He hadn’t texted.

He hadn’t e-mailed.

He hadn't sent carrier pigeons.

He hadn’t shown up at my house.

So presumably, he hadn’t been thinking of me at all.

After fighting so hard to get another chance.

After never once before being able to go more than a week without contacting me; even when I asked him to.

After all the promises. All the “I love you’s”. All the assurances that I was what he wanted.

That he could do this.

He hadn’t attempted to contact me even once in 4 weeks to tell me that he couldn’t.

And now, he was telling Jay and Mel that he didn’t want to give me false impressions.

Making me look (and feel) like an idiot.

Even though he had never bothered to give me the right impression.

Suddenly, the barrier broke.

I texted both Mel and Jay back that while the boy may have been totally good with my coming, I had suddenly realized that I wasn’t. I let all maturity fall away when I wrote “I kind of want to punch him in his stupid asshole face.”

I knew it probably made no sense to them. Up to this point, I had at least been entertaining the idea. I knew my dramatic shift would likely catch them totally off guard.

But I didn’t care. I was finally pissed.

Really pissed.

Not 10 minutes later, I received another text from the boy.

“Thanks for calling me an asshole” he said.

I couldn’t contain myself “You are a fucking asshole.” I replied. “If you don’t know that already, you’re a fucking idiot too.”

It was so unlike me. So out of the realm of normal for how I would typically have reacted.

But I suddenly felt more clarity than I had felt in months.

He responded with “Wow!! Not the girl I know. Take care.”

It only pissed me off more.

It felt so manipulative.

So contrived.

So calculating.

It felt like him telling me I wasn’t allowed to have feelings about this. That just because I had treated him with compassion and sympathy up to this point, I wasn’t allowed to be angry that he had so royally screwed me now.

Not without tainting the image he had of me in his head.

I didn’t respond.

I had no intention of responding.

I just sat there in my car, shaking.

Trying only to calm down enough to drive home.

It was as I was pulling into my garage that he called.

I didn’t answer initially; parking without crashing taking all of my concentration in this moment.

I was literally having a difficult time seeing straight.

He texted me immediately after that “Answer your phone.”

It felt like an order now, coming from him. And I was in no mood for orders.

But I also had more than a few things I was busting at the seams to say to him. .

So when he called again, I answered.

“What the hell is going on?” He asked. Sounding genuinely confused, which I just did not get.

At all.

Was he fucking kidding me?

I launched into an expletive filled account of “what the hell” was going on.

The main point being… “You disappeared. You sucked me back in when I was doing just fine without you. You made me all kinds of promises, and then you disappeared.”

What kind of a soulless fuck would do that?

His main argument against this rant?

“Well… it’s not like you called me either.”

At this point, he still had no idea I’d blocked his number. No clue at all, because he had never bothered to call.

All those weeks I’d spent worrying about him. Feeling guilty. Questioning my own moves.

All those weeks…. And he had never once thought to pick up the phone and call me.

But he was right. The phone lines worked both ways.

As I explained to him though, what the hell was I supposed to do? I mean, really? When he pulled away, seemingly without explanation, it had only been a week since he had begged for my forgiveness. Since he had pleaded for another chance. Since he had sworn he was ready, and that he wouldn’t hurt me again.

A week.

Was I really supposed to chase him down at that point? To call him when he wasn’t calling me?

Was I really supposed to be that sad little puppy dog who couldn’t get a hint that he was already apparently portraying me to be?

It had never in a million years occurred to me that he wouldn’t have called me in all that time.

That he wouldn’t have tried, even once, to make contact.

But the fact that he hadn’t… it made it pretty clear that no good would have come from my contacting him even if I had.

I was suddenly infinitely grateful that I had been oblivious to this fact. That blocking his number had kept me from waiting night after night for a call that never would have come.

Because I have no doubt that if I had been waiting for that call, I eventually would have caved and called him myself. The absence of communication would eventually have made me crazy enough to reach out, if only to ask what was going on.

It turned out; blocking his number had been the best thing I ever could have done for myself.

Even if he had never realized I’d done it.

But that didn’t stop me from yelling now. From calling him out on every misstep he’d ever made with me.

From seething with a rage he had never before witnessed rising out of me.

He had been right. In this moment, I wasn't the girl he knew.

But that was his fault. He had broken that girl. And I was intent upon making him see that.

Intent upon using my words to show him exactly what he’d done.

This wasn't who I was. Not anymore. I had wasted years of my life being angry. I had once upon a time spewed venom in every direction, including towards those I cared about the most.

Just ask my dad about some of the hateful things he's heard from me.

I had a gift for conjuring up the words that could cut the deepest. But I had worked hard to suppress that side of myself. To put people and their feelings ahead of my need to make others hurt as much as I did.

Here I was though. That girl fighting to get through. Begging for just 30 seconds with the boy.

Just 30 seconds to make him bleed the way he had me.

There were so many things I could have said. So many words on the tip of my tongue that could have pummeled him.

But I held her back; that assassin inside of me. Succumbing only to the yelling. The fierce coldness with which I addressed he and his excuses. The assassin there, just at the edge, but never fully breaking through.

It had been years since she had come so close to the surface. I had worked to send her away. To let go of my anger and hurt. I had worked to live my life with compassion and understanding.

To live my life without her.

And after years of thinking she was gone, he had managed to bring her back to the surface in only a matter of months.

For that, I almost hated him the most.

He began throwing out the now tired and used line that he was just “so messed up” right now. That he had no idea what it was he wanted.

In fact, at one point I'm fairly sure he even shouted that back at me.

“Do you really think I know what I want? Do you really think I know what I need?”

I didn’t care anymore though.

I no longer felt sorry for him.

Not in the slightest.

“Do you think you’re the only person in the world who has ever been hurt?” I shouted. “Do you think you're the only one who has ever felt this pain? Because you’re wrong. You’re dead wrong! I’ve been hurt! I’ve been hurt by the people in my life who were supposed to protect me the most! I’ve been hurt by life! I’ve been hurt by you! But you don’t see me using that as an excuse to hurt other people! You don’t see me using my past as a reason to take others down!”

One of the things I had always admired about the boy was that while he could be selfish and insensitive, he was always very open to what I had to say when I called him on it. Always quick to apologize and attempt to rectify the situation.

Typically something he hadn’t even been aware he’d done or said until I pointed it out.

He was good about this. Good about dropping all defenses and trying to understand where I was coming from when I was upset.

Good at looking himself in the mirror when directly confronted with his own misdeeds.

Not now though. Now, he was fighting back.

Defensive right out the gate. Barely listening to a word I was saying.

Even as I shouted those words for all to hear.

I can’t say I blamed him. Gone were the days of my being rational and sensitive to his feelings. Gone were the times when I carefully picked my words before approaching him.

Now, with her fighting in the background to be released; I was attacking.

With almost everything I had.

It made sense that this would push him into defense mode.

So when I said that, his immediate response was to yell back. “You have no idea what I’ve been through!" he proclaimed. "You have no idea how it’s made me feel! You may have been through plenty yourself, but that doesn’t mean you understand what this is! What it means to love someone and to plan on spending the rest of your life with them, only to have them walk out on you! You have no idea!”

I knew I wasn’t getting through to him. That I would need to tone it down, even just an little, if I was going to make the impression I needed to make.

So, I took a deep breath and dialed back the volume.

Locking my jaw as I spoke, in an attempt to keep the words from coming out as daggers.

“I never said you didn’t have a right to feel the way you feel. I never said I was judging what you’re going through. You’re right – I have no idea what it is she really did to you. But I have been compassionate, and understanding, and there for you every step of the way. I have spent entire nights listening to you. I have never once blocked you out or told you that you didn’t have a right to feel what you were feeling. I have worried about you, and cared about you, and supported you with everything I've got. I know you’re hurting, and I get that. I hate her for what she did to you. All I’m saying, is that nothing she did gives you an excuse to turn around and do the same to me.”

Suddenly, it was like a light bulb went off for him.

A moment of clarity against the madness.

“You’re right.” He said. “I’m so sorry. You’re right.”

Another moment passed, before he continued “I… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

I didn’t even have to think about my response.

I’d made my point.

I’d forced him to see.

And that was all I cared about in that moment.

“You just keep doing whatever it is you’ve been doing” I replied. “It’s obvious you haven’t been wasting a whole lot of time thinking about me, so you might as well keep that up. I really don’t care what you do anymore though… I’m done.”

Which is when I told him “goodbye”, before promptly hanging up.

Still shaking. Still seething. Still boiling red with hatred.

I focused only on my last words to him.

“I’m done.”

And for the first time, I knew…

I meant it.

(to be continued…)

Jinx

2012-01-18T19:41:00.026-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

I woke up the next morning, instantly nervous.

It had been too easy.

We'd had too much fun.

I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Terrified that once he had gotten what he wanted, he wouldn’t want it anymore.

That now that he knew there was a chance for us to make this work, it would no longer be worth the effort for him.

He texted me mid-day though. Just to check in, and see how I was.

And then he called again that night. Just to talk.

It was too soon to let myself breathe, but… I was starting to exhale.

The following night I had plans to go see a concert with friends. I had mentioned it to him the night before, but intentionally hadn’t thrown out an invite.

Even though they all knew I was talking to him again, I wasn’t sure I could cope with the embarrassment of actually bringing him around.

Not after the tears I’d shed over what he’d said.

But as the day wore on, I started to feel guilty.

I can’t really explain why, but I just did. He was trying, and I felt like maybe I should be too.

So I invited him.

He asked what time we were going, but eventually declined. He didn’t say what he was doing instead, and I didn’t ask. We shared a few texts that night, but he was shorter with me than he had been.

Those fears started to creep in. Had he already started to regret asking for another chance?

Was he already over it?

It was silly. He hadn’t really done anything to make me think he was pulling away.

But he also hadn’t done anything that day to make me think he was still invested.

In a normal relationship, without so much of the previous roller coaster in its wake, I never would have thought twice about the interactions (or lack thereof) we shared that day.

I've never been a needy girl.

But under the circumstances… I spent most of that night worried.

Insecurity getting the best of me.

The voices in my head telling me “I told you so…” even as my heart tried to battle them down.

By the time I went to bed, I had convinced myself we were already done.

But then he called the next morning. Just to check in on me. To see how my night had been, and to go over plans for the weekend.

It was Labor Day. The last big holiday weekend in Alaska.

Things hadn’t been good between us for long enough where I felt comfortable planning to spend the entire weekend together. So he made plans to go fishing that day and the next, and I made plans to spend time with Loo before she left for Texas. The fair was in town, and he and I talked about going there together on Sunday for a concert, but we made no plans beyond that.

He said he would call me Saturday night when he got home.

And about two hours later, Loo informed me that her out of state fiancé had managed to book a last minute ticket to come up and surprise her for the weekend.

So any plans I did have up to that point, promptly went bust.

It was fine though. I could have driven to meet other friends a few hours outside of town, but decided instead to stick around close to home getting things done and being productive. I was totally content with spending my Labor Day weekend taking care of things around the house.

Yeah… Even I’m not buying that.

Which is why when he texted me the next night to let me know he was back in town and to ask if I wanted to meet he and some friends for dinner, I rapid fired back with 3 different texts.

All addressing 3 different subjects.

One, right after the other, right after the other.

I might have been a wee bit excited.

He immediately called me laughing. “You must have missed me, huh?” He said.

We talked for a few minutes and came up with a plan. He was just getting home and wanted to take a shower and do a few other things first. I’d just gotten out of the shower myself and still needed to get ready. They had decided on a restaurant out by him, so we agreed I would just drive out there to meet them. We set a time, and then each went about getting ready.

We had fun at dinner; the four of us drinking and eating and catching up. And when the bill came, we all decided to head back to the boys house to continue the evening sitting out by the fire pit.

My head told me I should pass. We would be drinking, and I knew I wouldn’t want to drive myself home after that. His buddy’s girlfriend was already proposing we pick the two of us up a bottle of wine before heading that way, and I knew this was going to end with me spending the night there.

Which I knew wasn’t a good idea.

Not yet.

Not so soon.

And not with both of us drinking.

But I was having fun. I liked spending time with these people. I liked being with the boy. And I didn’t want to be the stick in the mud who started interjecting “rules” upon what otherwise would have been a completely normal evening for the four of us.

It wasn’t like they were oblivious to the fact that the boy and I had spent a few weeks apart. They were both pretty versed in what had gone down between us. I think they would have understood if I’d simply passed and driven myself home instead.

But still… I couldn’t bring myself to say “no”.

Probably because I didn’t want to.

No matter what my head was saying.

So we went to his house. And the four of us sat around the fire drinking and talking for hours. Laughing over horror stories from all of our dating pasts. Telling stupid jokes. Discussing our plans for the following day.

At one point, I went inside to pour myself a little more wine, and the boys buddy followed me. We’d hung out a handful of times by now, and I had grown to really like his girlfriend. We wound up standing there in the kitchen discussing their relationship, which inevitably turned into us discussing my relationship with the boy.

He told me he knew that things had been rocky, but that he also knew that the boy really cared about me. I mentioned the comment the boy had made, and my underlying fears that he really wasn’t attracted to me. His immediate response was “It’s not that. I know it’s not that. I don’t know why he ever would have said that, but I know he’s definitely attracted to you.”

He went on to tell me that the boy was just going to need some time though. That he was an over-thinker who wouldn’t be over what she had done to him until he either understood it, or decided to actually let it go.

He didn’t think either would happen any time soon.

I knew this. I understood it too, because… it’s how I am as well.

But it was nice to have his buddy looking out for me a bit. Wanting to make sure I knew what I was getting into.

He assured me that he did know the boy cared about me though. And that above and beyond all else, he didn’t want to hurt me.

We headed back out to the fire, but it wasn't long after that before his girlfriend and I realized that both guys had tipped over into being drunk. We were laughing and wondering aloud how and when they had surpassed us (as both she and I were still doing relatively well), but it probably had something to do with the fact that we were sharing a bottle of wine, while they were kicking back whiskey and cokes.

Easy on the coke.

We decided to get them both to bed, and said “goodnight” with the plan on the table that we would head out to explore Alaska a bit the next day.

When we got upstairs, I was immediately frustrated when I realized I hadn’t packed a bag.

I hadn’t been planning on spending the night, so it had never occurred to me to pack my toothbrush.

The boy was quick on the draw though, pulling out a new one just for me.

I had spent the night there on more than a few occasions without a toothbrush.

This was the first time he had ever supplied one for me. The first time he had ever pointed out where I should keep it for the future.

Such a simple gesture, that somehow still meant so much.

When we crawled into bed though, I still had every intention of keeping things PG.

We still hadn’t kissed. Still hadn’t had any physical contact at all in over a month.

I wasn’t ready for us to jump off that bridge back into too much too fast.

But I also knew how difficult it could be to draw a line that had never really been there before.

And when he leaned over to kiss me, it suddenly became even more difficult.

I resisted though. I held strong. Despite the wine I’d consumed. Despite how passionately he was kissing me. And despite the many attempts he made over the next several hours to get me to go further.

I resisted.

And yes, I did say the next several hours.

The two of us did not get much sleep that night.

I only knew that I wasn’t ready for this though. That we weren’t ready for this.

And that more than anything, when and if we did cross that line; I did not want it to be something he could later blame on alcohol.

So, I held firm. Strong in my stance that we weren’t going to go there.

For once, my head was finally winning out.

Until the next morning that is. When he was sober, yet still so sweet. So attentive. So cuddly and cute and… into me.

I’ll spare you the details of what went down on the bathroom sink, but suffice it to say…

My heart won out.

Or maybe it's fair to say that bit had far more to do with parts of me other than my heart.

Because the truth is, even as it was happening – I couldn’t get into it.

I was terrified.

My head was screaming at me.

Calling me stupid, and naïve, and a masochist.

And when it was done, even my heart was scolding me.

Because I certainly hadn’t just done my best to protect it.

As he was showering after, I sat silently on the bed freaking out. When he was done, he must have noticed my panic.

“Do you regret it?” He asked.

“Do you?” I countered.

He assured me he didn’t though. That for probably the first time, this had been exactly what he wanted. That the voices in his head making him feel guilty and unsure hadn’t been there at all.

He was smiling. And being reassuring. Still adamant that this was all what he wanted.

And I wanted so badly to believe him.

But that voice in my head just kept getting louder.

Once we finished getting ready, the 4 of us went to breakfast before heading out for a drive.

I’d never been through Hatchers Pass before, and the boy thought it was time I see it for myself.

Plus, Dee and her husband were camping out there, so the goal was to find their campsite and stop in to say “hi”.

It was a beautiful drive, and another gorgeous day in Alaska.

We were all tired after getting next to zero sleep the night before, but we were having a good time and it wasn’t long before we did happen upon Dee and their group.

Dee and I almost immediately escaped down by the river to discuss how things were going. She'd told me 1000 times before that the boy really was a good guy, but I knew at this point she was hesitant about us spending time together. Worried about me, and his ability to protect me while still sorting through his own mess.

When I gave her an update on the weekend thus far, we were both cautiously optimistic. Weeks before when the boy had let both she and her husband know that he was missing me, she had urged him to stay away. To give it time. To let us both heal before trying again.

But obviously, he hadn’t taken that advice.

Dee and I had engaged in this conversation more than a few times now.

She believed we definitely had it in us to be great together.

But she also worried that the boy was nowhere near ready for great.

That he would destroy us before we ever had a chance.

She wasn’t alone in those worries.

He was being good that day though. Tired, yes, but still attentive. Still himself. Still there, with me.

After we left their campsite, we wound up heading to his buddy's family cabin. While sitting around the campfire, his mom mentioned that there was a lot of firewood that needed to be moved across the property. Before I knew it, the boy was standing up to volunteer both he and his friend to take care of it.

His buddy was shooting him death glares from his seat across the fire, realizing almost instantly that the boy had just signed him up for manual labor.

On his holiday weekend.

When he was hung-over and tired.

The boy didn’t think twice though. He went right to work, and kept at it until all of the wood was moved. Almost two hours later.

I’ve got to admit, that was it for me. The point when I finally told my head to shut the hell up.

This was the boy I had fallen for. The one who was sweet, and good, and kind. For all the fears that had been running through my head, this was a glimpse of the man I wanted.

The man I loved.

When they finished up, I had a hard time keeping my hands off of him.

Not in a sexual way, but just in a… I wanted to be connected to him way.

I wanted to be touching his knee, or holding his hand.

After feeling so held back with my affection towards him over not just the last week, but the last few months, I suddenly wanted to be showering him with it.

I am definitely someone who shows (and feels) love through physical affection, and it was clear to me that this change signaled that I was starting to let myself trust him again.

To let myself see the man beneath all the hurt.

But recognizing that this shift had come upon me quickly and unexpectedly, I tried to hold myself back.

I only put my hands on him a few times – I swear.

I was starting to relax in this though.

In us.

When we left, I mentioned Lindsey’s family lake house, which wasn’t too far away from where we were.

I knew that she and her husband were there with friends, and that they had just arrived back from her IVF cycle a few days before.

I really wanted to see her, and had brought it up earlier in the day as well.

But for some reason, the boy didn’t seem to want to go. When I’d broached the subject in the morning, he had pretty quickly shut it down. Saying that by the time we were heading back we would all already be too tired. And that he didn’t want to get stuck out there all night after the lack of sleep we’d had the night before.

All valid points, but still… I brought it up again.

I really wanted to see her.

And again, he shut the idea down. Citing all the same reasons and proclaiming that he just didn’t want to.

I let it go. Figured I would drive there myself in the morning. I wasn’t exactly upset. I was tired too, and I understood (to an extent) why he didn’t want to go.

But still… it would have been nice if he'd done it if only because he knew I wanted to.

The funny thing is, it was just as I was thinking this that he suddenly pulled down the road heading in their direction.

Without a word. Without ever saying he had changed his mind.

He drove the four of us there.

I was through the moon. Again, something so small that had meant so much to me.

Forcing those voices in my head to quiet down even more.

I found out after the fact that his buddy had later told his girlfriend that the boy must really be in love with me, because he’d never before seen him do anything he hadn’t wanted to.

It was true, the boy could be stubborn. And set in his ways. And sometimes, even incredibly selfish.

Without ever really meaning to.

I always kind of blamed it on his being an only child.

But he’d turned down that street. Even though he hadn’t wanted to.

Solely because he knew I did.

I didn’t realize his friends had caught on to the significance of that act, but I had.

My head shut up entirely.

And my heart was doing a victory dance.

We spent a few hours there before heading back to the boy’s house. On the drive, my eyes started to droop and I caught myself falling asleep more than once. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been this tired. I’d even had coffee with breakfast that morning – something I hadn’t done in over a year. The boy had immediately reacted with shock when I’d ordered it, knowing that I usually avoided caffeine completely because of how bad it was for endometriosis.

But I hadn’t been able to shake that exhaustion.

As soon as we arrived back at his place I jumped into the shower and then threw on one of his t-shirts before going to bed. He and his buddy proceeded to watch Rambo, but I was passed out before they were even 15 minutes in. I never heard them again, and didn’t wake at all when he curled up in bed himself.

Which is totally out of the realm of normal for me – a notoriously light sleeper.

The next morning I know he said something to me upon waking up, and I know I said something back, but I have no idea what. I was deliriously tired. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the start of that mysterious illness I came down with last fall.

Like mono, except without the sore throat.

All I know is that I’d been irritated with him for waking me, and had rolled away from him before falling right back asleep.

When I woke again, he was in the shower. Even though I felt like I could still sleep for another few hours, I forced myself up and into the bathroom.

I popped my head in the shower to tell him good morning, but he barely looked at me when he said it back. I asked him a few questions, and he responded with only one word answers.

Still avoiding eye contact with me at all costs.

My heart immediately sank.

My first instinct was to get out of there. I had overstayed my welcome, or he was freaking out, or something, but… All I knew was I needed to leave.

Before he had a chance to over think it any more.

I quickly packed up my things and changed. I shouted in the bathroom that I was leaving, and all he said was “OK”.

I was in my car before he was even out of his towel.

My head was starting to chime in again.

Telling my heart it had celebrated too soon.

But my heart kept saying he would come around. That I’d hear from him in a few hours.

As soon as whatever this was passed.

I got home and crawled into bed. Falling asleep again, and waking hours later. Sure that I would hear from him any minute.

Only, I didn’t.

He never called.

The next day passed, and I kept waiting for him to text. As I completed my work tasks throughout the day, I kept telling myself I would hear from him.

Only, I didn’t.

As I was leaving work, my head and my heart started battling again.

My heart telling me I shouldn’t be playing games. That if I wanted to talk to him, I should just reach out.

My head was telling me not to be an idiot though. Reminding me that it had only been a week since he was fighting so hard just to see me.

If he was blowing me off already, this was not a good sign of things to come.

But of course, my heart won out.

I sent him a text a little before 6 asking if he wanted to come over that night.

He responded almost immediately.

“I’m going to stay here tonight. I got really depressed yesterday and didn’t sleep at all last night.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Was he asking for me to comfort him, or telling me to keep my distance?

“Yeah…” I started. “I noticed a shift yesterday morning. Wasn’t sure if I should stick around and try to get you to talk to me, or take off fast in case it was me you were annoyed with. If it’s any consolation – I had a pretty rough day yesterday too. Try to get some sleep tonight. I’m sorry you’re hurting…”

He never responded.

I thought for sure he would call me that night.

But he didn’t.

And I didn’t hear from him at all the next day either.

By Thursday, I was starting to fall apart.

Had I jinxed this by letting myself believe, even if only for a second, that it could work?

He had promised me.

Sworn this was what he wanted.

That he was ready.

That he wouldn’t hurt me again.

He'd begged for another chance.

A chance to prove to me he could do this.

He knew how scared I was.

How hard it had been for me to put any trust in him at all.

He knew.

He had promised.

Sworn, begged, and pleaded.

Saying everything I had needed to hear, and more.

He had promised.

And it had only lasted a week.

He was pushing me away again. Shutting me out. Putting walls up, and closing the door.

I was half tempted to call him. To tell him he wasn’t allowed to do this to me again. To vocalize my frustration and hold him accountable for his actions.

Hold him accountable for me.

But my pride wouldn’t let me do it.

My head was finally winning. Telling me that if he really cared, he would call.

If he was really worth all this heartache, he would try to make it right.

He would reach out, even if only just to tell me he needed time.

Only, he didn’t.

The next morning I got up and showered. Put on my makeup, and made a breakfast smoothie. Followed my routine to a ‘T’, without ever once faltering in my steps.

And then, as soon as I got a chance, I called AT&T.

I blocked his number from being able to call or text me again.

His cell, his home, and his office.

The only way I could really think of to say “goodbye”.

And to make it stick.

My head finally winning.

And my heart accepting defeat.

(to be continued…)

The Heart Always Wins

2012-01-17T18:18:00.014-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

I sat there, stunned.

I had anticipated him coming around eventually, but I figured it would be months before that happened.

Not weeks.

Crap.

I wasn’t over this. My hurt hadn’t yet been dispelled. I didn’t trust him. Not to protect me, and not even to have healed enough himself to be able to stand by those words.

But what he was saying was exactly what I'd been hoping to hear.

Crap.

And the length? What was that? It wasn't like I had ever before questioned his ability to communicate (I hadn't). And he had always fared pretty well when it came to me and my own verbosity. But seriously… had he just out-texted me?

Crap.

My head was spinning. He just had to add in that last bit, didn't he?

The part about his listening to my CD every day.

The one I had made very intentionally. Picking every song with care.

The one that had been created specifically to remind him of us.

He had picked up on that. Without my ever saying a word.

And he was listening to it every day.

CRAP!

When I didn’t respond right away, he followed up by saying the conversation had just turned far too serious, and he thought I should know he had gone out and purchased his own box of Blueberry Clusters (the cereal he poured himself a bowl of almost every time he was at my house – day or night). He ended that one by simply saying “goodnight”.

So rather than attempt to form a response to the words I knew he was waiting for me to respond to, I instead wrote back only “Get some sleep…”

That’s right. I didn’t comment on his soul baring text at all. Me. The queen of over-communication.

I couldn’t figure out how to respond, so I just pretended it wasn’t there.

But we all know that’s not me. That ignoring it was never going to last long.

Especially when you consider the fact that I was not able to sleep that night.

At all.

My head was spinning, and I couldn’t shut it off.

I only knew… I wasn’t ready for this yet.

And I was pretty sure he wasn’t either.

So the next morning, I penned him an e-mail. First forwarding along his horoscope, which had struck me as ridiculously relevant when I'd looked at it earlier in the week while checking my own.

Then continuing on to the actual topic at hand:

I need some time to wrap my head around some of what you said last night. I appreciated it, and I do miss you. More than I really care to own up to. I just can't meet up with you right now. I'm still hurt, and confused. I swear that when you and I started hanging out, I was this strong, confident girl who was great about knowing what she wanted and what she deserved. Somehow over the last few months though, all of the back and forth with you has left me insecure and confused and unsure of myself. That's not who I want to be.

I think we both still need some space. I need you to know what you want from me. From her. From all of it. I just need you to be in a place where you're secure in whatever that is. I think it's obvious you need time to figure all that out. And I need time to let go of how badly so much of this has hurt me.

Just know that I am still here though. Worrying about you, wondering what you're up to, and hoping that you're OK.

And occasionally, intentionally looking up YOUR fucking horoscope.

Like such a freaking girl.

That was it. No long winded diatribes or page after page of analyzing my own inner dialogue.

It was quite possibly the first time in my life I had said what I needed to say, without saying too much.

I didn’t expect to hear back from him after that. Not right away anyway. He had said his piece, and I had said mine. The door was still open. I hadn’t slammed it shut. But I'd been clear. I needed time. We both needed time.

I hoped he would be able to see that.

Because the truth of the matter was… I knew already that I wasn’t strong enough to resist if he started putting in the hard sell.

As much as I hated admitting that to myself, I knew I wouldn't be able to hold my ground if he pushed.

So I was hoping he wouldn't.

When I didn’t hear back from him that day, I let myself believe that he did get it. A realization that filled me with a strange mix of relief and sadness. But mostly relief.

I did miss him. And I didn’t like not having him in my life. But I truly thought this was for the best. I truly believed we needed some time away from each other. That if we were going to stand any chance at all, we would both need to heal first.

And I knew myself well enough to know that as much as there was part of me that wanted him fighting for my forgiveness right now, I wouldn’t be able to stand my ground for long if he did. No matter what my head was telling me.

The heart always wins.

Which is why when he texted me a few nights later, I again was filled with that strange mix of relief and sadness.

Once more though, mostly relief. Although, for entirely different reasons.

It was a little after 10 on a Sunday night, and all he said was “When you told me you loved me, I believed you. I don’t know why I acted like I didn’t.”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that. How to respond.

So, I just didn’t. Holding my ground as best I knew how.

An hour later, he texted again.

“I want to take you to my parent’s house and re-introduce you to them. Let me know if you would ever be up for that."

What. The. Hell.

I mean, seriously, what the hell?!?

I had met both of his parents that very first night at his BBQ. His mom and I had instantly hit it off, sneaking inside to chat for over an hour while everyone else was out by the fire.

I had immediately adored her. She was so open and warm and genuine with me, which I knew couldn’t have been easy. She was definitely hurting over the divorce. She and his ex had been very close, and I knew she was mourning the loss of her daughter in law. The actions that she just couldn’t wrap her head around. But still, she had gone out of her way to get to know me. To be kind to me. And to make sure I felt welcomed and comfortable. She hadn’t spoken to his ex since everything had gone down, and I knew she still had so many questions herself. The fact that she found a way in the middle of her own confusion and grief to be so kind to the potential new girl in her son’s life had been incredible to me.

But ever since that night, the boy had managed to keep the two of us separate. Almost intentionally so, as if it was his way of drawing that line between friends and something more.

I knew he talked to her about me though, and to me about her. Both with regularity. Whenever he was on the phone with her and I was around, she would tell him to say "hi to the whore" for her. It was a joke that continued from the very start.

I had never once pushed, or even asked, for him to bring me around his parents again. I knew why he hadn't mentioned it himself, and I assumed that he would open that door up again when he was ready.

Had he really just opened that door all on his own though? Without my ever having mentioned that it was something I was waiting on?

Crap.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Because yes, I am that weak.

So, I picked up the phone and called him.

But as soon as he answered, the first words out of my mouth were “You’ve got to stop this. I asked for space. I need you to give it to me.”

I was trying so hard to be strong. To sound strong.

But he instantly saw right through me.

Letting out a laugh before saying “I’m so glad you called.”

I wish I could say that I got off the phone immediately after that. That I held my ground and kept my distance.

I even wish I could say that in talking to him, it never dawned on me that he had consumed at least a few drinks that night. That it never occurred to me that while he wasn't drunk, he also wasn't sober.

But I can’t, because it’s not true.

The truth is, we spent the next two hours talking. Just talking.

About us. About where we stood. About what he wanted. About what I wanted.

About what we both needed.

About everything.

In the end, he asked me to give him another chance. He swore he was ready. That he had spent the last two weeks thinking about me and only me. That as soon as we had gotten off the phone that night he had realized what an idiot he was, but he couldn’t figure out how to fix it. He said my CD hadn’t left his truck since I'd given it to him. I could hear it playing in the background (for the record – he was in his yard sitting at the fire pit using his truck as a stereo, not drinking and driving). He said he had been thinking about everything, and realizing how well we fit together. How much he missed not being able to share even the stupidest pieces of his day with me. How “right” we were. He even told me that in comparing me to her, he was starting to see the ways in which I filled up holes for him that she never had.

He said it all.

And when I continued my push for space, he countered by asking me to give him a chance. He begged me to just let him prove it. That he was ready. That I was what he wanted. That we could make this work out exactly the way it was supposed to.

“I can’t make you any promises.” He said. “Because I know I’ve already lost your trust. But please, just let me show you. Let me spend the next however long it takes making it up to you. I will never do that to you again. Just please, let me prove it to you.”

He didn’t know it, but once upon a time I had spoken almost those same exact words to the ex.

And it had broken my heart when he couldn’t give me what I'd asked for.

Another chance.

A chance to prove to him I was ready for what we could have.

Because I had been. And there is a part of me that has always lamented the fact that he wasn’t willing to try. To give me that opportunity to spend the rest of our lives making it up to him.

That thought was running through my head as the boy continued. I had spoken these same words before myself. I had wished with all my heart that the person I was saying them to would give me that chance. I had ached for the opportunity to fix what I had broken.

I couldn’t help it; my resolve was softening if only because… I felt like I knew exactly where the boy was standing now.

And when I had been in his shoes, I knew with everything inside of me that if given the chance, I would get it right his time.

I told him that he needed to be sure. That all I knew was that we didn't have many chances left. That if he hurt me again, I probably wouldn't ever be able to forgive him.

I believed that. I knew it to be true. If he said these things now, and then couldn't live up to them in the end... I couldn't see how there would be any going back from that. My pride had already taken too many hits. I was already embarrassed that I was even considering this.

Embarrassed, and terrified.

But he promised he was sure.

We talked for so long that before I knew it, I was laughing. My walls crumbling with so much less effort than I had ever believed it would take.

But I remained firm on the fact that I didn’t want to see him. I said we could talk, but that I wasn’t ready to meet with him face to face. I knew I would cave completely if he said these things in front of me, and I couldn’t let that happen.

Not yet anyway.

When it was time for us to both head off to bed, he asked if he could call me the following night.

And I told him he could.

But he didn’t even wait until the following night. He was texting me a little after 8 the next morning. Keeping it up throughout the entire day. Finally asking me as work was getting out if I would meet up with him.

I reminded him that I wasn't ready for that.

He responded with “Fair enough”, and then called me that night. And again, we talked for hours.

The next night he tried again. Sending me a text a little before 5 asking if I would go to dinner with him.

I responded by saying “I can’t figure out if you’re being charmingly persistent, or just willfully determined to get your way.”

He replied simply with “Neither, I just want to see you.”

I caved.

But not before being clear on the fact that he would not be spending the night once dinner was over.

He agreed to those terms and that night, a little before 7, he picked me up and took me out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants in town.

I was incredibly nervous. More nervous than I had probably ever been around him. My head and my heart involved in such an epic battle, I wasn’t entirely sure which end was up anymore.

He caught on to that fact not too long after we were seated, interrupting an uncommon lull in conversation between us to say “You look sad tonight.”

I took a deep breath before responding. Thinking through my words carefully; wanting to be true to myself but not wanting to ruin what was otherwise promising to be a good evening.

“I am kind of sad.” I said. “It scares me to be here. To be with you. And I feel like at this point, if you hurt me again, I have no one to blame but myself. That makes me a little sad. I don’t want to get hurt.”

“I’m not going to do it again.” He promised. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

And I wanted so badly to believe him.

That was the extent of discussing “us” that night though. We both almost immediately agreed that we didn’t want to focus on the past. That right now, in this moment, we just wanted to have fun.

And we did. We talked and laughed all throughout dinner, and when it was done… I wasn’t ready to say “goodbye”.

So I was the one to suggest we go get frozen yogurt. At Yogurtland – which just so happens to be at the airport.

I refuse to be ashamed of my addiction to Yogurtland and the lengths I go to in order to get it!

We randomly ended up parking right next to Jay’s truck. He was out of town on a work trip, and the boy happened to know where he hid the keys when he left.

So we dug through my car for something to leave him, attaching with it a silly stalker note sure to give us away. Breaking into his truck and setting it on his dash where we knew he would spot it immediately.

We were both laughing so hard we were practically crying.

It was so stupid. Such a kid prank.

But this felt good. It felt right. It felt like “us”.

We got our yogurt and decided to take it back to my place to eat. We watched some mindless reality TV, and then I kicked him out.

But not before making fun of him over something he was trying to (wrongly) explain to me about our iPhones. As soon as I started mocking him, he looked at me for a moment with a grin on his face and then tackled me. Pinning my arms down with one hand and tickling me with the other. I was squirming and wrestling with all my might, and we were both laughing so hard.

Again… this felt right.

When he stopped tickling and I stopped struggling, we both got quiet and didn’t move. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. But at the last possible moment, he stood up instead.

I was kind of glad he had. If only because I wasn't sure I would be able to contain myself if we started kissing.

I walked him to the door where we said “goodbye”.

And I went to bed thinking to myself that if we could just take this slow, it might be alright.

It might not end with my heart broken in pieces.

It might not end at all.

I wanted to believe it to be possible.

I wanted to believe that maybe, just maybe, my head had it all wrong.

The heart always wins.

But that doesn't mean it's always right.

(to be continued…)

Space

2012-01-16T18:38:00.003-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

He said he would stay away.

He promised.

But not 15 minutes later, he was calling.

Still a mess, and knowing only that he had caused this; I didn't answer.

Which is when he texted "Please call me back. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have let this happen."

I didn't respond. He called again, and I didn't answer. So again, he texted "Will you please answer so I can explain myself to you."

I couldn’t figure out what there was to explain.

Hadn’t he already said it all?

I wiped the tears away for long enough to pen my response "I really can't talk right now. I'm sorry. I'm not mad, I promise. I'm just hurt, and confused, and embarrassed, and sad. You listening to me cry on the phone is not going to help that. I know you never meant to hurt me. I just need some space."

And then, I turned off my phone.

The truth is, I really wasn’t mad. Not at him anyway. I was definitely hurt, but not mad. Regardless of what he had meant by that comment, I knew he had never intended to hurt me. That he likely hadn’t thought at all before he spoke. This was who he was after all. I knew who he was.

So if I had anyone to be angry at, it was myself.

I had known going into this that it wouldn’t be easy. I had entered this relationship fully aware that it would be a roller coaster. I had made my choices.

And I had let myself fall in love with him.

Which in this moment, I couldn’t quite explain.

All I knew was that I felt so unwanted and discarded that I couldn’t breathe.

I was literally having a hard time coming up out of my grief and heartache for air.

How had I let this happen? How had I allowed myself to become so caught up in someone who could so easily take my feelings for granted?

I’ll tell you how – everything else was right.

The way we laughed together. The hours we could spend talking about nothing. Or more importantly, the hours we could spend talking about everything. The things we had in common. The futures we wanted. The way we had eased right into each other's lives.

It all fit. In so many ways, he was the man I had been waiting for.

Wasn’t he?

Had I been crazy to imagine he felt the same for me as I did him?

Or just stupid?

It didn’t matter now though. In my heart, I knew that.

He’d crossed a line. We wouldn’t be going back anytime soon.

We couldn't.

I woke up the next morning resigned to that fact. And thankful that in just two days, I would be getting on a plane and leaving town. Going to visit Arizona, and LA, and San Diego. Spending time with my family and closest friends.

Regrouping in a way I knew I could only do there.

The timing of this trip could not have been any better.

But before I could leave, I had to put a final nail in the coffin of our relationship. I had to close the door.

So, I wrote about it here. I broke my silence on the boy, and I shared the story of our demise. The abbreviated version of course, but still... I accepted defeat.

I declared our relationship over.

And when I left Alaska, I did so determined to leave him behind as well.

That trip turned out to be exactly what I needed. First submerging myself in family for the wedding, I had no choice but to turn my focus on that. I wasn’t able to waste time thinking about him.

It was perfect.

As soon as the wedding was over, I hopped in a car with an old friend for a road trip to see some of my nearest and dearest. And yes, we definitely dished a bit about the boy and what had been said, but mostly we just caught up. Laughed. Drank. And then came back to the house to waste the night away playing board games.

Again, exactly what I had needed.

From there, I flew to LA to spend some time with the devirginator.

Who, it should be noted, was ready to fly to Alaska and take the boy out himself.

The DV had never been all that fond of the guys I dated (most of whom were meaningless wastes of time that I myself never had any real desire to keep around), but… I’d never seen him have so much hatred for any of them either.

It was kind of nice. Knowing there was someone out there who wanted to protect me. A man from my past who never in a million years would have dreamed to speak the same words to me the boy had.

We spent our days together eating, and going to Disneyland, and watching random episodes of 1001 ways to die. We didn’t talk much about the boy. Mostly because I knew the DV was already heated, and there was this strange part of me that still felt the need to protect the boy. I didn’t want anyone hating him. But I also didn’t know how to explain his actions either.

So instead, I just focused my attention on spending this time with the DV. Getting back to myself in a way I only could with him. Finding my “normal” again.

If we're being honest about history though, it's fair to acknowledge that once upon a time the DV hurt me too. Sure, we were only kids. And he has made those years we stupidly tried to be more than friends up to me 1000 times over in the kind of friend he has been since. But, that is only because I forgave him. Or because... we forgave each other.

Our friendship is what it is today because once upon a time – we both let go of the past.

And that fact was not lost on me as I healed in his presence.

I wasn’t sure what the future held for the boy and I, but I was sure that I hadn’t heard the last of him.

Even then, I couldn’t shake the confidence I still had in his feelings for me.

Yes, he had crossed a line. And yes, he had taken me and my feelings monumentally for granted.

And even more than either of those, he had directly told me that he had no feelings for me beyond friendship.

Twice now.

But, I didn’t believe it. I still didn’t believe it. Not entirely anyway. Even after all of that, I believed in my heart that the boy loved me. I had seen the way he looked at me. I knew the bond we shared. I trusted in the things he said about me when I wasn’t around. And the things he said to me when he let those walls break down.

I believed he loved me.

And in time, I believed he would come around again.

At which point, it would be up to me to decide what direction, if any, we headed in from there.

I thought it would be a while though. Hadn’t I predicted this all along after all? Hadn’t I always been so sure that our relationship would have to first crumble to pieces before he could come to terms with the fact that it really was what he wanted?

I hadn’t anticipated it being nearly so painful, but I had seen this coming.

And now, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would just be a matter of time.

I just hoped it would be enough time... for both of us. For him to heal from her, and for me to heal from him.

Because at this point, I still didn’t know what my choice would be when that time came.

When I said goodbye to the DV, I was already feeling refreshed and more like myself. San Diego was the perfect last stop for me. I was able to spend some time with some of my favorite girl friend’s; one of whom happened to be dealing with a brutal and unexpected breakup from her boyfriend of 3 years, who up until a week prior she had been planning on moving states with in the following month.

We definitely had a few nights spent doing nothing more than man bashing.

Like I said, perfect.

It wasn’t until my second to last night there that I really started to miss him. We were in the car driving somewhere, and all of a sudden I felt like I was fighting back tears again.

I tried to explain to my friends what I was feeling, but I couldn’t quite put it into words. I knew he didn’t deserve these tears of mine. I knew he didn’t deserve anything from me.

But I was having a hard time letting go of what I had believed could be.

And I was starting to dread going home. After spending more than a week with the people I loved, distracted entirely from his absence in my life, I was starting to dread being back in Alaska.

Without him.

I hadn’t heard from him since that night. He had kept his promise, and I was glad he had.

But there was also this part of me that hated it. I had gone through the previous weekend on edge, sure that a drunk dial from him was eminent. But it hadn’t come. And despite my best efforts not to, I felt slighted.

Even though he was only doing exactly what I had asked… staying away.

I wasn’t proud of my feelings. I wasn’t proud to be missing him, or to secretly be wishing he would call.

But that was the reality.

And by now, I really was starting to wonder if maybe I’d made it all up. If maybe we really didn’t have what I thought we had.

I swear the boy must have had ESP. Because it was that night, as I had just again started to allow these thoughts to seep in, that I heard from him.

He texted me a little after 11 asking how my trip had gone.

It had been 10 days since that night.

The longest we'd ever gone without speaking since we had met.

It was obvious he thought I was already home.

I was with two of my best friends when the text came through, and even though I probably would have anyway – their presence helped me to ignore it.

I didn’t hear from him again.

Not until the next night that is, when at 2:30 in the morning he texted me.

I was actually already awake. My plane was leaving in a few hours, and my friends and I were up in the living room spending the last of the time we had together laughing and talking.

All his text message said was “Are you alive? Yes or No?”

It seemed unfair. He knew I was alive, and he also knew I had a near impossible time ignoring people.

Why wasn’t he just leaving me alone?

Like he had promised?

Annoyed, I responded “Of course I’m alive. Pretty sure you would probably hear about it if I wasn’t.”

As soon as I hit send, he called.

And I hit the bitch button.

Why was he doing this?

I knew he was drunk. That much was assured simply by the hour.

But was that really all this was about?

He sent me a text stating simply “You just screened me!”

And I responded. “Yes I did. I’m in San Diego with my friends. Catching a plane in just a few hours. And you’re giving me space. Remember?”

I shouldn’t have responded at all, but I felt like he was due that reminder.

“Yes, sorry.” He replied. “I miss you. Goodnight.”

Now I was pissed.

Finally I was pissed.

Not at myself, but at him.

He had made me a promise, and now he was breaking it.

As much as I had secretly found myself wishing the day before that I would hear from him, if only so that I would know he cared, it wasn’t acceptable for him to be telling me he missed me.

And so, the crazy girl who lives inside of me took over.

“That’s not fair. After a conversation where you said to me ‘you don’t even want to know what I have to think about to sleep with you’, you don’t get to miss me. You have no idea how much you hurt me. How stupid, and embarrassed, and naïve I felt for letting myself believe anything you had ever told me about wanting to be with me. I care about, I want you to be OK, and I want to be your friend, but not at the expense of me getting trampled on. And not if it means only hearing from you when you’re drunk enough to realize you miss me. I need that space. That time to move on and get over whatever the hell it was we had between us. And you said you cared about me enough to give it to me. So… do it.”

He responded by simply saying “OK.” But 5 minutes later, he responded again.

“I love you, either way. Take care.”

Why! Why was he doing this to me? Why was he using that word now, after basically telling me he hadn’t ever meant it before?

I waited to respond until over an hour later, as we were driving to the airport.

“They’re only words. They don’t really mean a whole lot anymore, coming from you.”

I felt justified in that. It was true. I didn’t throw those words around. I didn’t use them haphazardly and without care.

So why did he get to?

I got on my return flight to Alaska feeling much the same as I had felt in leaving.

Hurt. And confused. And toyed with.

After a few days back home though, I was starting to feel whole again. Returning to the calm I had felt while away. Sliding back into my routine, I felt my strength returning.

I was focusing on him less and less.

So of course, he had to pop up again. On a Thursday night, at a reasonable hour, less than a week since I’d gotten home, I received this text:

"For whatever its worth, I'm sober and I still really miss you. You are a wonderful person and a great friend. You have stood beside me and supported me through one of the toughest times in my life and I don't take that for granted. Take care.

PS I decided not to get Tatalina."

I wasn’t sure what to do with that. Technically, it had been exactly what I’d needed. Confirmation that he did care about me. That I hadn’t made it all up. That I wasn’t crazy.

But... it still wasn’t enough.

I thought for a while before finally responding.

"It is worth something. Thank you. And I miss you too. But... I can't keep putting myself in the middle of this. I can't keep letting myself get hurt. It's not good for you, or for me. You need to deal with all of this, and get your head back on straight. I think it's obvious I wasn't helping you to do that. If anything, I was just confusing you more. Or putting too much pressure on you to be something you couldn't be. I can't be just your friend though. Not right now. Not when we both know I want more. Not when every time you're drunk, you suddenly want more too. It just hurts too bad. It was breaking me. And I'll never really understand how you could have said something so hurtful to me - even if it was true. I just... I don't get it. But I do miss you too. Even though I wish I didn't.

I'm sorry you didn't get Tatalina. I really wanted her for you. I think having her would have been good for you."

It was more than I meant to say, but… this is me we’re talking about. Epic text messages are to be expected when I’m the one doing the texting.

Conciseness has never been my specialty.

But never in a million years did I expect what he sent next:

"I am so sorry for hurting you. You don't deserve any of this. The truth is I am very confused and don't know how to handle things with you, so as a defense mechanism I push you away. The sad part is, I always regret it later and feel like a jackass. I am thankful for the support you have given me, but wish we could have met later when I wasn't so fucked in the head. This is a shitty situation and it breaks my heart not having you in my life. You have done so many nice things for me and been so there for me; there is no way I can ever repay you for that. I only wish I was half as good of a friend as you have been.

There are so many things I would like to say to you in person, so if you would consider meeting me let me know. I am terrified to lose you and it is unfortunate (in some ways) we met at such a shitty time. As a matter of fact, the timing fucking sucked, but the last 5 months of my life would have been miserable without you. Meeting you has been the best thing that's happened to me since the divorce. I miss you. Dammit I wish we could just start over. I hope to see you again. Love always, the boy.

P.S. I have been listening to your CD every day."

The boy had just out-texted me.

And all I could think, after reading all of that, was:

Crap.

(to be continued…)

When Does It Get To Be About Me?

2012-01-15T15:43:00.023-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

The next morning would have been great, except it wasn’t.

Through no fault of the boys, it should be noted.

No… the next morning Jack decided to pay a visit.

And in grand fashion I might add.

I woke up feeling pretty miserable. Had it been a work day I would have popped an ibuprofen and powered through. But since it wasn’t, all I wanted to do was curl up in bed with my heating pad watching movies.

By myself.

I can’t help it. When I’m on my period, the last thing I want is someone cuddling up with me. I’m crampy and bloated and unhappy and I just want to be left alone.

So, I kicked the boy out.

Literally.

He was practically still sleeping, and I told him he needed to leave.

To his credit, he understood. And he sat there as I called Dee up and canceled on our plans to go hiking later that day as well. He had heard me talk enough about my lady issues to know that the first day of my period is usually the worst, and typically when I need to be left alone the most.

So he got up, got dressed, kissed me goodbye, and walked out the door.

He even called later that night to check in on me.

Or in his words, to make sure I hadn’t “bled out.”

You see what I mean when I say the boy and I have the same disturbing sense of humor, right?

But then… I didn’t hear from him again. Not Monday, not Tuesday, not Wednesday.

I was in no mood to play this game now, so I didn’t call him either. And Thursday night when he finally called to check in, I didn’t spend a great deal of time talking to him. I figured if he was going to keep me at arm’s length, I was going to do the same.

The next night was his 10 year high school reunion, and I have to admit – I really thought he was going to invite me. I knew and had spent time with all his friends. We had been doing whatever it was we were doing for months now. He had invited me to literally everything else up to this point. And we had been talking about his reunion for weeks.

It never even occurred to me that he wouldn’t invite me.

Except… he didn’t.

I spent that night with a friend. Eating dinner, having a glass of wine, and trying not to let myself get bitter over the lack of an invite.

Around 10pm I headed home. Washed my face, put on some comfy clothes, and crawled into bed to do some reading.

Which if we’re being honest – is a pretty decent depiction of my typical Friday nights.

But then after midnight, he called. It was clear he was drunk, and suddenly – he wanted me to come out to meet them.

I was annoyed. I was not a fan of getting the invite only after he was already drunk. Not at all. I told him I was already in bed, and that I had no real intention of getting up and getting ready all over again.

But I told him to be safe, and not to drive.

About 15 minutes later, he called me and said he would rather just be home with me. He asked if I would come get him.

I shouldn’t have done it. I knew I shouldn’t have. But he was only 10 minutes away, and I didn’t like the idea of him out and about drunk anyway, so… I got up and went.

Wearing yoga pants, a tank top, and not an ounce of makeup.

It was clear I had no intention of getting out of the car.

But when I got there and called him, that was what he was pushing for. For me to come in and say “hi” to everyone. For me to hang out. For me to have a drink.

He said everyone really wanted to see me.

I told him I was basically in pajamas, and that if he wanted a ride – he should get his ass out to my car.

OK, we all know I didn’t say it even half as harshly as that. But, the sentiment was the same.

So the next thing I knew, he and two of his best guy friends were walking out to the car.

All drunk. All wanting hugs.

One ran off in the direction of the crowd shortly after saying “hi”, but the other got in the car. In need of a ride and place to crash himself.

Which wasn’t a big deal at all. He was one of the sweeter and calmer of the boy’s friends. I liked the guy. I had no issues helping him out.

The boy got in the backseat with his buddy, but spent the entire drive to my place with his hands on my shoulders. Talking to his friend the whole time about how great I was.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I was so great, why I had barely heard from him at all during the previous week.

But I kept my mouth shut. Not about to start a "situation" in front of his friend.

I took the two drunks to Taco Bell, and then we headed home. I set his buddy up on the couch and the boy and I headed off to bed.

Where he tried hard to get me naked.

And I didn’t budge an inch in terms of keeping my clothes on.

In the end, he threw out one of his now trademark drunken “I love you’s”, before cuddling up with me and passing out.

The next morning was better. My irritation had subsided, and he was still in a good mood.

We were both there in bed, just laughing and joking around.

I finally told him that I felt like he was pulling away from me. That not hearing from him for days on end was hard for me. That I felt like he was pulling a disappearing act.

He just repeated the now standard line that he was really messed up right now. That he didn’t mean to be pulling away, but he also didn’t really know what he was doing or what he wanted.

The truth is that at this point, I had started to suspect he was trying to put distance between us. Not because it was what he wanted necessarily, but because he had convinced himself it was the thing he should be doing.

Which would explain why as soon as he started drinking, all "should’s" would fly out the window and I'd suddenly become the first call he'd make.

After the seriousness of the conversation had faded, he did make a comment about how much he appreciated the ride but that I shouldn’t expect to hear from him until he needed another. He said it with a smirk on his face, like he was trying to turn our serious conversation into a joke, but… I could feel him using the joke as another way to keep me at arm’s length.

When we got up, I handed him a CD I had made for him. This wasn’t a first. It’s kind of what I do – write e-mails, and make CD’s. I’d made him a divorce mix at one point as well, full of songs I thought he could relate to during that time.

This one though… it was filled with music that reminded me of us. Of what we had, and what we could be.

There were actually more than a few songs on that CD I’ve already shared here along with this series.

I knew he would listen to it. That he would put it on in his truck and spend days listening to it.

I knew the boy liked when I gave him music.

And I was pretty sure he would latch on to the meaning behind most of the songs on this one as well. There was definitely a part of me that was hoping maybe that would reach him.

I took he and his buddy to his truck a little while later, and as he was getting out of my car he turned around and said “Well… I’ll call you in August.” I must have given him a look of pure annoyance, because immediately he started laughing and said “What? It’s only 2 days!”

He kept his promise though. I didn’t hear from him again for 2 days. When he called, we talked for about 10 minutes before I made the point of being the one to exit the conversation first. It was a huge difference from the nights we had spent talking for hours on end, but I couldn’t help that part of me that wanted to prove I could hold him at arm’s length too.

I had been fighting this feeling that we were going backwards. It hadn’t been like this in the start, had it? I suddenly felt like we were in the beginning stages of a relationship where contact was somehow meant to be sporadic, instead of further on down the road where I had gotten used to hearing from and seeing him with regularity.

It was like our relationship was suffering from a case of Benjamin Button syndrome.

I didn’t like it at all, but I felt like if I pushed too hard he would pull away. Like I would lose him. I also worried that if I allowed it though, it made me weak. Vulnerable for him to take advantage of.

And I wasn’t that girl. I knew I wasn’t that girl. I never would have let any other man treat me like this. So… why was I letting him?

Why was I making so many excuses for him?

It might have been because I knew it wasn’t just me he was struggling to make a decision about. There were so many other things he just couldn’t get himself to commit to during this time.

His house was one of them. Or rather, what to do with his house. It was a beautiful place. It really was. But he hated it now. Because everything in it reminded him of her. Of the life he had planned with her. He hated being there. And anyway, it really was too much house for just him. Add on to that the fact that paying the mortgage was now a bit more of a struggle on a single income, and it was inevitable that he would eventually start talking about getting rid of it. The problem was, he had been talking about selling it since we met, but had never once called a realtor to even see if it was possible. He always mentioned wanting to move on from that house, but he could never pull the trigger. For a plethora of reasons, both logical and not, he couldn’t make himself take the next step. But he also couldn’t let go of the idea of wanting to. So he was constantly going back and forth instead.

Then there was the dog. Jay and the boy worked for the same company, but Jay had spent the summer working in a different small little town than the one the boy had been at. While he was there, he had unofficially adopted a stray. But bringing the dog home to his already full house just wasn’t an option. So, he had started talking to the boy about taking this dog instead. And the boy really wanted to. He loved being a dog owner. He was always talking about how much he missed his dogs, and the idea of getting a new one had him excited like an 8 year old. From the second she was first mentioned, he talked about her all the time. But then he would hesitate, and start over thinking it. Talking about how much harder it would be for him to take care of a dog by himself. How much more difficult it would be when he had to go out of town for work, or fishing trips. He started talking about how his life couldn’t accommodate a dog now, even though I knew how badly he wanted it. Even though I knew his parents would help him with it in a heartbeat. And even though I myself had offered to do whatever I could to help. He just couldn’t commit to it. He talked about it every day for two weeks, but he couldn’t bring himself to say “yes”.

Which pretty much describes New Zealand as well. He had an opportunity to go on an incredible fishing trip to New Zealand with one of his buddies. More than any of the other decisions he was struggling with, I wanted this the most for him. I remembered the change of perspective I myself had gained when I traveled to Australia. How much that trip had healed me. I believed this trip would be exactly what he would need to start getting his head back on straight. To start rebuilding. And when he talked about it, his eyes would light up. But he was so nervous about the costs and time involved that again… he couldn’t bring himself to make a decision.

Leaving us with me. The final item on a long list of things he couldn’t seem to make his mind up about.

No matter how much I needed for him to.

He was just indecisive during this time. About everything.

And there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to help him with that.

Still, I wanted to believe that if I just gave him space, he would come around eventually. I wasn’t built for the back and forth, and I definitely felt like I deserved more. I just didn’t know where the line was between being patient and giving him the time he needed, while also still protecting and standing up for myself.

The next weekend turned out a lot like the previous had. I didn’t hear from him until almost 11 at night on Friday. When he had already been out for hours. When he was already drunk. Now, suddenly, he wanted me to join.

I wasn’t about to do it though. Even though I wasn’t doing anything at all, I wasn’t about to go running to him now. Now that he had gotten drunk enough to want me around. I told him that as much as I appreciated the late invite, I was going to pass. Then I told him to have fun, and to please be safe.

A little after 2 I heard from him again. This time wanting another ride.

And this time, I put my foot down. Told him I was already in bed asleep, and I wasn’t going to come get him now. I said if he needed a place to sleep he could grab a cab, but I wasn’t going to continue being his taxi.

About 30 minutes later, he showed up at my door.

Initially he went straight for the couch; I think already knowing I was pissed. But when I didn’t say anything and just went back to my room, he joined me less than 5 minutes later. He laid there in my bed for a while without saying anything. He knew I was mad, but I don’t think he knew what to do about it. Finally he just said “I do love you.” Before curling up and cuddling behind me.

I didn’t say anything in return.

The next morning there was no laughing or giggling. No playful flirting or joking.

I was finally done. Annoyed to the point that I didn’t want to let this slide.

So when he gave me my opportunity, I jumped on it.

He thanked me for giving him a place to sleep, and then cracked what I think he thought was a joke. “I figure I’ve only got another few weeks where you’ll let me get away with this before just being done with me, so I might as well take advantage of it while I can!” He was smiling when he said. I really do think he thought he was just teasing me. Trying to lighten the mood in any way he could.

But I paused for a moment, before saying “Actually… I think we’re there.”

This launched a conversation that was far too easy in retrospect. I told him I couldn’t do this anymore. That I couldn’t continue to be his afterthought. That our relationship wasn’t working for me, and we needed to be done with whatever it was we were doing.

I told him we could be friends, but that for now I would need a little space. Just to clear my head and get myself to a good place.

He didn’t argue with me. Not about any of it. He said he understood. That he knew the point would eventually come when I couldn't handle him anymore.

Which is when I said “I think the saddest part is… I really did let myself fall in love with you.”

It was the first time I had said it.

The first time those words had passed my lips.

He had said them to me over 20 times by now. Always drunk, but still… he had said it.

And I’d always remained silent.

Until now. As I was ending things.

But he looked at me then, and said “I just don’t know how to believe you. She said that to me too. I don’t know how to believe it coming from anyone else, if I couldn’t believe it from her.”

I felt like he’d punched me. Here I was, opening up and being honest and finally telling him how I felt about him and what his behavior was doing to me, and… he tells me he can’t believe me.

Not because I had ever lied to him or hurt him or betrayed him in any way.

But because of her.

I finally said the word I had been feeling for months, and it meant nothing to him.

There wasn’t a whole lot to say after that. The entire conversation had been incredibly bittersweet, but we weren’t fighting. We weren’t arguing at all. It was all kind of... surreal.

Especially when you consider the fact that I still had to drive him 30 minutes away to his truck after this.

By the time we got there, we had been silent for a while. He got out of the car and thanked me, before turning around and looking at me for a long time without saying anything. And then, he just closed the door.

There were no tears. Not for me, and not for him. I turned around and drove home, thinking to myself how easy something that should have been so hard had just been.

I went to dinner that night with my incredible friend hockey wife. Recounted to her the details of the morning as we both had a few too many glasses of wine.

And then, we went shopping. Mostly just for shoes she needed to get her husband, but while out and about I spotted a pair of sunglasses that reminded me a lot of a pair the boy had lost just a few weeks before.

Without even thinking, I was buying them.

I had no plan. No intention of giving them to him anytime soon. But I just figured I had them now, and the next time I did see him – I would give them to him. A friendly gesture.

Or, that’s what I was telling myself. The truth is though, I was already missing him.

In the most unhealthy way possible.

I recognized that. I knew it. I knew missing him now was crazy.

And I didn’t plan on doing anything about it at all.

But then… he texted me a picture of the dog. Along with the words “I think Tatalina would be a cool name for her.”

Something inside me cracked. Had he made a decision about something? Had he found something he wanted enough to commit to?

I texted back that I loved her, and then asked how he was feeling (knowing he had been pretty hung-over that morning.) He said he was recovering, and that he was at Barnes & Noble… looking at books about New Zealand.

My mind was spinning. Was this the same guy I had been dealing with for the last few weeks? And what had happened to him not contacting me for a while? Was he finally starting to make some decisions? And was I one of them?

Having just been dropped off at home, I sat there on my bed looking at the new sunglasses I had picked up, and the movie that had been in my mailbox.

Without even thinking I texted him:

“Come over when you’re done. I just got home, and I got you something. Had a movie in the mail too. We can break up tomorrow.”

He responded with “Fine!” and then was at my door within 15 minutes.

I don’t know what I expected to happen. If I really expected anything to be different. He laughed when he saw the sunglasses, and spent a few minutes regaling me with some of what he had learned about New Zealand. And then, we put the movie in.

At first we cuddled right up. Whether out of habit or circumstance, I can’t be sure.

But I do know that as soon as my tipsy hands started to wander, he was quick to put a stop to it.

And I was quick to pout.

This was not one of my better moments in our relationship, but… I was feeling rebuffed. And I couldn’t figure out why he was here, at my house, if he wasn’t somehow sure that I was what he wanted.

He said he didn’t want to go there though. That he still wasn’t sure what he wanted, and that he didn’t want to hurt me anymore.

But I was already hurt. And with a few glasses of wine in me, I was saying the things I had been holding back on for months.

In a moment of exasperation, I finally blurted it all out.

“I’ve spent the last few months taking care of you. Being there for you. Doing whatever it was you needed when you needed it. And whenever you're drunk, you can't keep your hands off of me. But now, suddenly, you're not interested. I told you this morning we needed to take a break until you could figure out what you wanted, and then you're texting me just a few hours later. What are you doing here if you don't want to be with me? And when does it get to be about me? When do you start worrying about what I need? Because what I need, is for you to decide. For you to choose. And for you to then stick with the choice you made.”

He sat there stunned for a moment. I'd never really called him out so boldly. Not like this anyway. “I know” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

But it wasn’t like anything was resolved. It wasn’t like we had suddenly broken new ground.

It wasn’t like he had suddenly chosen.

I got under the covers and turned my back to him. He didn’t try to cuddle. And even though I’m fairly sure neither of us got any sleep that night at all, we didn’t say another word.

The next morning he got up early. Quickly putting on his pants and walking out the door.

I was fairly sure it would be a while before I would hear from him again.

That we had just experienced our real breakup.

But that night, around 6, he called me. Left a message sounding 100% sober. Asking me to call him back when I got a chance.

I didn’t.

A few hours later he texted asking if I had gotten his message. I responded that I had, and asked if everything was OK. When he asked why I hadn’t called him back, I said I had some things I was trying to figure out. The conversation ended with his saying “OK. I’ll let you be. Goodnight.”

It was then that I started writing. Continued typing and editing for hours. Before finally hitting send sometime after midnight on an e-mail that was composed on pure emotion.

Some of the highlights included:

“I’m sorry about tonight. I just haven’t had the greatest day. My mind’s been completely occupied ever since you left this morning.

In all honesty, I’ve been kicking myself. Wishing that I had stuck to my guns and kept some distance between us. After a few glasses of wine though, I guess you were on my mind. Our conversation from earlier in the day was on my mind. This sadness I was feeling over the whole thing.

So when you texted last night, all of my resolve faded and I just wanted to see you.

But, I wish I had stuck to my guns."

“This is starting to get ridiculous on my end. I get hurt when you disappear on me. Then I get hurt when you are here too. Anytime you’re cold or distant. Anytime you’re pulling away from me. Anytime I feel like you don’t want me. I’m becoming this girl I don’t even like. One who’s needy and desperate. One who’s sitting around just waiting for the boy she likes to like her back.

It’s not me. It’s not who I want to be.

And it’s not even really your fault. I’m the one who has let you come and go, even when I’ve known I need more. I’ve let you crawl into my bed, even as you’ve told me you don’t know what you want from me. I’ve let you hold back from me, and push me away, and build up walls, even as I have been completely open and honest with you about how I feel. I’m the only one to blame at this point, because I should have put a stop to this months ago.”

“If things keep going the way they are though, it’s going to make me hate you. I’ll end up being the one putting up walls, and then even if you do hit the point where you’re ready to give it a shot – I won’t be able to believe you. I’ll suddenly be the one unable to trust in your feelings for me. And there won’t really be any coming back from that.

Something has got to change.”

“I told you I loved you, and I meant it. I think you should know that I don’t use those words lightly. I never have. Which is why every single time you have drunkenly thrown them at me, I have kept my mouth shut. Because I don’t say things like that unless I know I can stand by it. I told you I loved you, and I meant it.

And you told me you didn’t believe me.

Maybe that’s why I wanted you to come over last night. Because I don’t know what to do with that. How I’m supposed to react. Do I keep sacrificing myself in the hopes that eventually you’ll believe me? That someday you’ll see that it must be true because I’m still here? Or do I step away and protect myself? Protect my own heart, since clearly you aren’t going to?

At what point does what I need start to matter?

If you don’t trust how I feel about you by now, I don’t know what else I can do to show you.

And at some point, I need to care about myself enough to let what I need start mattering too.”

"You may not know what you want, but I do know what I want. I want you. I want to be with you. I want to be a part of your life. I don’t care about what you still have to work through, and it doesn’t bother me that you still find yourself loving her. I don’t think your feelings for her and your feelings for me have to be mutually exclusive, and I actually think it would be weird if you didn’t still love her. I want to be there for you while you work through this. I want to be someone you can talk to. Someone you can count on. But I can’t keep hanging on, when you aren’t willing to commit to how you feel about me at all. I can’t keep letting you hold me at arm’s length; pushing me away when I get too close, and pulling me back when you start to fear losing me.

I can’t keep up the back and forth.

I don’t have it in me to do this half way anymore.

So I think you should take whatever time you need. Figure out what it is you want. Whether or not you and I want the same thing. Keep your distance for a while. Forever if that’s what it comes down to. Do what you need to do to be happy. If that means drifting around from stupid girl to stupid girl so that you never have to feel anything for anyone else ever again – do it. But know that I am not that girl.”

Almost as soon as I hit “send”, I regretted it.

This wasn’t an e-mail I had spent days thinking about. One I had edited and re-edited until it was right.

This wasn’t even one I had cut down to a reasonable length.

Throughout the course of this entire relationship, I had often joked that for the first time in my life – I was the sane one in a pairing. And I had been. I had kept my cool, controlled my emotions, and put him first.

Every step of the way.

This e-mail though… it was all of that coming to the surface. Me finally bubbling over under the pressure of trying not to create too much pressure.

And my inner crazy girl (i.e. the side of me that overanalyzes, overcomplicates, and overwrites) finally won out.

After months of remaining fairly contained.

But that inner crazy girl, she did keep reminding me that at least… it was out there.

I didn’t hear from him that day. I wasn’t sure I would hear from him again.

But the following night, he called.

And as soon as I saw his number, a wave of relief washed over me.

I answered without thinking. “You made me crazy” I announced.

He didn’t need to know that I had always been crazy. That e-mails like that were pretty much par for the course for me. I was fine with him thinking that he had been the one to push me over the edge.

He’d made enough comments along this journey about how calm I was. How rational. How normal.

Yes, he had actually referred to me as “normal” at one point.

No use shattering that image now.

He paused for a moment, before finally saying “Yeah… what was that?”

So I launched into it. About how confused I had been lately. How unsure of where I stood with him I had been feeling.

I told him I felt like we were going backwards. Like me and what I needed were being severely neglected in this quest of mine to support him.

And that at some point, I really needed that to change.

I needed to know I could count on him. That I could rely on him.

And that he was spending as much time looking out for me as I was spending looking out for him.

Finally, I said “If you can’t do that, I just really think… we need to be just friends. Like, really just friends. Not friends who sleep and cuddle in the same bed, or who kiss and get naked every time you’re drunk enough to want that. Just friends. Without the mixed signals or games. Without the underlying promise of potential in the future. Just… friends.”

I would be lying if I didn't say that at this point every part of me wanted him to tell me that wasn’t what he wanted. That he would try harder. That he would give me what I wanted.

What I needed.

Because he loved me.

But instead, he said “That’s probably for the best. I think friends is all we really are anyways.”

I caught my breath. “Do you really mean that?” I questioned.

“Yeah. I think I do.” He responded.

Confused now, I said “So if I started dating someone else tomorrow, if I moved on, you would really be OK with that?”

“Yes.” He replied, seemingly without even thinking. “I just know that there’s nothing more here between us. I mean, it’s weird to me too that I don’t ever want to be with you unless I’m drunk. Even I can't figure that out. I think it means something though.”

I was trying not to spiral out. I was trying so hard. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “We slept together just 2 weeks ago. You prompted that. And you were completely sober.”

“I know.” He said. “But… you don’t really want to know what I have to think about to sleep with you.”

...

The entire world came to a halt. Everything around me stopped. I couldn’t breathe.

What did that even mean? Was that a comment about me? About something being wrong with me? Or was it a comment about him? About where his mental state was in general? About how he would have trouble sleeping with anyone right now?

Why would he ever say that?

Why would he ever say it to me?

I wanted to throw up.

But instead, I cried.

The wall broke down. The emotions won out. For the first time in my entire adult life, I cried tears as I was being hurt. With the person doing the hurting right there on the other end of the line, bearing witness to it all.

They erupted out of me. These tears that had been built up for months. Exploding from my eyes before I could contain them.

I was shaking. And sobbing. And hyperventilating.

Finally stripped raw and exposed.

Finally broken down.

Finally beaten.

Immediately it was like a switch flipped for him. Like hearing my tears had triggered him to realize what he had just said. What he had just done.

He couldn’t stop apologizing. Calling himself an asshole. Telling me how sorry he was. That he had never meant to hurt me. That he hated himself for this. That he would never forgive himself for doing this to me.

He was panicked. He had never heard me like this before. Had never known me to be so vulnerable.

And there I was, on the other end of the phone, crying so hard I couldn’t respond.

I could tell he felt awful. I knew this wasn’t what he wanted. I knew he had spoken before he had even thought.

This was one of the traits the boy and I shared after all, wasn’t it?

The lack of a filter.

I knew that hurting me like this was the last thing he ever would have done intentionally.

But it didn’t matter.

It had happened.

What’s done is done.

As soon as I gained my ability to communicate, I told him between sobs to stop apologizing. That I wasn’t mad. That I understood. But that I needed some time.

Possibly a lot of time.

I told that if he really cared about me like he was saying he did, then he needed to stay away. I begged him not to call me again. Not to text. Not to show up at my door.

I told him he needed to keep his distance.

That if he really cared, he needed to give me time to heal from this.

From all of it.

From him.

The remorse in his voice was evident. “I’ll stay away.” He promised. “I do care about you, more than you know, and I’m so sorry I let this happen. If that’s what you need though… I won’t call. I’ll stay away.”

He asked if I was going to be OK. If there was anything he could do.

I continued to struggle with getting the words out past the tears, but I told him I would be fine. That it would just take time. And that the only thing he could do for me now, was leave me alone.

Which is when we said goodbye.

And I hung up the phone before curling up in a ball on my bed and finally letting it all out.

The tears. The heartbreak. The sadness.

The months of buildup, finally releasing.

Crying until I was sure I had nothing left.

And then, crying some more.

(to be continued…)

I Need a Life

2012-01-14T18:16:00.000-09:00

Sorry all... I have tonights post written, but somehow I managed to get it up to 6000+ words. Which is WAY too long. I can't figure out where to cut it though, and can't decide if I should just post it as is, even at it's massive length. But I have friends waiting on me for dinner and a movie and decided I should just figure it out tomorrow.

First thing though... promise.

Tonight though, I need a life!

In the meantime, if you haven't yet, feel free to catch up on a story about a boy.

A story which will return at its regularly scheduled time tomorrow.

And which should be done sometime this week.

I swear.

The Doctor Is In

2012-01-13T19:09:00.009-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

As has become customary in this story of mine, he did call. The very next night.

And the first words out of his mouth were "I'm an asshole."

I didn't argue.

He apologized again. Said he couldn't really explain what had happened to him that night, but he knew I was right. That he had gone from being in a fairly good mood to being completely shut down with little to no explanation. That he had put a wall up between he and I. And that his only excuse was that he was a mess right now.

He started telling me how he had been feeling since she popped back into and out of his life once more. How it had made him begin to evaluate their entire relationship. Their courtship and marriage and everything else in between. How it had made him question himself. Question her. And question whether or not she had ever really loved him at all.

He was broken.

Lost and confused and so incredibly (possibly irreparably) broken.

He started calling daily again, just as he had the last time he’d been gone.

Every night my phone would ring and it would be from that distant far away number.

Really no more than an hour’s plane ride away.

But still so completely out of reach.

He was drinking regularly again, only now it was worse.

Now it didn't seem like the alcohol was helping.

It was just taking him further down that path of depression.

That wasn’t the only thing that was different though. That had gotten worse.

We weren’t talking about "us" anymore. At all. Ever. We weren't talking about how much he missed me, or the future we could have together.

He hadn't even thrown out a drunken "I love you" in what seemed like forever.

Instead, night after night, we were talking about her.

About what she had done to him.

And about how devastated it had left him.

I quickly became his therapist instead of his girlfriend, and even though I was completely cognizant of what was happening as the events were unfolding - I couldn't stop it.

I knew this wasn't the direction we should be heading in.

I knew this shouldn't be my role.

And as the days passed I knew more and more that he should be talking to a professional.

I pushed for that. More than once.

The problem was that he was out there in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. And the opportunities for him to get any kind of help while there really were few and far between.

He was with a group of guys who were all away from their wives and families, and who were all drinking together nightly to blow off steam. So the influence was already there for him to be engaging in too much of that.

And he wasn't exactly in the position to make an appointment with a therapist and go in on his lunch break.

So I was all he had when it came to talking about this.

Well me, and his mom.

But that was it.

I couldn't cut him off from that.

I couldn’t abandon him too.

Even though most nights he was irrational and unreachable. So lost and hurt and confused that the words flying out of his mouth sometimes scared me.

Even though no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to pull him back.

Which left me feeling defeated. And inadequate. And so very hopeless.

He was just so broken.

It wasn’t my fault. I hadn't done this. And I knew that everything involved in maintaining this relationship no longer held any promise of being in my best interest.

But I couldn't help it.

I just wanted to fix him.

So, I put my bachelor’s degree in psychology to work, and I went into practice for myself.

For him.

Something we can all agree I had no business doing.

But I didn’t know what else to do. So I did the only thing I could do. I sacrificed pieces of myself to be his friend. To be there for him. To support him.

To listen to him.

I began to let go of any hope for our future. I didn’t even care about that anymore. About what we were or were not going to become.

I just wanted him to be OK.

I wanted so badly for him to be OK.

We would talk every night. Sometimes for hours on end. Most nights long past when I myself should have been going to bed. Some nights even when the phone would ring at 3 am. And more than a few mornings when I would call him myself as soon as my alarm had gone off. Just to make sure he was getting up for work. To make sure he was functioning after the previous night.

To make sure he had made it through the night at all.

Because I will admit that in the deepest darkest recesses of my brain... that had become a very real fear of mine.

That one night, he would do something stupid. Something drastic. Something crazy.

And I would lose him.

We've all been there.

That dark and hopeless place.

Or at least, I know I've been there. More than once in my life. And I would like to believe that everyone else has been as well. That at one time or another, everyone has fallen that deep. That hard. And that everyone has struggled with how to move on.

One thing I can say I’ve discovered from those past moments of darkness in my life though, is that recovering from it gets easier for me every time. If only because I know there is recovery. There is starting over. There is always happiness to be found; no matter how much the heart has been broken.

But for him... nothing had ever shaken him like this. Nothing had ever really made him fall. And I knew he was starting to question whether or not he would ever feel happy again.

Which scared me.

Because I knew how dangerous that hopelessness could be.

I started pushing for him to come home. For him to do whatever it took to convince his job he should be working from town.

Here. Where he had his family. His friends.

Me.

Here, where he could be surrounded by the people who loved him.

And where on the bad nights, I would be able to simply get in my car and drive to him if I was worried.

Rather than waiting so helplessly to hear his voice the next morning. Falling asleep praying that he would just be OK.

So when he called me one night and told me that he would be home in just a few days, I was ecstatic.

I needed him home. I needed him here. I needed him with me, if only so that I could know he was alright.

The night he was supposed to come in I was actually heading about an hour south of town to Teeny’s wedding. I invited him to come along with me, mostly because I couldn’t stand the idea of his being here and me being there. He couldn’t manage to get a flight in on time, but he sounded genuinely disappointed when he said he couldn’t make it.

I almost believed he really wanted to be there.

He promised to call me as soon as he got in though, and we left it at that.

That night, I dressed myself to the nines for what was supposed to be a beautiful wedding. I made the drive, thinking the entire time about him.

Anxious to see his face.

The wedding was incredible, but when he called me an hour into the reception to tell me he had landed – it took zero effort for him to convince me to come back to town and have dinner with him.

As I was heading back to Anchorage, one of his buddies who knew about the wedding I was attending called me to say he was passing right by me. He and his girlfriend had pulled into a gas station to fill up after a day spent fishing further South. I was right there, so I pulled in to say “hi”.

Overdressed and out of place in a middle of nowhere Alaskan gas station.

They both got a kick over my apparel, and then upon hearing that the boy was back in town, asked if they could join us for dinner.

I had been looking forward to some one on one time for the boy and I, if only so that I could completely assess his current state of mind, but I knew he would be happy to see them.

So we made plans to meet at a local ale house a few hours later.

And I drove home. The boy meeting me at my place mere minutes after I had arrived.

The heels had been tossed aside, but I was still in my dress. My hair was still a fancy mess. I was still far more done up than he had ever seen me before.

But he didn’t say a word about it. Just gave me a hug, and waited patiently as I changed into jeans and a sweatshirt.

He was quiet, but he didn’t seem cold. Or distant.

Just, quiet.

Tired maybe. A little sad to be sure.

But overall… so much better than I had been expecting.

We met his friends for dinner, and the four of us spent a few hours laughing and exchanging stories. Eating more food than any of us really needed.

At one point his buddy turned to him and said “You should have seen her tonight. She really looked incredible.” Gesturing towards me, now sitting at the table completely scrubbed out, my face absent of even an ounce of makeup.

The boy looked at me for a moment. Caught my eye and held it before replying “I did see her. She looked beautiful.”

It had been almost a month since he had gotten off that plane to a text message from her. Almost a month since everything between us had been so effectively pummeled by her uncertainty.

For all the sweet words that had flowed out of his mouth in the months before that, this was the first time I had heard any from him since.

I had to look away before he did. Because I was sure that holding his gaze any longer would have caused me to fall apart.

The pressure that had been building for so long, suddenly releasing.

If only just a bit.

When we were done with dinner, he and I headed back to my place. We grabbed a movie and crawled into bed. Not touching. Not cuddling.

Just two friends, watching a movie.

Until the point, when I least expected it to happen, he leaned over and began kissing me.

After only a few seconds, I pulled away and looked at him. Examined his face for any signs at all of the broken boy I had been counseling in the weeks preceding this moment.

“What was that?” I asked. A fair question, considering how long it had been since we had behaved or talked like a couple in any way.

“I wanted to kiss you.” He said. “I just wanted to remember what it felt like.”

And then he did it again.

We had each consumed a single drink with dinner. Nothing more. This wasn’t a moment borne by a lack of sobriety or inhibitions.

Still... once it started, neither one of us made any attempt to stop it.

It had been 6 weeks since we had been together like this, and in some ways the awkwardness that hung between us was reminiscent of that first time.

Perhaps the reasons for doing it were as well.

He wasn’t entirely with me. He wasn’t completely engaged or attached.

But he was trying.

And in knowing how hard he was trying, there wasn't a part of me that could say “no”.

There wasn't a part of me that wanted to.

When it was over, he wrapped himself up around me. Cuddling so tightly I could hardly remember the distance that had been between us.

And I fell asleep thinking that maybe I had made the previous few weeks up.

Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as I had let myself believe.

Maybe all the worry had been a bit dramatic.

And maybe, just maybe…

Everything was going to be OK.

(to be continued…)

The Fallout

2012-01-12T18:43:00.011-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

I woke up the next morning intent on looking good.

Knowing only that if it killed me, I was going to show up to lunch ready to turn heads.

I can’t explain why this was suddenly so much more important to me than it had been at any other point in my relationship with the boy, but I just knew… I had to look good.

So, I spent extra time on my hair and slathered on more makeup than I would normally ever wear to work. I picked out my nicest “grown-up” outfit, and topped it off with the boots I never wear to the office, specifically because I love them so much that I save them for nights out on the town.

But even in the confidence that was gained from putting a little extra effort into my appearance, I was uneasy.

For as much as I had been looking forward to seeing his face just a week before, I was now suddenly filled with dread.

He called a little before noon and suggested a spot just up the street from my work. Since it was within walking distance for me, I agreed to meet him there.

I arrived before he did, and sat awkwardly in the lobby checking my phone and trying not to appear nervous.

I knew I wasn’t accomplishing that goal very well.

When he walked in, there was a moment of discomfort as we both tried to navigate how we should be greeting each other, before finally settling upon a gracelessly timed hug and asking the hostess to be seated.

Something was definitely broken between us. Something that had been there just a week before was gone. We didn’t know how to act around each other, and neither one of us was willing to put ourselves out enough to repair the rift.

I kept waiting for him to tell me what I so desperately needed to hear. That when everything was said and done, he never would have chosen her. That it always would have been me.

That in the end, he always would have picked to be sitting right where he was sitting now.

With me. Not her.

That admission never came though, and as lunch dragged on we struggled to come up with topics of conversation; each of us vagrantly bypassing the subject of “us”.

I started to wonder why he had wanted to see me at all. It was obvious that what had happened with her in the previous week had shaken him. Both his pride, and his confidence in anything and everything he thought he knew. Obvious that it had turned him cold and distant.

Obvious that she wasn’t off his mind.

So why had he called me? Why had he wanted to see me?

As lunch progressed, I began to suspect that maybe it had been a test. That maybe he had wanted to see me, only to see if I could fix what she had once again broken.

To see if I could swoop in and help him to forget.

The problem was, that even if I could have (and at this point, I really don’t believe I possessed that power), I didn’t want to.

I was hurt too. Hurt, and angry, and untrusting.

Even though he had done exactly what I had told him to do. Even though I had been the one to encourage him to give her a chance. And even though in my heart, I knew it was the thing he had needed to do.

I couldn’t help it. My walls were up, and they weren’t going to be coming down any time soon.

So there we sat, with not an ounce of warmth or affection between us. To anyone taking the time to observe us, we surely must have appeared to be strangers. Perhaps the victims of a setup that clearly wasn't going well.

We made small talk, and laughed over innocuous bits of news. We pretended that we were each fine.

But neither of us pretended very well.

I found myself counting down the minutes until this lunch would be over. Sure only of the fact that I needed to get away from him. As quickly and as painlessly as possible.

So when the check came and he effortlessly put his card down, I thanked him before announcing a meeting I would need to get back to work for.

I tried to pretend I didn’t see the wave of relief that washed over his face at the out I had just provided for us both.

We didn’t bother hugging again. We didn’t touch at all as we said “goodbye”. And when we parted ways, I genuinely wasn't sure when, or if, I would be seeing him again.

I walked back to work feeling more than a little deflated. I hadn’t known what exactly to expect, but I hadn’t expected either of us to behave so… indifferently.

During lunch he mentioned that plans had changed and he wouldn’t be heading back to the work site for another week. I started to dread the idea of him going back at all, with things between us the way they were.

But I didn’t know how to fix them.

Not without letting my guard down.

Not without making myself vulnerable once more.

And not without being the one to make the first move.

Which I just wasn’t sure I was willing to do.

Still... as the day wore on, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about him. Most specifically about what she had just put him through. About the confusion and hurt and anger and frustration he must be feeling.

I began to think about my promise to him from the start; that I would be a friend to him, no matter what.

Regardless of the state of our relationship beyond that friendship.

It wasn’t that my walls went down, because they didn’t. It was just that… my compassion began to go up.

And so, that night after work, I sent him a text asking if he wanted to see a movie.

I didn’t put much effort into the invite, and when he declined citing other plans, I didn’t push.

The truth was, I didn’t blame him. After the awkwardness that had set between us at lunch, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him anytime soon either.

But two nights later, when I hadn’t heard from him again, I sent another text.

This time apologizing for my own coldness. I explained that while he was gone I had been counting down the days until I would get to see him, but that when we had gotten off the phone the previous week as she clicked in, I hadn’t been sure I would ever hear from him again. I told him thinking that, had kicked my ass. And that my guard was up. That I wasn't sure how to get it back down, but I was willing to try. If that's what he needed from me, I was willing to try. I ended it by saying:

“I know you need to work through all this right now, and that the last thing you need is more stress. I also totally get it if you just want some space. Just know that I do care about you, and that I’m here if you need a friend.”

He called me within minutes.

It would be a lie to say that the distance between us had been erased, but the discomfort we had experienced in talking just a few days before was eased. We spent the next hour catching up. Talking more intimately about the details of the week we had spent apart. Even laughing a time or two over bits of information that probably weren’t so funny in retrospect.

We still never once spoke of “us”.

But at least we were speaking.

The next night, when he was out with his buddies, I got the drunk dial.

He still didn’t say much of what I needed to hear, but at least he was trying.

And at least I was still the one he was calling when he’d had too much to drink.

The following morning he called me as he was walking to his parent’s house for breakfast.

It could be argued that he was still drunk.

But he was starting to sound more like himself again. Wanting to tell me about his night. Teasing me every chance he got. Laughing with ease.

For a split second, I let myself hope.

When we got off the phone, he told me he would call me that afternoon.

I was almost surprised when he actually did.

He said he was running errands around town and asked what I was up to.

When I explained I had just finished getting a massage and was about to head home, he asked if I wanted to do something that night.

I didn’t even hesitate.

If this was going to be his mood, I couldn’t wait to see him.

We talked about grabbing dinner, and even about just renting a movie and staying in. But by the time he arrived at my house, he had spoken to one of his buddies who was heading out with his girlfriend to a bar on the boy's side of town.

He asked if I wanted to go.

I could have said “no”. I probably should have said “no”. Should have kept it at a mellow night in for just the two of us.

But at this point, I was up for just about anything if it had the promise of keeping him smiling.

So we made the 40 minute trek there, each in separate cars so that I would be able to get myself home in the morning.

Knowing we would be drinking, and that I wouldn’t be driving home that night.

We talked on the phone as we drove. Still laughing. Still joking. Still fine.

But something happened between the time we hung up with each other, and the time we each got out of our cars. Because as we walked into the bar, I could already feel his mood shifting.

I could feel him pulling away.

And for the next several hours, I had to pretend like I couldn’t.

He had shut down. Barely talking or socializing with anyone. Carrying a pained look on his face almost the entire night.

And I couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t figure out what had happened.

At some point in the night, his buddy’s girlfriend pulled me aside to tell me how much the boy liked me. How often he talked about me. And how obvious it was he had fallen for me.

I bit my tongue, thinking the only thing that was obvious was that she clearly wasn’t paying attention to how he was behaving that night.

But she said she and her boyfriend had been at the boy’s mom’s house for breakfast that morning. Had listened to him gush about me there.

I couldn’t figure it out. Since getting off that plane to a text message from her, he certainly hadn’t made any indication at all that his feelings for me were still strong.

I had no idea where I stood.

But apparently he was confessing all to his friends?

To his mother?

All the while giving me the silent treatment now in this bar?

Like I already said, it wasn’t just me he was giving the silent treatment to. But… How could she be so sure of his feelings for me, when in this moment; I was anything but.

Eventually his buddy offered to have us stay in his spare bedroom that night. We’d stayed there before, and even though the boy had managed to maintain his sobriety throughout the evening and was able to drive, it would save us the 15 minute trip to his place.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that for the boy, the idea of not having to be completely alone with me was the real appeal.

We still hadn’t discussed where we stood at all.

And I had no idea what was on his mind.

When we were about half-way to his buddy’s house, I realized I had left my overnight bag in my car.

It was only a minute or two back, and the boy turned around without my even really asking. But he was short with me. Annoyed.

I was trying to make small talk. To get him to laugh. Or react. Or engage with me in any possible way.

But I was getting nowhere.

Finally, as we neared my car, I flippantly said “I guess I could just go home if you wanted me to?”

I don’t know why I said it. I wasn’t drunk, but I had consumed enough that we both knew there was no way I was going to get in my car and drive the 40 minutes back home. Growing up in a police family, the boy knew that I don’t get behind the wheel when I’ve been drinking. Period.

So maybe that’s why he responded the way he did.

Because he knew I was full of it.

But his response… it threw me.

“I don’t care what you do.” He snapped.

It wasn’t said kindly, or quietly. It was said with an edge. As if I was a child who had interrupted him one time too many times.

And like a child, I got my bag out of the car before climbing back into the front seat and silently enduring the rest of the ride.

Trying not to pout, but knowing I had been stung.

Biting my lip the entire time to hold back the tears.

When we got to his buddies house, he crawled into bed fully clothed.

Jeans and all.

He’d never done this before. Never slept in all his clothes. And given that he wasn’t drunk, I could only take this as a very clear signal to me to keep my hands off.

And again, I was hurt. Not because he hadn’t shown an interest in getting physical, but because he had assumed I needed such a blatant sign that it wasn’t happening.

I curled up in bed and turned my back to him. Wanting only to fall asleep and get through the night.

We didn’t speak again.

At all.

About anything.

The silence between us was painful.

And I still couldn’t understand where it had come from.

When the sun started shining through the window bright and early the next morning, I immediately began putting my things together and asked him if he would take me to my car.

I said I wanted to go to church, but I think we both knew I just wanted to get away from there.

We left without even getting to say goodbye to his friends.

And we drove to my car without saying much of anything to each other at all.

When he dropped me off, I wasn’t sure when I would see him again.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him again.

The next day passed without a word from him.

And the next.

And the next.

By this point, I knew that the following morning he would be leaving for the work site again. I didn't like the idea of him going there with so much still hanging between us. So when I got home from work that night, I decided I had a few things I needed to say to him before he left.

I called him up. No texting, no playing games, I just... dialed his number.

And when he answered, I didn’t waste a whole lot of time with niceties.

I asked him what had happened over the weekend. How he had gone from being in a great mood one second, to being so cold and distant the next.

Initially, he sounded confused. So I relayed to him the events of the evening as I saw them.

Culminating in his brisk retort that he didn’t care what I did.

He paused for a moment, but he didn’t get defensive. He just told me he was screwed up right now. That talking to her, and being shut down by her once again; it had left him an even bigger mess than he had been before.

He apologized for being short with me. For inviting me out, and then turning on me so quickly.

I told him that I understood, which in reality was the truth. But I also told him it wasn’t acceptable. That I knew he was hurt and angry and frustrated, but that I wasn’t the person he was angry with.

I told him he couldn’t punish me for her mistakes.

That I wouldn’t let him.

And then I told him to travel safe.

And to call me if it occurred to him that he actually wanted to talk.

Or he missed me.

Or he simply wanted a friend.

But not to call me if he was doing so because it felt like an obligation.

Or to treat me like I was somebody who was disposable to him.

Because I wasn’t going to put up with it.

No matter how much I cared.

He didn’t say much, and we got off the phone soon after.

I wasn’t sure if I had made an impact at all, but it had been the first time I really put my foot down and stood up for myself in this.

The first time I had made demands on him of any kind.

And now, I just had to wait and see if I ever heard from him again.

(to be continued...)

Going Through The Motions

2012-01-11T18:16:00.005-09:00

If you’re just now joining us, I’m telling a story… About a boy. If you want to catch up before jumping in, start here first.

It’s an understatement to say that I went on auto pilot over the next few days.

I still hadn’t cried. Not about any of it.

I hadn’t yelled, or broken down, or engorged myself on Ben & Jerry’s.

Not a single pint.

I was just going through the motions.

Living my life and pretending all was well.

Even though in reality, nothing was well at all.

He kept his promise; I didn’t hear from him again. I had no idea what the two of them had discussed that night. No concept of what was going on between them now. No hints at all into what he may have been thinking as the days passed by.

I was in the dark. Completely.

Dee invited me to still join she and her husband camping and four wheeling that weekend, after the boy apparently instead made plans to go fishing with his dad.

I thought about it for a minute, but in the end declined.

I convinced myself it would be better if I stayed home, knowing simply that I wasn’t in the mood to be social.

When Friday night rolled around though, Lindsey was having none of it. She and her husband, along with her sister and brother in law and a few other friends, were all heading to her parent's house on a lake about an hour outside of town.

She convinced me to come along, even if only for one day. With promises that it would be a mellow night involving nothing more than a campfire and boat rides and all the food I could manage to eat.

After having spent a solid two hours sitting in bed by myself staring at the television (over what had been meant to be a fun and exciting holiday weekend with him), I didn’t take a whole lot of convincing.

I threw a bag together and headed out that way.

Once I arrived, Lindsey clued me in to the fact that one of the boy’s best friends had called her husband shortly before I got there announcing that he and the boy were out on the lake and planning on stopping in to say “hi”.

Playing the role of my hero, her husband had apparently told his friend that Lindsey had already invited me up for the weekend, and that it was probably best if the two of them kept their distance.

Again, this is one of those situations where it got convoluted for me. Technically, Lindsey was my friend and had been before I ever met the boy. But it just so happened that her brother in law was one of those core friends I already mentioned he had been close with since childhood.

In fact, at that BBQ that now seemed to be so long ago, I had actually known to look for her brother in law before I ever even met him. I hadn’t mentioned our mutual tie at that time, simply because Lindsey and I hadn’t yet decided how to explain our internet friendship, but I had known from my conversations with her who he was and that he would be in attendance.

I had known all about his perfect little boy, even before he whipped out his phone to start showing me pictures.

The ties between us all definitely made it difficult for me to know where I did and did not belong if he and I weren't a couple. The truth is, I never would have agreed to come at all if I thought for even a second he himself may have wanted to be there. But the last I had heard, he was going fishing with his dad.

The last I knew… he was talking to her.

So when I heard instead that he was hopping parties around the lake with his buddy, I didn’t know what to think.

But suddenly, as much as I had been trying to avoid thinking about him… he was on my mind.

I did my best to play along that night. To slap a smile on my face and drink my beer and join in on all the fun to be had.

The truth is, all I was thinking about was him. Wondering what had been going on between the two of them. What had been said. Where his head was at.

Going over and over everything in my mind as the numbness faded, and the sadness started to set in.

I smiled and laughed and told stories along with everyone else. I played with the baby, and ate, and even found myself jumping in the lake and being dragged around on the tube.

But it was all an act.

I was grateful for somewhere to be. For a distraction to be had.

But there was no combatting the emptiness that was weighing so heavily on my heart.

So, the next night as everyone at the house prepared to attend a wedding for someone who I didn’t know, I packed up and headed home. They had offered to let me stay while they were gone, or to come back the next day when they returned, but… I just really needed some time to myself.

Some time to think.

To process.

And to have my Ben & Jerry’s.

Lindsey called Monday to check in on how I was doing, and attempted to entice me one last time into coming back out; if only for a few hours.

I declined, but told I was doing better. That I would be back to myself in no time, I was sure.

Which is when she took a deep breath, before telling me that the boy had shown up at the house the night before.

He hadn’t called anyone first. Hadn’t checked to see if they would be there. Hadn’t announced his visit in any way, until he was walking down to the campfire where everyone sat.

This wasn’t entirely bizarre. He had been to the house plenty of times on weekends such as this in the past. There had always been an open invite, and technically he hadn’t been the one who was told two nights before that I was there.

It could be argued that his showing up was completely innocent. That it had nothing to do with me at all.

But Lindsey was pretty sure he had arrived thinking I was there. Hoping to see me.

Maybe even to talk to me.

He hadn’t said much while sitting around the campfire, and had only stayed for a few hours. It didn’t sound like he ever mentioned my name.

Or hers either for that matter.

But given who he had been with Friday night, and the reason that had been given for why they shouldn’t come… it was also reasonable to assume he knew I had been there.

And that he thought maybe I still was.

Spending the entire weekend with my friend, rather than just a single night.

I got off the phone with her and thought about this. All the questions whirling up inside of me again.

Had they talked?

Had they seen each other?

Had they… never mind. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question.

But, was he missing me? Had he really shown up in hopes of seeing me?

And if he had, did that mean he had made a decision?

I didn’t have to contemplate these questions for long. Because a little before 6 that night, he texted me a picture.

Or rather, a picture of a picture.

It was the one I had taken. The one he had asked me for after Memorial Day.

He had blown it up to poster size and framed it. Hung it on the wall in his bedroom.

A prominent spot for something I knew would always serve, on some level, as a reminder of me.

Underneath the shot, he had written “Nice pic, huh?”

It had been 6 days since we had last spoken, and seeing his name on my phone I realized I had been holding my breath all that time.

Finally able to exhale, I responded before my brain could catch up with my heart. “Not too shabby. Whoever took it must be pretty awesome.”

He called me almost as soon as I hit send. As if he had been testing the waters. To see if I would even be welcoming of the contact.

Our conversation was awkward though. Stunted. He didn’t sound like himself. And the words weren’t flowing on either of our ends like I knew they could.

Like I knew they should.

He gave me the briefest of rundowns on what had happened between the two of them. That night, the night he had clicked over from me to her, she had expressed to him all the same sentiments she had already unloaded upon Dee. He had listened, before telling her that he was pretty sure he would never be able to trust her again. That it would never be like it had been. That there would be no going back.

They had talked. Caught up on each other’s lives. Exchanged small talk and pleasantries that just 6 months before would have been absurdly cold and out of place between husband and wife.

I think they talked for a while. I even think they talked more than a few nights in a row.

He said he had maintained his position that he wasn’t sure he could ever trust her again, but that in the end he had agree to meet her for lunch and discuss everything in person.

They had decided to meet on Friday afternoon. And then, only a few hours before they were set to get lunch, she texted him to say she was sorry but she realized she still didn’t know what she wanted, and that it was probably best if they didn’t meet face to face after all.

He hadn’t chosen me. He hadn’t chosen at all. He wasn’t calling now because he had realized I was the one, so much as he had realized I was the default.

The one left.

For the first time, I felt like the consolation prize.

He didn't say that to me, of course. Or anything of the sort. In fact, he didn't mention anything about "us" at all. It was just how I felt. Knowing that in the end, no choice had been made.

At least, not on his part.

I didn’t blame him for that necessarily, and I wasn’t bitter. I understood that technically, he hadn’t even been given a chance to choose. That she had taken the choice away from him yet again.

And to some extent, I knew that this was my fault. I had encouraged him to hear her out. To give her a chance. And in one fell swoop, she had taken him out at the kneecaps once more. Checking to see if the door was open, before swiftly slamming it in his face.

I know there are two sides to every story, and that if I ever had a chance to get hers it would probably paint a different picture than the one I already have. There is still a very big part of me that feels for her, in so many ways I can’t even really explain. I don't think she ever meant to hurt the boy. I don't believe that was ever her intention.

But in that moment, I hated her. Hated her for what she had done to him, and most of all; hated her for what she had done to us.

Because even now, I could feel the strain between us. The distance. The cold tension I couldn’t determine a point of origination for.

And the walls that had been erected seemingly over night on both sides.

I had thought this call was exactly what I was waiting for. I had thought it would leave us both blissed out and planning our futures together.

Instead, it was simply leaving me numb again.

Which is why when he asked if I would meet him for lunch the next day, I hesitated.

Unsure of whether or not seeing each other could fix this.

Knowing only that after all that had happened between us the last time we had been face to face, I was counting on our next meeting to be a happy one.

I needed for it to be.

And this felt like already, it was shaping up to be anything but.

I could hear the hurt in his voice though. The pain and frustration and… damage.

And I couldn’t say “no”.

No matter how much my head was telling me I should.

The heart always wins.

So, we made plans to meet the next day.

And then I got off the phone.

Not entirely sure who it was I had just spoken to.

But fairly positive that my boy, had gone into hiding.

And that I too was starting to retreat.

Behind a wall I wasn’t sure either of us would be able to scale.

The Call

2012-01-10T17:47:00.010-09:00

It was pointed out to me last night that the story of the boy has now surpassed 30,000 words. That's 1/3 of a novel. In two weeks. Kind of makes you wonder what I could accomplish if I actually committed myself to finishing one of those novels that have been sitting incomplete on my laptop forever now, doesn't it?

But alas, I am far too sucked into this story myself right now to walk away from it before it's finished. So if you're just joining us and feel like catching up on 1/3 of a novel, check out parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten first.

Just as promised, he called the next night.

And the next.

And the next.

He started calling every night.

Without fail.

We would talk until we were each struggling to keep our eyes open. Hours at a time of just talking.

Every once in a while he was completely sober.

More often than not he had kicked at least a few back with the guys he was out there working with before I heard from him.

And on a couple of nights, he was absolutely smashed by the time he called.

It was one of those nights when he told me he had been talking to his mom about me that afternoon. And after he had finished telling her some story about something I had said or done, she had apparently started laughing and said “You are totally going to end up with the whore!”

He was poking fun at me when he repeated it, but then his tone shifted a bit and he went on. “I told her she was right," he announced. "We’re totally going to end up together. You know that, right? Like – happily ever after together. You and me. Mark my words. I’m calling it now."

It freaked me out a little bit. I wanted so badly to latch on to that, but there was a part of me that was still incredibly pulled back when it came to anything he said about our future. We could talk for hours on end about his day, and my day, and what we were thinking, and what we were doing, but... as soon as the conversation turned to "us", I couldn't help but feel a protective barrier going up.

I got quiet before telling him that I would be lying if I said that wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for, but before I had a chance to continue my thought he said “Just wait. It’s going to happen.”

On one of the nights when he was waxing poetic, I called him on the fact that he was really quick with the sweet words when he was drunk. He suddenly became somber and assured me that every word he had said to me was true, while admitting that it was just easier for him to own up to when he was drinking because then he didn’t over-think it all the way he did when he was sober.

But he assured me it was all real. That sober or drinking, I was the one he wanted to be with.

On another night, when he hadn’t consumed quite so much, I let him know how guarded I was still feeling with him. That I didn’t know how to trust the things he was saying to me. That in the back of my head, all I kept hearing was him telling me that none of it was true. That he didn’t have any feelings for me at all.

He said he understood that, and that he wanted to work towards getting me to trust him and his feelings for me again.

He went on to apologize some more. And to promise me that he was going to do whatever it took to fix this. To help me to trust in him. In "us".

He did admit that he was scared too though. And that he was also having a hard time trusting in what we had. Not because of anything I had said or done, but because of his own past. There was one night in particular when he told me he was really struggling, because he remembered feeling the exact same feelings he had for me, for her. It stuck out to me so much, because it seemed like such an intense thing to say. He said he remembered being so sure of her and the future they had when their relationship was just starting out too, and that it scared him to think that he could be wrong about it all again. That he could be trusting in the fact that he had found the person he was supposed to be with, only to have me walk away in the end as well.

We talked about it. We talked about it all. About how unsure we both were now. How hard it was to trust in something that seemed so unstable. No matter how much either of us wanted it.

But as the days passed, we talked less and less about it.

We just fell into talking. About our days. Our jobs. Our lives.

How excited we were getting to see each other.

We just talked.

That weekend I went to a pig roast thrown by friends of his. It was strange being there without him, but so many of these people were becoming my friends too. Everyone had been quick to make sure I was coming, even though he wasn’t in town. They had wanted to make sure I would still be there. That I knew I was invited, with or without him by my side.

And to be fair, I probably would have gotten an invite anyway. Seeing as it was my beautiful pregnant friend's sister and brother in law who were the hosts. I had my own "in", even separate from him. Something I had to keep reminding myself of as I struggled with whether or not it was weird to go on my own.

Everyone wanted to know how he was doing, and when he would be coming back. They shared stories of his antics from previous pig roasts, and no one ever once made me feel awkward in being there.

Dee and I had gone hiking earlier in the week, and were definitely starting to bond over our shared history. It was the first time I had been able to introduce she and Lindsey, and the three of us huddled up in a corner of the yard talking about all things endo. They were each going to be embarking upon IVF in the next several months, so it had meant a lot to me to bring them together. I knew they would be huge resources to each other as they walked down that path.

Around this same time, Dee mentioned that she had run into the boy’s ex that day. That they had made plans to get together for lunch that weekend.

I tried not to over think it too much. They had been friends for years before she had left. I knew Dee, and many of the others within their circle of friends, had been hurt by how quickly she had cut off contact with everyone when the end had come. I figured that it would be a good chance for them to catch up.

But there was a voice in my head telling me there was something more to it.

I tried to ignore that voice. To swallow it down and will it away.

When the boy called that night, I didn’t mention any of this to him. I told him about the pig, and all his friends who had asked about him. I told him about conversations I had, and people I met. But I didn't mention Dee's run-in with his ex.

Maybe I should have, but we were just doing so well. He was doing so well.

I didn’t think it would do him any good to know.

And I wasn’t in any hurry to put her back on his mind.

Right before we got off the phone that night, he told me that he couldn’t wait to come home.

That all he wanted to do during his short time in town was see his mom, and spend as much time with me as I would allow.

I couldn’t help it. He was cracking away at the wall I had built up.

Two nights later, we were talking and he asked if I would go camping with he and Dee and her husband over the 4th of July weekend.

We had talked about getting dinner. We had absolutely talked about seeing each other.

But, this was different.

This would be us cooped up together for days on end again.

We hadn’t seen each other at all since that night.

It scared me to think of us jumping right back into this.

Scared me to think of us going too far too fast, only to have him push me away again.

I told him I needed to think about it, and he said he understood. It was Monday, and he was supposed to be getting back in town on Thursday. He said I just needed to make a decision by then, because he wasn't going at all if I didn't go with him. He asked me to just consider it. Said he thought we would all have fun, and he wanted me by his side for the weekend.

We got off the phone, and he told me he would call me the following night.

The next day I may have called Dee to get details on the trip, and to probe her on whether or not she thought I should go.

She was excited he had invited me, and started pushing for me to join them. Promising that no matter what, she would be there to keep me entertained and happy. But hopeful that after everything that had gone on, the boy would be on his best behavior.

Not 5 minutes into our conversation, my decision was made. I went out on my lunch break to pick up boots and other supplies I would need to play in the river – not wanting to have a repeat of that freezing night spent in a tent months before.

That night, when my phone rang, I reached for it quickly. Sure it was him. Excited to tell him I had decided to say "yes".

But when I looked at the phone, there was his name. This wasn’t the remote number he had been calling me from for the last 2 weeks. This was his number.

Which meant he was here. In town.

He wasn’t supposed to come home for two more days, but… he was here.

All my inhibitions gone, I practically squealed as I answered the phone.

And immediately, I knew that something was wrong.

He was sober, but… his voice. He sounded like something awful had happened. Like he was having trouble even just spitting out the words.

He told me that he had just gotten off the plane. That he had convinced his boss to let him come home early, and he was going to surprise me. But then, as soon as he turned his phone on, there was a text from her. From a few days before. Asking him if they could get together to talk.

He was on the other end of the phone, making himself crazy trying to figure out what she could possibly want.

And all I could think was…. Dee. She had talked to Dee.

So I told him that’s who he needed to call first. That she might know what was going on. I explained what I knew about them getting together; why I hadn’t told him already. He said he understood, but he got off the phone almost immediately to call Dee.

Or, that’s what I thought he was doing. In reality, he called her first. Frustrated and annoyed and confused and just wanting to get it out of the way. She didn’t answer though, texting him immediately after that she was in a movie and asking if she could call him the following day.

He didn’t respond. But he did pick up the phone to call Dee.

And when he got done talking to her, he called me.

Hurt, and confused, and lost, and unsure.

She had apparently expressed a lot of regret when she’d had lunch with Dee. Said that things had happened so quickly, and it hadn't really been what she wanted, but once it started… she couldn’t figure out how to stop it. She mentioned there was part of her that wanted to fix things. To start over. To maybe even just start dating again.

She had never once asked if he was seeing anyone else. Almost like the thought had never occurred to her at all.

Dee hadn’t revealed much during their time together. She’d just sat and listened to her old friend, without weighing in one way or another beyond telling her that she had really hurt the boy. Perhaps beyond repair.

When they’d left, she hadn’t given Dee an impression one way or another of what she was going to do.

I guess Dee had just been hoping she wouldn’t do anything at all. But hadn’t wanted to step in the middle either way.

Which, I get.

He was a bundle of emotions. Initially angry. Angry that she would even be thinking these things at all now, two weeks after everything was final. Angry that she was popping up to mess with his head again. And angry that she was doing this when he was just making strides towards moving on.

He was so angry he said he had no interest in talking to her at all.

But... Everything inside me was shutting down. This entire time I had been dating a guy who I knew wasn't completely over his ex wife, and that was one thing. But it was something entirely different if his ex wife wasn't over him either.

I let him get out all the anger. Let him say everything he needed to say. Everything he was thinking. Everything he was feeling. And then... I built all my walls back up.

I could feel myself shutting down. An emotionless robot, about to say all the right things.

As if I had no stake in the end result at all.

I told him that I had listened to him over the previous months telling me how much he had loved her. Lamenting the end of their relationship. Hurting so badly over the pieces of what had happened that he just didn’t understand.

He still had so many questions about how things had ended.

Questions that some nights, were still literally tearing him apart.

I told him that he owed it to himself to hear her out. To see if they could fix things. To see if he even really wanted to after everything was said and done.

I was calm, and rational. There was no anger in my voice at all. I know I was speaking to him with kindness.

But I was shut down. Resolute if only as a byproduct of being empty.

At first he resisted everything I was saying, but then he started talking about what his heart wanted versus what his head wanted.

Arguments I had engaged in with myself about him 100 times in the previous two weeks.

So I recognized exactly where this was going.

The heart always wins.

Always.

I told him the only way he would ever get the answers to some of the questions that still plagued him would be if he heard her out.

There was a part of me that believed that even if they did start talking again, it wouldn't take long before he realized she wasn’t what he wanted anymore.

The truth is, there was a part of me that thought maybe that would even be for the best.

The way things had ended between the two of them; she had given him no choices. No power. She had made a split second decision to end their marriage, and then hadn't looked back.

I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, in entering a realm where dating again was a possibility, he wouldn’t be able to regain some of his power simply in being the one with the choices to make.

And at the heart of the matter, I knew he would never really be able to forgive her. I knew there was a part of him that wanted to. That wanted to go back to the life they had lead and pretend that the previous months had never happened. But I knew there was a bigger part of him that understood how impossible that would be. And if things did start down a path of starting over with them, I knew that in a few weeks time - he would be the one to realize it wouldn't ever work. He would be the one to put a stop to it.

And in that, I hoped there would be healing for him.

I even hoped that in that, he would find himself missing me.

What we had.

What we shared.

But no matter what the outcome was, I knew he had to either close or open this door once and for all.

For him.

For her.

And for me.

So as much as it hurt, I encouraged him to walk down that path.

I shut myself down, as I told him to open himself up.

To hear her out.

To listen to what she had to say.

I encouraged him to give her a chance.

While also telling him that in doing so, he would need to let me go.

Because I couldn't be there waiting in the background as he tried to decide what it was he wanted.

I couldn't be the one he voiced his concerns and worries to while navigating the path back to her.

I couldn't be his therapist as he debated the pros and cons of repairing his marriage with his now ex wife.

I encouraged him to hear her out.

But explained that I couldn't be a part of the process.

I told him that I didn't want to hear from him again. Not until the point, when and if, he had fully let her go.

And just as he was agreeing to everything I was saying, thanking me for being so there for him, for being so understanding... just as he was telling me that he thought he would see what she had to say, and that he would stay away from me until he knew for sure what it was he wanted...

She called.

Beeping in on the other line.

And he managed to say only a quick goodbye to me.

Before switching over to her.

(to be continued...)

Drunk Dial

2012-01-09T20:21:00.008-09:00

If you’re just joining us, you probably think this guy is a dick and can’t for the life of you figure out how I got caught up with him in the first place. Starting at the beginning might help. Be sure to check out parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine before moving on.

I arrived in Ketchikan a little after noon that day, knowing that B-Face wouldn’t be able to get away from her duties on the boat until around 4. Never a stranger to traveling on my own though, I set out to explore.

I wandered all around town, checking out the various shops and restaurants. I found myself falling in love with this quaint little place, surrounded by so much beauty.

After a few hours, I sat myself down on a little bench right by the water and started to do some reading as I waited for B-Face to join me. I was definitely getting anxious to see her; ready for the distraction I knew she would provide.

Because it was starting to get obnoxious how often I was checking my phone. Refreshing my e-mail over and over again. Wondering if he would reply.

I knew that I had made it pretty clear I didn’t want him to, but I couldn’t help it. That part of me that still wanted him to fix this. To say or do something that would make it all suddenly be alright.

My mind was on him a lot during those hours I spent alone that day. Dissecting the entire situation and trying to untangle the truth from the lies.

No matter how hard I tried though, I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t pin-point which man he actually was. The asshole who had lied to me all along, or the good guy who was just more broken than I had ever truly let myself realize.

Was it possible that he wasn’t either?

I'll let you in on my one big fear. The thing that I couldn’t keep from rolling around in my brain that day, no matter how hard I tried.

I had started to worry that the boy just wasn’t attracted to me.

That everything else had stemmed from that fact.

Because on every other level, there was no denying our connection.

So all I could think was that it was me.

Physically.

His ex-wife and I couldn't have been more different as far as “types” were concerned. I had known that from the first time I met them. I still remember thinking to myself that I had been barking up the wrong tree entirely if that was the kind of woman he went for.

She was beautiful. Short and petite, with this porcelain skin and long straight dark hair.

Meanwhile, I’m tall, blond, and packing all kinds of curves.

I was used to dating men who preferred women with my body type. But I knew he had spent 6 years of his life with her. And I knew that this was where she and I differed.

I would never be "skinny" or "petite". I would always be "curvy". No matter how much weight I ever lost, I would always be curvy. And as much as I love my curves, I started to find myself wrestling with whether or not he did too.

As silly, and self conscious, and pathetic, and crazy as that sounds; that's what I was worrying about. If maybe, at the end of the day, everything else had worked except for the fact that he just hadn't been attracted to me.

Thinking that... it made me sick to my stomach.

But I couldn’t erase it from my head.

And so I needed a distraction.

When B-Face was finally able to escape the boat, she and I went out to a really nice dinner. Ordered a bottle of wine and caught up. We had every intention of heading in after our meal. Spending the night laughing, sipping wine, and bitching about boys. Getting to bed at a reasonable hour, so she could start preparing the boat to leave at 5:30 in the morning.

It was supposed to be a mellow night. Just two old friends catching up after far too long apart.

But we made the mistake of stopping into a bar after dinner.

Initially it had been because we just wanted to check out the local scene.

Our entire plan was to have one drink, and then head out.

That whole plan pretty much went out the window the second the rest of her crew walked in the door though.

We were done for.

What had started out as such a mellow night turned into a drink fest in no time.

We had a blast though.

With just enough male attention for me to start feeling like… me again.

Still, none of the guys in the bar that night were him. And the more I drank, the less I could remember why it was that I hadn’t been answering his calls.

We all went back to the boat a little after 3am, and as everyone settled themselves off into their respective rooms, I found myself doing something I never would have done sober.

Dialing his number.

Or at least, the number he had been calling me from while out of town.

After taking such a strong stand and proclaiming a need for space, here I was caving.

Not even 24 hours after I had built up the courage to hit send on an e-mail that was supposed to sever ties.

I was throwing it all away.

Which we can all agree was not one of my brighter moves.

Thankfully, he didn't answer. And I didn't leave a message, common sense somehow prevailing in the end.

But of course, I hadn’t counted on caller ID.

So when he called me back, almost right away, it was all I could do to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest.

But I answered.

It was obvious I had woken him up. He sounded groggy, and concerned, but sober.

Starkly sober in contrast to my anything but.

We spoke for a few minutes as if everything was normal. Exchanging pleasantries as though this was a conversation we had both been expecting to have at this hour all along.

After a few minutes of mindless chatter, he paused and then asked me if I was OK. In all our time together, for all the drunk dials he had made to me, this was a first. I know that to some extent, he was worried. Especially because we were hundreds of miles away from each other and there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it if I wasn’t OK.

When I assured him that I was fine though, tucked safely away on some lavish yacht where I planned to stay until morning, he mentioned the e-mail.

I found myself inhaling, before meekly questioning "Are you mad at me?"

I’m not sure why this was my concern. Why it should ever have been my concern. But it was. I was suddenly terrified that maybe I had hurt him.

He was quick to reassure me though. "No" He said. "Not at all. Not even a little bit. It was a really nice e-mail. I just… I really need you to know how sorry I am. I've been sick all week thinking about what I did. I don’t know what I was thinking. Why I would ever have treated you like that. And I'm just so sorry."

I could feel the tears coming, but even drunk I wasn’t about to let that happened. I choked them back and simply said. "I know."

He asked me when I would be heading home, and then he asked if he could call me once I was there.

Again, after all that resolve I had built up, and after putting my foot down so hard and so well, I caved. Told him that he could.

From there, there wasn’t much left to say. Not now, with me drunk and him half asleep.

So we said our goodbyes.

And that was it.

The next morning, I went over that call in my head a hundred times. Recounting the details as best I could. I still had no clue where his head was at. I knew he was sorry, and I knew he felt badly, but… I didn’t know what that meant.

I didn’t know where we stood.

And I still didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t.

My goodbyes to B-Face were a blur, and before I knew it I was wandering town by myself again. Waiting for my return flight home. I didn’t get there until almost 11 that night, and I passed out quickly - exhausted from my mini-adventure.

Wondering if and when I would hear from him again.

But the next night, he called.

And I answered.

He had clearly been drinking, and the first words out of his mouth were "Do you miss me?"

Sober now, and having had time to think about what a colossal mistake I had made in calling him, I lied.

"No” I said, as boldly as I could manage. “I hate you."

He started laughing before replying "Don't lie. You miss me."

Something about it was contagious.

Something about him was contagious.

I couldn’t help the giggle that leaked out as I told him "No way! You miss me!"

To which he seemed to sober up whilst replying "Of course I miss you. I can't even believe how much I miss you."

From there, he launched into a whole new slew of apologies and explanations.

For the first time, he started telling me that the words he had said that night, now a week before, weren't true. That he had just been hurting so badly, and everything had spun out of control without his ever really meaning for it to. He said he couldn’t even figure out why he had done it. Why he had said what he’d said. He explained that it was true that he had been lonely when we met, and that he had been looking for a rebound, but that everything else that had come out of his mouth that night was lies. That of course he had feelings for me beyond friendship. Of course he wanted more from me.

He seemed so genuine. So raw. And I was having a hard time keeping my walls up.

He just kept going though. Finally saying "I like you. I like you a lot. And I don't really know what that means, and I feel like I need to take things slowly. More slow than we have been. But.... I think about you all the time. You need to know that you’re always on my mind. And I would do anything if we could just forget that night. If you could just forgive me, and we could pretend it never happened at all."

I was hesitating. Unsure of what to say. Of what my response to any of this should be. I knew what my head was telling me to do, but in my heart – I wanted so badly for this all to be true.

For him to really be the guy I believed him to be.

He told me he was going to be home for just a few days over the 4th of July weekend, and that he really wanted to see me if I would let him. That he wanted to take me out to dinner. That he wanted me to let him make that night up to me.

Up to this point, I was still pretty quiet. I hadn’t known what to expect when he called, but I don’t think I’d been fully prepared for this.

I would be lying if I said it wasn’t what I had been hoping for, but… I still hadn’t been prepared.

He confessed that he had been feeling guilty about our relationship for a while now. That a part of him had felt like he was cheating on her, as illogical as that sounded, and feeling like that had started to suffocate him.

Started to make him worry he was the kind of guy he knew he wasn't.

Then he apologized for saying that, not wanting to hurt my feelings in any of these confessions. I’d been so silent, that he just kept rambling. Unsure whether any of what he was saying was making an impact at all.

"I'm not sure if any of this makes sense” he continued. “But it's what I was feeling. I was never a cheater. I was never that guy. And with you, just because of how fast everything happened… I guess sometimes it made me feel like I was. And then seeing her; even though it was over, even though we were done,and even though it was her choice. I just… I felt so guilty. I felt like everything I felt for you was somehow taking away from everything she and I had."

It was here where I chose to break my silence. I told him that everything he was saying made sense. That in so many ways, it was almost to be expected. And then I confessed to him what I had really been fearing; that this had all happened because he wasn't attracted to me. That as much as we had connected in every other way, it hadn’t been enough because physically, I wasn’t what he wanted.

I was embarrassed saying it, but the words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them.

And his response was everything I needed to hear in order to be able to breathe again.

His shock over the fact that I had ever worried about this at all was what set me at ease.

He reassured me profusely that attraction had nothing to do with any of it, and that he was absolutely attracted to me.

In every single way.

Which had been exactly what I had needed to hear.

As silly or self-conscious as that confession may make me now.

We talked for a bit longer before I told him I needed to go to bed.

He said “Goodnight”, and then paused before saying “Just please know that I am so incredibly sorry for hurting you. And I miss you. And I really hope you’ll let me see you when I get home.”

Before I even had a chance to respond, he asked me if he could call me again the next night.

I told him he could.

And then we both got off the phone.

My head was spinning. I really hadn’t expected him to completely switch gears like that. He had shocked me so much, that I hadn’t even put up the fight I knew I should have.

In my head, I still believed that we needed space. And time. And distance.

But in my heart… I wanted us to be able to do exactly what he had asked. I wanted us to be able to wipe the slate clean entirely.

More than anything, I just wanted us to be able to move forward and forget about that one ugly night when everything had seemed to go so south.

And I wanted so badly to believe that we could.

(to be continued...)

When In Doubt… Run Away

2012-01-08T16:06:00.013-09:00

I think I freaked some of you out yesterday when I mentioned that we’re only half-way there. Does it help if I remind you that we’re reliving the events of 8+ months of my life? I swear… the insanity will end eventually! In the meantime, if you need to catch up on this story I’ve been telling, take a peek at parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight first.

Man… that’s getting kind of embarrassing to keep typing out!

I woke up the next morning still numb.

Hurt, and angry, and confused, but…

Profoundly rational.

I got ready for work. Made my breakfast. Packed my lunch.

Never once crying or veering off course.

As I went to walk out the door, I grabbed my phone. But I kept it turned off. I can’t explain why I was so sure he had already called, but I was. And I knew he was going to continue calling until he got in touch with me.

I had no intention of turning my phone back on that day at all.

But I wanted it with me for some reason I can’t quite explain.

The events of the night before were whirling through my brain. My logical side kept reminding me that he was hurting. That he had just gotten divorced. That he had lashed out because I was there. Because I was close. Because I was someone he could lash out at. He had fought so hard not to let her know how much she had hurt him, that lashing out at someone else eventually had been inevitable. Not that I was making excuses for it, because trust me – I wasn’t. It was just that in my quest to have an explanation for his behavior, I knew this was the most logical option.

But the emotional side… that was a different story. The only thing that kept running through my head was “why?” Why would he ever say those things to me? Why would he keep repeating them? He doesn’t like me. He had been using me. He had just been lonely. He had needed a rebound. Those words had all come out of his mouth. Why would he say those things after all that had gone on between us in the previous two months?

Why would he say those things, if there wasn’t at least an iota of truth to them?

It’s not like I’ve never been dumped before. We all know I have been. But, there’s a way to do these things. A tactful way to preserve the dumpee’s feelings.

No one, whether it was true or not, would ever talk to someone who had been good and kind and there for them in the way he had talked to me.

So I had these two pictures of him floating around in my brain. The good man who really did love me and had meant every positive thing he had ever said to me up to this point, but who had lashed out at me and pushed me away only because he himself was hurting more deeply than I truly understood. Or the asshole, who had been lying to me and using me all along and had finally just said to me exactly what had always been on his mind.

I couldn’t figure out how to consolidate those two pictures. Neither one of them seemed to fit completely. I couldn’t wrap my head around how that first guy would ever have used the words he used, regardless of how much he was hurting. And I couldn’t figure out how that second guy could have pretended so well to care about me, if everything he said the night before was true.

Because if it was, he hadn’t just fooled me. He had fooled everyone who counted themselves as his friends.

All the people who had slowly but surely started to become my friends. The ones who had reassured me every step of the way how much he cared about me.

Had they been wrong too?

Or were they all in on the act?

I couldn’t figure it out. But I knew I hadn’t heard the last of him. And so, I just left my phone off.

Not particularly wanting to deal with either guy in that moment.

When I arrived at work, I had an e-mail from an old Friend. B-Face, my favorite nomad who had been there for me in Seattle during my second IVF cycle. She had just landed herself a gig on a private yacht that was going to be touring the coast of Alaska this summer. They would be pulling into Ketchikan that weekend. She wanted to know if I could hop a plane to meet her there.

I’d never been to South East Alaska. I had heard about how gorgeous it was, but had never taken the time to explore it myself.

My ticket was booked before I even e-mailed her back.

When in doubt… run away.

Although, technically, this wasn’t really running away. The boy would be out of town as well. I knew he was leaving that night for 3 weeks in remote Alaska. I knew that as of 4pm, he would be gone.

Out of sight, and out of mind.

But there was something about getting a change of scenery that appealed to me. Of getting out of dodge, and spending time with one of my nearest and dearest.

It sounded a whole lot better than sitting at home trying to figure out what it was exactly that had gone down the night before.

After booking my ticket, and shooting her an e-mail, I realized that I couldn’t wait to hear her voice. I was just too excited to go over the details of this trip. So on my lunch break, I turned my phone on fully intending to give her a call and then immediately turn it back off.

It wasn’t on more than 15 seconds before he called.

I immediately hit the bitch button, but I knew it was too late. It would have rung on his end. He would know I had declined the call, but he would also know the phone was on.

And just a few seconds later, I got a text from him. Asking me to please call him. I debated for about half an hour, angry at myself for turning the phone on at all. But finally, I texted him back. Stating simply that I didn’t want to talk to him. That I had been compassionate and there for him, and he had used me up and tossed me away. I told him that there were a million ways the situation the night before could have gone down, and that the way he had chosen to proceed instead had simply been cruel. I told him that I needed a breather. From him, and the whole mess.

OK, so maybe that wasn’t so simple. But this is me we’re talking about.

He responded right away.

“OK. I just wanted to apologize for how I handled the situation last night.”

I didn’t say anything back. So, he texted again.

“Thanks for treating me so well and being such a good person.”

Again, I didn’t reply. So again, he texted.

“The truth is, I am still totally in love with her, and until I can move past that I only need friends in my life.”

Now I was pissed. Was he really putting this on me? Really?

You know my response was about to be epic.

“I only ever tried to be your friend. That was my sole intention from the very beginning. You’re the one who pushed for it to be more. I told you more than once I was fine just being your friend. You’re the one who continued to say you wanted something more. You’re the one who sat on my couch just a few days in and as I told you I thought you should be out dating lots of girls and I should just be your friend – said that wasn’t what you wanted, and that you hadn’t expected to like anyone as much as you liked me, but that you did and now I was what you wanted. I gave you plenty of outs along the way and have said we could just be friends plenty of times. You’re the one who blurred those lines – because you were lonely, or lying to yourself, or lying to me, or whatever. But don’t put that on me, because it’s not fair. That was all you. It’s been all you all along.

The fact of the matter is, I’m not even mad about that. I don’t like it, but I get it. I’m mad about how you handled it though. About the fact that I’ve been there for you and been a friend to you and you turned around last night and said a bunch of hurtful things to me before just leaving. Like you and what you want/need/feel is all that matters. You broke me down and then you just left. I can honestly say that I don’t have too many friends who would make me feel like that and then just walk away.

And obviously this is why we probably shouldn’t be talking right now – because clearly I’m heated. And I hate feeling like this and putting myself on the line to look like an idiot. I hate letting people know they’ve hurt me.

Do what you need to do to take care of yourself. I’m going to do the same. I’ve tried to be there for you, and clearly that was my mistake. I should have known better. I did know better. I just… cared. About you. And my heart broke for what you were going through and I wanted to be there for you. But now I’m completely drained. And I just need some space.”

Told you it was epic.

The truth is, at this point I still didn’t for one second believe anything he had said the night before to me. But that didn’t really matter. He had said it. And then he had left. It didn’t matter if it was true or not.

He wrote back pretty quickly.

“I agree. I fucked up. What’s done is done. Thanks for everything, and for whatever its worth, I’m sorry.”

I hated him. “What’s done is done”? Who says that? After being a complete and total asshole to someone you’re supposed to care about, who says that?

I hated him.

And I turned my phone right back off.

Now I was fuming. Finally feeling something. Going through the rest of my day practically shaking.

I was suddenly just so angry.

I didn’t turn my phone back on until 5. His plane was supposed to have left at 4, and I knew his cell phone didn’t work where he was going. I figured at this point, it was safe for me to reconnect myself to the world.

And let's be honest – I had a lot of rehashing with friends I needed to do.

But the phone wasn’t back on for two minutes before he called.

I sat there, staring at his name. I didn’t do anything. Just stared trying to figure it out.

He was supposed to be on a plane.

Two seconds after it went to voicemail, he texted me asking that I please call him.

He should have left at 4. So how was he calling me now past 5? Had he stayed behind? Because of me? To fix things with me?

I am ashamed to admit, that was actually the thought that ran through my head.

I waited almost half an hour, battled with myself back and forth, but I finally decided that obviously texting wasn’t going to work. Maybe we should talk.

So, I called him.

He answered almost right away, but it was clear he was still in the airport. There were voices all around, and I could hear speaker announcements going off in the background. He asked me if I would give him a second to get to somewhere quieter.

I told him that of course I would.

It turned out his flight had been delayed. Engine problems. He wasn’t still in town because of me. He was still in town because he was waiting on a plane.

Strike one against me and my master deductive reasoning skills.

At first, neither of us said much of anything. But then finally, I broke the awkwardness.

“What was it you wanted to say?”

I was short, and frustrated, and I know that was evident. There was no kindness in my voice.

So he took on a similar tone. Started off by saying “I just really need you to know how sorry I am. How things happened last night, that wasn’t what I intended. At all. I was really hurting, and seeing her really screwed me up, but… it never should have gone down like that.”

It would have been fine if he had just stopped there, but he didn’t.

“You just need to know though” He continued. “That everything I said last night was true. I don’t have feelings for you beyond friendship. I’m never going to have feelings for you beyond friendship. I was lonely, and I needed a rebound, and you were there, but… I don’t like you in that way. You need to know that.”

Was he serious? Was he seriously repeating these same hurtful words to me again?

Like I hadn’t heard them the night before?

What the hell kind of fucked up apology was this?

I took a breath before responding, and then said “I get it. Is there anything else?”

You’re never going to believe this, but… he started saying it again.

A broken record about how much he didn’t have feelings for me.

Again, I was stunned into silence.

Finally, I cut him off. “I’m not going to argue with you. If that’s what you’re hoping for, I’m not going to sit here trying to convince you that you’re wrong. I’m not going to point out all the times you’ve said something totally contrary to what you’re saying now. I’m not going to remind you of every single time we’ve shared something beyond friendship. I’m not going to do this with you. If you don’t want to be with me, fine. But for the record – I don’t need to hear it anymore. So, are you done?”

He seemed shocked. There was part of me that really felt like he wanted me to fight him on this. Like he wanted me to fight for him.

And I wasn’t going to do it.

He started stammering. Apologizing again. I don’t even know what. The whole thing was just so ridiculous, and I couldn’t for the life of me figured out why he had called at all.

“Listen” I said. “Get on that plane. Go do whatever work you have to do. I’m going to Ketchikan this weekend to see a friend. I don’t want to hear from you again. Take care of yourself.”

I was done.

So frustrated, and angry, and yet so calm… I couldn’t believe it.

I don’t think he could either.

He stammered out a few more apologies, and then we got off the phone.

I wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t true, but more and more I was believing the things he was saying. It was one thing for him to have been saying them the night before, when he was obviously in the midst of breaking down. It was another thing entirely for him to be saying them again now.

I couldn’t figure out why he had needed to call me to say all the same things again, but he had.

He wouldn’t be doing that if it wasn’t true, would he?

I didn’t expect to hear from him again.

At all.

Ever.

There was this part of me that was still holding on to what I believed we had. This part that was telling me that he would eventually regret this. Miss me. Miss what could have been. This part that wanted to believe that at some point, he would reach out. Wanting another chance.

But the part that was listening to the things he was saying – that was growing larger and larger by the second.

And I really didn’t expect to hear from him again.

Except, he called that night. From the same remote phone he had used before when he had been out on this work site.

He left a message asking me to call him back.

I didn’t.

And then he called the next night.

And the next.

And the next.

Some nights, he called more than once. Leaving a message and then trying again 5-10 minutes later. Almost as if he hoped that after hearing his message, I would lose my resolve not to answer.

The final message he left Friday night was pretty desperate.

He sounded sober. But also like he was losing confidence in the fact that he would ever speak to me again. All he said was “Please. Just please call me back. I’m so sorry. Please.”

I couldn’t figure out why he was calling. Nothing he said on his messages really hinted at what he wanted. He just kept asking me to call him back. I didn’t want to fool myself into thinking it was that he missed me, or that he wanted to fix what he had broken. I had already made that mistake once.

I wasn’t going to make it again.

But I couldn’t figure out what it was he wanted.

I had written him an e-mail earlier in the week. This thing I do when I have something to say, but don’t know how to say it. I had written it, but I hadn’t sent it. Mrs. King and I had shared it back and forth. Editing and tweaking. Playing with it until I felt better about the words on the page. About the resolve they stood for.

After hearing his Friday night voicemail, I started working on that e-mail again.

For hours.

Almost up the point when it was time for me to leave for the airport.

And at 5 in the morning, I hit send.

Sharing the entire contents of that e-mail here would require a whole other post, but some of the highlights included:

“I need you to know that I’m not mad at you. I’m not even upset anymore. I can’t imagine how hard Monday was for you. I fooled myself into thinking you were OK because you seemed to be in such good spirits. You seemed to be taking it all so well. But that was stupid of me. I should have known better. And to an extent, I definitely blame myself for how things went down that night.

The end result was that you pushed me away though. You pushed hard. You drilled a fairly hurtful point home to me over and over again. Even in calling to apologize, you continued to repeat the same words. Almost like you were trying to hurt me. Or you thought maybe I’m dense and just wouldn’t get it.

Trust me – I got it.”

“The thing you have to understand is... I spent a decent part of my life being broken down and tossed away like I didn't matter at all by the people who were supposed to care about me. But I'm an adult now. And I have worked too hard to get past my issues and to be confident, and strong, and happy for me to let anyone make me feel like that again. And as much as I know you're in a bad place and probably just needed to lash out at someone, I also know that I've been there for you. That I've been a friend to you. And that I deserved better than that from you.

I think you know that too.”

“I did learn a long time ago that life is a hell of a lot easier if you force yourself to focus on what you do have instead of what you’ve lost. It took me plenty of missteps to get there, but maybe you’ll learn that lesson a lot quicker than I ever did. Because you really do have so much. You have two parents who love you, a beautiful home, a good job, and an amazing set of friends in your life who would do just about anything for you. You are intelligent, and attractive, and witty and fun to be around. What she did to you was cruel and incomprehensible, but you still have so much. So much more than so many people have.

I wish I could help you to see that. I wish I could be the friend you want me to be. But after everything that’s been said and done – I’m not even sure what that friendship would look like right now. And I’m pretty sure you aren’t either.”

I ended it by saying that maybe one day, we could be friends. After he had healed, and I had gotten over the carelessness with which he had treated me. Maybe he would call me up out of the blue, explaining that he was some guy I met on New Year’s Eve at some not so distant point in the past, and I would be the girl again pretending not to have any recollection of meeting him at all. And maybe then, we could just take it from there.

But that right now, the best thing for both of us was space.

I told him to take care of himself.

And then I signed it “Love”.

As soon as I hit send, I grabbed my bag.

Walked out the door, and put myself on a plane to Ketchikan.

(to be continued...)

D-Day

2012-01-07T20:11:00.012-09:00

This is getting out of hand. But I think (hope) that we’re about half-way there now. If you need a recap, check out parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven before moving on.

We woke up the next morning and went to breakfast with Jay and Mel. Not a one of us was feeling too grand at that point.

I had started to wonder if maybe the boy’s drinking was rubbing off on me. I had never been one opposed to a good time every now and again, but my life before the boy felt like it had consisted of far fewer hangovers. I went from having a glass of wine with dinner one or two nights a month (and the very occasional celebratory night of one too many), to kicking at least a few back at a time two or three nights a week now.

And this morning marked the second time I'd been hungover with him in just two weeks.

At 28 years old, this was not how I wanted to be spending so much of my time. My drinking days had long since passed, and I missed the weekend mornings of waking up and feeling refreshed and productive. It was summer time in Alaska, and I wanted to be out in the sun exploring. I wanted to be running, and hiking, and biking and maintaining the good health I had been blessed with just a few months before.

I didn’t want to be nursing hangovers with a rising consistency.

Still, I just kept telling myself to get through the next two days. That life would normalize, if we could just get through the next two days.

After breakfast, Jay and Mel offered to take the boy home since they lived out in his direction. I went back to my place and crawled into bed, sleeping most of my day away.

We hadn’t talked about whether or not we would be seeing each other that night, and I wasn’t sure how he was feeling or where his head was at given how withdrawn we had all been that morning. I had already taken the following day off work, and he knew that. It wasn’t that I had any intention at all of going with him to court (because of course I didn’t!), it was just that I wanted to be home and available for him that day if he needed me.

It would be the first time in months he would actually be seeing her.

Face to face.

For the official nail in the coffin of their marriage.

Given how much time we had spent talking about this, I was genuinely worried about how he was going to handle the whole thing. And I just wanted him to know that I was there. That if he wanted to come over after and cuddle up in bed to talk, or cry, or block the rest of the world out with me – we could.

Still… we had no set plans and I wasn’t sure when I would be hearing from him again.

I was definitely in hands off mode at this point. Thinking that we had spent the previous two nights together, and it would make sense if he wanted some space this night. The night before the actual end. But around 7, he called me asking if I would come over and spend the night with him. He said he just didn’t want to be alone.

I got there, prepared for what I was sure was going to be a difficult evening. But while he was quiet, and reserved – he wasn’t broken down in the way I had expected him to be.

We laid out his suit for the next morning, talked for a while about how everything was going to go down, and then put on a movie to watch before heading off to bed.

We didn’t drink that night. But we didn’t touch either. At all. We slept on our own sides of his California King bed, with so much distance between us; it would have been comical if it wasn’t so sad.

I was prepared to comfort him. But he never really broke, so instead – I just followed his cues.

Keeping my distance, while also maintaining my presence.

The next morning he got up and walked to the shower. Stood in the bathroom without saying much of anything as he got ready.

I sat on the bed watching him. Matching his silence, but still letting him know I was there.

As he dressed, I was surprised to find myself thinking about how handsome he was. He is a pretty man. Probably one of the prettiest men I have ever dated. With piercing blue eyes and perfect skin and this jaw line that just… made me melt.

Which doesn't even begin to touch on what taking his shirt off did to me.

And there he was, this man who I was already so attracted to. Dressed in a suit for his divorce. Looking more dapper than I had ever seen him.

I cracked some joke then, about how nice he looked. Asking if he was at all interested in a pre-divorce blow job.

I had wanted to get him laughing, so when he did – I breathed a sigh of relief.

We joked back and forth a bit more before he took one last deep, calming breath.

And then we both walked down the stairs to his kitchen and out the door to his garage. Getting into our separate cars as we said our goodbyes and he promised to call me as soon as everything was said and done.

The appearance before the judge had been set for first thing that morning, so when I hadn’t heard from him by 10, I sent a text letting him know that my stomach was in knots and that I was worried about him.

I couldn’t imagine that divorce proceedings could take all that long, especially between two people who didn’t have children and hadn’t even bothered to get lawyers involved.

All I could do was picture him somewhere by himself. Hurting and breaking down.

And it left me a pile of nerves thinking there was nothing I could do to help.

About an hour later he called.

He actually sounded like he was doing alright. He said that the judge had been 20 minutes late, but that once they got started the entire thing lasted no more than 5 minutes. I knew he was disgusted by that - just by how quick and easy it had been to get divorced. He seemed more upset about that than anything else.

From the sounds of things, he had held it together pretty well throughout the entire process. I do know the play by play of everything that happened in that room, and after, but in writing it out I realized that part is their story. Not mine.

It's not something I have the right to share here.

I do know that after everything was said and done, he decided he wanted to see his dogs. He loved those dogs with all his heart and talked about them all the time. But he hadn’t seen them since she left just a few months before. He had known that facing her would be too difficult, and hadn’t wanted to prolong his pain.

Now that he had seen her though, he decided he wanted to see them too. To be able to say his goodbyes.

He told me that was when he finally cried. When he was with his dogs, acknowledging the fact that it would probably be the last time he would ever see them.

He had called me as soon as he left there. And after recounting the details of his morning for me, he said he had decided he wanted to go in to work. It was the middle of the busy season in Alaska, and he had things to get done. Items he could turn his attention to.

I was proud of him.

Of how well he was dealing.

Of how strong he seemed to be in this moment.

I was proud of how he had handled everything.

Proud to know him.

And proud to call him mine.

It was official.

He was divorced.

And in my mind, that meant he could finally start healing.

I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a sigh of relief on my part at that point.

A part of me that felt I could stop looking over my shoulder; fearing what would happen if she changed her mind.

If he was faced with a choice between her or me.

I went about the rest of my day attending to chores I had been neglecting in the previous weeks of taking care of him.

Confident in the fact that from here on out, things between us were going to start building in a healthy direction.

So when he called me that night and asked if he could come over, I told him that of course he could.

This was the start.

The start of us.

When he showed up, he seemed fine. Amazing actually, considering. We were joking and laughing and everything was good.

I was happy he wanted to be with me. Happy to know that for the previous 3 nights, it had been me he wanted by his side as he navigated his way through this.

And happy that now that it was all over, it was me he still wanted to curl up in bed next to.

Besides, I knew he was heading back out to the remote work sight the next day. I also knew he was going to be gone this time until the 4th of July weekend. We were about to have almost 3 weeks of physical separation.

I would take as much time with him as I could get.

He got to my place a little after 10:00, and we were just sitting in bed talking and laughing. Everything seemed fine. He didn’t seem distracted or withdrawn or pulled away at all. He was engaged; telling some stupid story that had me laughing almost to the point of tears. And he wasn’t even drinking. He honestly seemed like he was coping so well.

Allowing myself to believe that was my first mistake.

And I was about to make my second.

I reached out to him and made some comment about a little post-divorce nookie.

I was half kidding. Playing off on the laugh we had shared over a similar joke that morning.

But there was part of me that was serious too. Part of me that really wanted to connect with him in that way. Tonight. Before he left. Sober.

Because the truth of the matter was, we really hadn’t had sober sex since right before she sent him that text.

I wanted to be with him. To have him looking in my eyes. To know that it was me he was with.

But my timing was all off.

Because he immediately looked at me and said "I don't want to have sex."

Or at least, that was what I wish he had said.

The truth is, what he really said was “I don’t want to have sex with you.” And there was a venom attached to that “you” I’m not sure I could appropriately put into words if I tried.

I was stunned. Shocked into silence. Feeling as though my cheek must be red, because clearly he had just slapped me.

Hadn't he?

Confused, I said. "But… we just had sex two days ago? You couldn’t keep your hands off of me?"

To which he looked at me and simply replied “I was drunk.”

I was amazed at how quickly he had turned so cold.

And I was so unbelievably confused. Unsure of what was going on here. It was one thing for him to not be in the mood. That made sense. And in fact, it had been stupid of me to even bring it up on this night. I had just mistakenly trusted in how OK he seemed to be. But the fact that we were even here having this conversation at all… it was my fault. Because my timing had been all off.

Still… it was something entirely differently for him to be saying he didn’t want to be having sex with me.

And suddenly, it felt like a door had flung open. Because he just kept talking.

He told me that he would never have any feelings for me beyond friendship. That he was 100% positive of that fact. That he loved spending time with me, but he knew those romantic feelings I wanted him to have just weren't there. That there was nothing about me that made him want anything more.

He didn't stop there though. He kept going. Saying these things that made no sense at all.

He was making it sound like I had made everything up in my head, and he had just gone along with it because it had seemed like the thing to do. Even though in reality, we had embarked upon the conversation of "us" more than a few times, and it was always me saying we should step back and just be friends and him saying that wasn't what he wanted.

He was making it sound like I was stupid to have ever believed he felt anything more for me.

And I just kept sitting there. Taking it.

Until I couldn’t anymore.

I took a deep breath and proceeded as calmly as I could, but I finally started calling him out. Telling him that if what he was saying was true, he had been sending me a lot of mixed signals. I told him that I don't have sex with my "friends". That I don't spend night after night cuddled up in the same bed with my "friends". I reminded him of what we had before she sent that text. Of every conversation we ever had where he told me exactly the opposite of what he was saying now. And I pointed out that every time he had gotten drunk in the last few weeks, for some reason I had been the one he couldn’t stop thinking about. Couldn’t stop himself from calling.

I told him that I thought that meant something. That I thought it all meant something.

But he told me that all it meant, was that he had been lonely.

He said he liked my companionship. And he liked having someone to be with. But that he wished we had never slept together at all because he didn’t want to lose my friendship - and he knew he would never feel anything more for me than that.

I was trying so hard to keep it together. To be calm, and cool, and collected. The whole time I had Jay’s words from just a few nights before running through my head. Jay telling me how into me the boy was. How much he liked me. But how scared he was of whatever that meant. That's all Jay kept saying - that the boy liked me so much I scared him.

But here the boy was - literally telling me he didn't like me at all. Using those exact words. "I don't like you."

A week before he was telling me he loved me.

And now, he just kept repeating “I don’t like you.” Over and over again. Even when I wasn’t saying anything in return. He just kept saying it. Like I was a kindergartner on the playground trying to steal kisses from him, rather than the woman he had shared a bed with and been supported by for the past 2 months.

"I don't like you."

Not even "I don't love you."

Just "I don't like you."

Still, I was holding it together. Grasping at straws to keep things from spiraling out of control. My mind was racing, but my voice and my demeanor; they were both so calm. I just kept thinking that he had just gotten divorced that day, and that this wasn't a conversation we should be having right now.

I told him that if everything he was saying was true, that the mixed signals needed to stop. That we could be friends, and I could contain my feelings, but that we needed first and foremost to stop sleeping in the same bed. We needed to stop cuddling. And I needed to stop being the first number he dialed every time he got drunk and dropped those inhibitions.

I told him that it didn't make sense to me. That I didn't understand how he could tell me he cares about me so much and that he loves spending time with me, but then in the same breath tell me that he would never have any romantic feelings for me. We had sexual chemistry, I knew that. So I couldn’t figure out where this was coming from.

And I told him that.

But then, he started crying. Like, really crying. And suddenly, I felt awful. I can honestly say I’ve never actually had any guy I was ever dating cry in front of me. And I didn’t know how to react. His eyes had definitely watered up in front of me a few times, but this; he was actually crying. And I felt guilty for that. Because he had come over in a fairly good mood, and here he was crying. Because of me. Because I had somehow plunged us into this topic of conversation without ever actually meaning to. Crying because he said he never meant to hurt me, and he was angry at himself for taking my feelings so for granted.

And crying over her. Over his divorce.

He was just sitting there crying, and suddenly, I found myself trying to comfort him - even though he had just dumped me in a pretty brutal way.

It was ridiculous.

I know it was ridiculous.

And then, it got even more ridiculous.

He said he was leaving. It was almost midnight, and he started getting up to go. I told him that was silly. Not to be dramatic. That we did need to stop sleeping in the same bed, but at this point - it was the middle of the night. His office was less than a mile from my house, and his place was a 40 minute drive away.

I told him not to be crazy.

But he was already packing up his stuff. Getting it all together. Crying the entire time.

Which is when I started crying.

Or at least, trying to cry. Because I felt like I should be. I felt like now would be the time for tears.

Except, I couldn’t. I sat there as he was packing up thinking to myself that my reaction to all of this should be tears. I was silent, not saying another word, thinking about the fact that I really should be crying.

Not because I wanted it to have an effect on him, but because... that was how a normal person would be reacting right now.

But I just couldn’t make them come.

And suddenly, that was all I could think about. The fact that I wasn't normal. That I wasn't capable of normal human emotions.

He's getting ready to leave, and all I could focus on was my inability to cry.

Don’t get me wrong – I was hurt. More hurt than I had been in a long time.

But, I was also numb.

Shut down.

Emotionally stunted.

This has of course been an issue in my past. I really struggle with showing emotion in the appropriate context. I have had complete meltdowns over breaking my curling iron or stubbing my toe, but legitimate tears over a broken heart?

They don’t come easily to me.

And certainly not in front of the person who's doing the breaking.

So I just sat there, pretending to cry. While he packed up everything he had already taken out to get ready for bed. A bag full of belongings that was supposed to last him the next 3 weeks. I knew he hadn’t planned on this happening, but now it was. And he was packing. And crying. All the while ignoring my own faux tears.

Neither one of us saying a word.

When he got to my bedroom door with his bag in hand, he paused for one second. And then without even looking back at me, he said "The problem is, I'm a guy who had a perfect life. More than anyone else could ever ask for. And now... I don't have any of it."

At which point, he only started crying harder.

And then he walked out the door.

No goodbye. No hug. No nothing.

He just left me. Sitting on my bed. Pretending to cry.

I sat there for a solid 5 minutes, trying desperately to determine what had just gone down.

How things had slid out of control so quickly.

In my head I knew how stupid I had been to let myself think for even one second that he was doing alright that night.

How could I have been so naïve?

I knew I should have been more on the lookout for signs that he was crumbling.

And I also knew that he had needed someone to lash out at.

I just happened to be the closest person in sight that he could hurt.

It was inevitable.

Almost pre-destined that this was going to happen that night.

I never should have let him come over at all.

But then I’m sure that would have set him off as well.

He was looking for this. An excuse and a reason to hurt me. To push me away. To break anything good we had.

I recognized it, because it’s kind of a signature move of mine.

Push the people who care the most away when it feels like the world is spinning out of control.

It’s how I lost the ex.

I got it.

And I knew, in my heart, that we weren’t over.

But I also knew that nothing about what had just happened was OK.

I was still numb.

Shocked.

Stunned.

And unable to cry.

So, I got up. Walked to the front door and made sure it was locked behind him.

Then I went back to my room, turned out the light, and crawled into bed.

Just before I closed my eyes, I turned off my phone.

Intentionally making it clear that I did not want to speak to him when he called.

Because more than anything else, I knew that he would.

(To be continued…)

Fun Bobby

2012-01-06T20:37:00.008-09:00

Sometimes, we all have a little story telling to do. If you would like to catch up on mine before jumping right in to what happened next, feel free to check out parts one, two, three, four, five, and six first.

There’s only so long you can bask in the glow of sweet nothings whispered by a drunken man who has already proven himself to be nothing if not confused.

But the next morning, I couldn’t help my basking.

Wanting to stay in bed curled up in his arms for as long as possible – fearful that setting our feet on the floor would lead to the inevitable destruction of all the good that had been built the night before.

He woke up feeling pretty awful. Which made sense, because it had been the most drunk I had ever seen him.

And that was saying a lot, given our escapades at the cabin.

We managed to get up and start our day though, and I quickly announced that I wanted to take off soon and go to church. He made a crack about me being the perfect girl – one who knew when it was time to get up and get out. I caught his eye for a second and said “What? You mean you don’t want me moving in?” A look of pure panic washed across his face as he tried to assess whether or not I was serious, and it was all I could do to keep my expression blank.

When he hadn’t said a thing a few moments later, I took the lead.

“But…” I pouted, putting on my very best you’re-breaking-my-heart face. “You told me you loved me!”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I busted out laughing before he ever had a chance to respond.

I’m pretty sure he called me an asshole.

But he was laughing too. Breathing again. And looking at me like he was more than just a little bit grateful that I was willing to make light of the night before.

I could tell he was still trying to get a handle on it all. On what he felt for me. What he felt for her. And how the two could possibly ever co-exist.

I ended up taking him to his truck from there, which was half an hour back in the direction we had come from the night before. We talked a lot on that drive about the events that would be unfolding in just a week’s time.

The official end of his marriage.

I know it was weighing on him. That he was struggling with how it was he was supposed to feel anything but heartbroken over that impending date. I was fairly sure that as the day grew closer, he would be increasing the distance between us as he wrapped his head around what it meant to mourn the loss of his marriage.

Which is why I was surprised when he called that night asking if he could come over. I really had assumed that I would be seeing much less of him in the week to come.

He turned up fairly morose, and sat quietly on my couch before finally looking at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen and announcing “I really don’t want to be divorced.”

I didn’t blame him. I knew this was hard. That if I had been in his shoes, I wouldn’t want to be divorced either. He really and truly had wanted to see his marriage last. Forever. He had wanted to be with one person and one person only for the rest of his life. He wanted the quiet and settled contentment that comes with committing yourself completely to someone you love.

And he was losing it, through no real fault of his own.

I understood his sadness over that. Over the disruption of a life he had already planned on living from now until forever.

And I understood why he was having a difficult time coping.

Up to this point, the boy had led a fairly idyllic life. He was the only child of parents who were still together and loved him dearly. His core group of friends were the same guys he had been hanging out with since kindergarten. And they were good friends, who would do just about anything for him. He had never left Alaska, and anything he had ever sought out to do – he had succeeded in. He had earned himself a master’s degree and a solid job with a great company he had been with since his early 20’s. He had been with a woman he loved for 6 years, and they owned a beautiful home with floor to ceiling windows and 2 dogs they both doted on like children.

Dogs that she had taken with her when everything had fallen apart.

Nothing had ever really shaken him before this though.

And I know that as the weeks passed, he found himself less and less able to cope.

So much of what he was feeling was normal. But so much of how he was dealing with it wasn’t.

I truly think it was just something he had never really learned; how to survive the hard stuff.

Because the hard stuff had never really hit.

In contrast, the life I had led up to this point was very different from the one the boy had known.

And I recognized that.

In some ways, I was almost grateful for it.

Because here he was, learning these lessons for the first time. And I could see how difficult it was for him to process. I could see how much it was tearing him up. Having to come to terms with the fact that people leave. They lie, and betray, and let you down.

Not always.

But more often than you would ever expect.

It’s a lesson we all have to learn at some point.

One I had learned far too young, and one that in some ways at least – he was learning far too late.

We talked a lot that night, and when he took out a bottle of whiskey and poured himself more than a few drinks, I kept my mouth shut.

Even though this was starting to become a habit.

Her popping up again when he had just been getting to a point of letting go… it had thrown him. And he was trying so hard to get back to a good place, but he just wanted to be there already. He just wanted to feel good again.

So, he was drinking. A lot since that text. Bringing his own bottles of crown over to my house when he would spend the night. His own mixers. His own ice. It had been a solid two weeks now of his drinking. Every single night.

I knew for a fact that he had never had a drinking problem. All of his friends seemed as thrown by his new habit as I was. But we were all trying to treat it as exactly what we hoped it was; just a phase.

The sad part is that at least initially, I didn't discourage it. He was having a hard time, and when I first started noticing it - it did seem like drinking helped. He would immediately perk up and become fun again. Transform from sour and dark into light and uplifted. He would go from being distant and withdrawn, to being engaged and completely connected. The few times we discussed the regularity of his drinking, he confided in me that when he would drink – he could stop thinking of her.

I didn’t exactly get the drinking, because I know that when I’m circling the drain and obsessing over someone who has hurt me, drinking is the absolute last thing I should be doing, but for him... it seemed to be working.

He left for an out of town work trip early the next morning. Kissing me goodbye as I remained snuggled up in bed. Leaving behind that sneak attack in his wake; a toothbrush sitting in the holder now right next to mine. A subtle reminder that he was growing more comfortable with the idea of claiming his own space here in my life.

He would be spending the next few days in the more remote areas of Alaska where his cell phone didn’t work. But he still managed to call me a few times throughout the week to check in.

Always at the end of the day.

And always drunk.

But also always happy to be talking to me. To hear my voice. To know I was there.

When he got back in town Friday night, he called me as he was leaving the airport. Asked if I wanted to come over to spend the night with him. We talked about going out and meeting up with his friends, but in the end we just spent the night together. Drinking at his house and laughing over everything. His divorce was only 3 days away, and I kept thinking he was going to crack. That any minute he was going to fall apart. But his mood was good. And he was sweet, and affectionate, and making me laugh the entire night long.

The next night was Mel’s high school reunion. She and Jay were going to be heading out downtown for the party, and had invited the boy and I along. From there the boy had invited Dee and her husband as well. Dee being one of those two amazing women I've told you about who is now pregnant after IVF and has become one of my closest friends over the last year. Her husband being one of those core friends I mentioned the boy had been lucky enough to have in his life since childhood.

I ended up coming to the bar after everyone was already there and the boy was well into drinking. He was immediately happy to see me, wrapping his arms around me and smiling down at me like he couldn’t believe I was there.

I couldn’t help it. I liked him like this.

He made some comment about how beautiful I was looking, and even as my smile was spreading, the words came flying out.

“OK Fun Bobby… I think you’ve had enough to drink tonight!”

Immediately, everyone around us started laughing.

Including the boy, who I’m fairly sure still to this day has no real clue who Fun Bobby is.

(Note to readers: If you don’t know who Fun Bobby is either, I’m going to need you to cease reading and not come back until you have brushed up on your Friends references.)

It was a pretty perfect call on my part though, if I do say so myself. He was Fun Bobby to a tee. And I was Monica - realizing the alcohol was a problem, but also knowing that he was so much more enjoyable to be around when he was drinking. Recognizing that sometimes, in the deepest, darkest depths of my brain where I felt guilty even then for thinking it; I almost wished the drinking would continue. Nightly. Forever. Always, if that’s what it would take to keep him happy and engaged and with me.

I made the mistake of making this confession to Dr. Headshrink earlier in the week.

And she had, in the nicest way possible, accused me of being co-dependent.

Of wanting him to need me.

Of latching on to his problems, if only because they helped me to avoid my own.

I couldn’t really argue with her either. In my heart, I knew there was so much more to it than that. That there was so much more to him (and to my feelings for him) than that.

But in my head… I also knew that I hadn’t found myself dwelling on infertility since I had met him.

Not even once.

After a thorough analysis of my previous dating history though, she granted that this had never been an issue in my past.

That if anything, the opposite had been true – the men who had needed and latched on to me the most were the ones I had run the furthest from.

But she did encourage me to start putting limits on how much time we spent talking about his soon to be ex wife.

Which is something I really struggled with. If he wanted to talk about it, I wanted to be there for him. If he was hurting, I didn’t want him keeping that from me.

But I would be lying if I said that I didn’t recognize the very real issues our relationship had lingering beneath the surface at this point. A relationship that for the last few weeks had consisted mostly of his either:

Pushing me away.
Treating me as a therapist with whom he dissected the gory details of his divorce.

Drunkenly declaring his never ending love for me with no clear recollection of the time he had already dedicated to the aforementioned options.

I just kept telling myself that at his heart, this was a man I really could see myself spending forever with. We shared the same sense of humor and penchant for bold and open honesty above and beyond what most people would consider normal. We wanted the same things out of life. We could talk for hours on end about nothing and everything all at once.

But more than anything, I trusted him.

He was loyal and solid and true.

I knew he wouldn’t ever be the guy to lie to me, or sneak around behind my back, or walk away for no reason when I least expected him to leave.

I knew he would be good to me.

If we could only get past this place of hurting he was in now.

So "Fun Bobby" fit.

And for a while there, it stuck.

That night, as the six of us drank and danced and laughed, I could feel him watching me when I wasn’t by his side. But I still had concerns. I was still wary about what his affection meant when it only seemed to be coming lately as an extension of his Fun Bobby persona.

Jay pulled me aside at one point and started giving me a pep talk. He told me that they had discussed me a lot, and that his personal opinion was that the boy was terrified of me. That I was everything he wanted, and he just hadn’t been prepared to meet me so quickly.

Jay told me that the boy had described me as the nicest person he had ever met, and that he had tormented himself over even the possibility of hurting me. But that when it all came down to it, the boy was always talking about me. Always recounting something funny I had said, or something kind I had done for him. I had so many reservations at this point, but there Jay was – encouraging me. Like my coach in a marathon. He was so sure the boy and I were perfect for each other. That if I was just patient, this would all work out in the end.

But he also conceded that more than anything, I needed to protect myself. And that if the point in time came when the boy got too out of line, I would need to choose me. To walk away.

He seemed so confident in my ability to do that. In my ability to protect myself first.

I have to admit that at this stage, I wasn’t so confident.

I knew how I felt about him. How much I wanted to be there for him. And it scared me.

But Jay; he was confident. Not just in my ability to protect myself, but also in the boy’s feelings for me. The fact that in the end, that would be what would win out.

A little later in the night the boy ran into a girl he knew from high school. Not an uncommon event in a town this small. But something about seeing the two of them huddled up talking set me off. Maybe it was because I was drinking, or maybe it was because I was already feeling unsure of how solid we really were, but… for the first time I got jealous. For the first time, I let myself picture him with someone else, and it had me seeing red. Because at this point, I knew that even though neither one of us was seeing anyone else, we weren’t tied down either. We weren’t committed.

If he wanted to go home with her tonight instead of me, technically – he could.

And I would be the one who was left behind broken and hurt.

I realized I needed a breather, and I marched myself to the upper level of the bar we were at in search of the furthest bathroom I could find.

I just needed some air. Some space.

By the time I got through the line and back to the room we had been drinking in, there was now a wait to re-enter. So I found myself standing in another line. Drunk and annoyed and unsure of whether or not the boy had even realized I was no longer there.

Just as I was contemplating actually leaving, Jay came around the corner and looked immediately relieved to have spotted me. He talked the bouncer into letting me back in, and then pulled me under the stairwell right before we entered the room.

He asked me where I had been, and I said the bathroom – without exactly confessing to the fact that I had intentionally sought out the farthest bathroom I could find.

He said the boy had been in panic mode when he realized I wasn’t there. That he had feared I’d left because he was talking to another girl, and he kept telling everyone over and over again that she was just an old friend.

It was now when I thought to look at my phone, and saw immediately that the boy had in fact sent me more than a few texts trying to figure out where I was.

Jay reminded me again that the boy really did care. That he didn’t want to hurt me. And that most of all, he didn’t want to lose me.

We walked back into the room, and I immediately spotted the boy sitting on a bench talking to Mel and looking completely distraught. When he looked up and saw me with Jay, the relief that washed across his face was evident. He instantly jumped up and came to my side, a hesitant smile expanding as he realized that I was still there.

He took my hand, and didn’t let it go the rest of the night.

And when we walked into my house a few hours later, after a cab ride spent barely able to keep our hands off of each other, we broke our own rule.

With so much of the same desperation that had been there two weeks before.

He did seem like he was starting to come around. Like slowly, he was getting himself back to where he had been. Like maybe even we were getting back to where we had been.

He told me that night that the only thing he knew for sure was that he was happier when he was with me.

And I believed that.

I knew that I was happier when we were together too. That drunk, sober, affectionate, or pulled away - I preferred to have him by my side. To know that he was doing OK. And to be in a position to help when he wasn’t.

In two days, he would be divorced.

And I just kept hoping that maybe then, we would be able to return to normal.

To put her behind us, and to move forward together.

Without quite so much whiskey.

Because as much fun as Fun Bobby could be;

I was ready for the boy to go back to being the man I knew he was.

The man I knew I wanted to be mine.

For keeps.

(to be continued...)

The 'L' Word

2012-01-05T18:30:00.020-09:00

Just in case you have no idea what’s going on here, check out parts one, two, three, four and five of this massively long story first.

Like I said already, there never was a phone call that night.

I kept waiting for it, but it never came.

I had taken a ton of pictures over the weekend, so I spent my time that evening dumping them into an online account that I could send my three weekend camping partners a link to.

I went to bed sad. Unsure of where we stood, or what exactly was going on.

We had been having fun over the weekend, hadn't we?

So where was he now? Why had he suddenly pulled away?

The next day, I got long e-mails from both Mel and Jay thanking me for the pictures and recounting hilarious moments from our little adventure. They were both their warm and welcoming selves. Making me feel as though I was their friend, not just the boys… whatever it was I was.

I heard from the boy eventually as well. Just a quick e-mail, which he copied both Jay and Mel on. He thanked me for the pictures, and then asked for a high definition copy of one that he said he really liked. It was similar to this one:

Except with he and Jay on the dock goofing around, the sky making them basically just shadows up against all that color.

It was a really cool picture, and I remembered liking it myself when I had been going through them all. I was happy he liked it, and happy he wanted a better copy. I sent it off right away, but then didn’t hear from him again.

No phone call. No text. No e-mail. No carrier pigeons.

The next day was exactly the same. We had never before gone even one day without talking. Not when we’d both been in the same town and within cell range at least. And here it was – two days had passed. With no explanation, and no real clue about what was going on.

I tried to keep calm. Tried to remind myself that he just had some things to work through. But… it was hard.

The following day, I got a phone call while I was at work. It was a number I didn’t recognize, but for some reason – I answered anyway.

It was woman. One who’s voice I had never heard before. When I answered, she asked for my name. I reminded her that she had called me, but she repeated again “Will you please just tell me your name?”

So I did.

And she hung up on me.

I immediately panicked. It was one of the strangest phone calls I had ever received.

And my first thought was – it had to have been her. Maybe she had gotten a hold of his cell phone records. Maybe she had seen how much we had been talking. Maybe she already knew he was seeing someone, and had just wanted further proof.

Not that she would have had any right to care really, but… what if?

All I could think was that if she was hesitating about her decision at all, thinking he was seeing someone else might be all it would take for her to come running back.

A thought which honestly, terrified me.

I sent him a text. Broke the silence to explain the call I had just received and ask if there was any possible way she could have gotten a hold of his phone bill.

That made sense, right? If they had once shared a phone plan, it was at least possible she still had access to it.

He called me back right away though, and the first words out of his mouth were “Have you gone completely paranoid?”

He reminded me that his company paid for his cell phone.

That there was no possible way she had gotten a hold of his bill. Or my phone number.

Oh.

It was just a weird phone call.

Nothing more, and nothing less.

Which is pretty much what our conversation resulted in as well. There was no mention of the days we had gone since speaking. No apology or explanation about the disappearing act. He had called me back right away, but our actual conversation was short and not so sweet.

As soon as we established that it had simply been a bizarre wrong number, we got off the phone.

And I deflated.

I started to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be making it so easy for him to pull away from me. If maybe, just maybe, it was important for me to reach out to him right now.

But I was just so torn on how I should be proceeding.

That night though, when I still hadn’t heard from him, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I had to know where we stood.

And I had to let him know that… I missed him. Even though it had only been a few days; I missed him.

So I sent him one of my signature epically long text messages (something he had at least up to that point, been spared.)

“I know you have a lot on your mind right now, and I really am trying to give you whatever space you need. But I just wanted you to know that I’m thinking of you. From day one I said that I wanted to be your friend and be able to be there for you above and beyond anything else, and that still holds true… I’m missing talking to you, and feeling kind of shut out. Like I did something wrong? I don’t think it’s really that, but… I am missing you. Take whatever time and space you need, but please just know that I’m here. That I want to be a part of your life, in whatever context works best right now.”

He responded almost right away.

“You are a good friend and good people; I just need some space right now. We can hang out again sometime soon.”

I took a breath, feeling like at least he had responded. And he had confirmed what I already knew – he needed space. It hurt because, it was the first time he had really needed space from me. But I got it. Or at least, I wanted to. So I tried to make it easy for him.

“Alright. Do what you need to do. Just know that I’m here.”

I didn’t expect to hear from him again, but a few minutes later I did.

“You are one of the best things that’s happened to me through all of this. I really mean that. Have a good night.”

I took solace in that. Told myself that eventually, he would come around. He would miss me too. I knew he cared about me. I trusted in that. So for the time being, I just told myself to be patient. To give him the space he needed, knowing full well that in time... he would come back to me.

Still, the prospect of space between us was hard for me to swallow. And so, I started cleaning my house. On a weeknight. When really I should have been crawling into bed.

And at 11:00, as I was just starting in on my bathroom, he called.

He was drunk. I could tell that almost right away. Not wasted, but not sober either.

He said he had been dropped off outside my house.

He asked if he could come in.

If he could stay the night.

At this point, I was torn. Still hurt over the separation he had put between us, but also – elated to see him.

I of course told him to come up. It turned out he had been at a BBQ with one of his friends, and they had gone out drinking after. From the sounds of it, they had gone out drinking the previous two nights as well. For some reason though, rather than going to his buddies house to sleep it off that night, he had decided he wanted to see me.

He began a story by telling me "Girls are stupid", and proceeded to describe some of the girls that had hit on them in the bar that night. I couldn’t figure out why he was telling me this. He was adamant that they had annoyed him; that they weren’t me, but… I couldn’t figure out why he thought I needed to hear about it at all.

I was finishing cleaning up the bathroom and know I was being short with him. I was suddenly feeling so guarded about the whole thing.

Finally, after being more or less ignored, he said "Thanks for being so great." To which I'm pretty sure I just shrugged. So he said it again "No, really - you're great."

Then he started laughing and said "You have got to be wondering where the heck you picked up this guy, huh? I mean, how did you get stuck with all this baggage?"

I was looking at him, trying to figure out where this was coming from. What my reaction was supposed to be. Did he really think for even one second that I didn’t want to be with him?

I told him that everyone has baggage, and then I reminded him of some of my own as I crawled into bed next to him.

He told me that I was one of the strongest people he had ever met, and that he wasn’t sure he was strong like me.

Again, I didn’t know how to respond.

So instead I just curled up, and let him cuddle next to me.

I thought we were well on our way to sleep, when suddenly he said "Please don't let me sleep with you anymore."

I was speechless. Hadn't we just had the most amazing sex this weekend? Outside, in the rain, unable to keep our hands off each other? Mind blowing, toe curling, the stuff that fantasy's are made of sex?

That had only been just a few days before, hadn't it?

But in the back of my head, I knew that taking sex out of the equation was probably for the best. I wasn’t sure where any of this was coming from, but I did know that if he had any hesitation at all about what he wanted from me – we shouldn’t be sleeping together. So I told him not to worry, that I had already decided to take that off the table.

To which he responded "Good. Your text message tonight made me sad. I don't like that you like me."

Suddenly I was mad. And hurt. And irritated. I flipped around quickly to face him and told him how stupid that was. Reminded him that he had put me in the position to care. That every step of the way, he had pursued me. I reminded him that every moment we had spent together had been at his insistence. That of course I cared about him, but that he had guided everything we had become.

His response slapped me in the face a bit. He said he knew that he had pushed for us to be more, but reminded me that when he initially called me that first time, we both knew that it had been solely because he needed a rebound. He said he had just never counted on me being so great. On his liking me so much. And that now, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. What he was supposed to want.

I stopped again. Took a deep breath, and tried to remind myself to stay calm. Then I reminded him that I had never asked anything of him. Nothing more than honesty. I reminded him that I’m not the one who had put any pressure on us. That at the end of the day, I just knew I cared about him and enjoyed spending time with him.

At which point, he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said, "I care about you and enjoy spending time with you too."

But then, he started talking about her again. About how in love with her he still was. How he was still torn up by the whole thing, and with the date of the divorce actually approaching and her making contact the way she had - it had him even more confused.

He said he was worried about me getting hurt. About my feelings for him, and what that would mean if at the end of the day – he just couldn’t get over her. If all we could ever really be was friends.

I reminded him again that of course I liked him, and that I wasn't going to lie about my feelings for him. Or pretend they weren’t there just so that he wouldn’t have to worry about me. But I told him that if all we could ever be was friends - well, I had maintained friendships with some of the men from my past who I had loved. I could certainly do it with him.

At this point, it was almost 1 in the morning. I had been facing him in bed as we talked, but ended up turning around so that we could both just go to sleep. He didn't say a word, but he curled up behind me and wrapped his arms around me where he stayed attached until we had to get up for work in the morning.

I heard from him that day when he called to thank me for listening to him the night before. And then again when he forwarded me some e-mail he seemed to think was funny.

And then that night, he called. Wanting to come over again.

He showed up on my doorstep with a bottle of booze in hand.

I realized then that he had been drinking every single night since she first sent that text.

But I didn’t say anything.

Friday night he went to a Bachelor party. I had known he was going, and hadn’t expected to hear from him at all that evening. He ended up texting me at 3 in the morning though, just to tell me he was thinking of me. As soon as I responded, he called. Said he just wanted to hear my voice.

All the guys from the party were staying together at a cabin a fair distance away. He was drunk, but this wasn’t a booty call. Just, apparently, him thinking of me.

I heard from him the next day as he was heading to a wedding with some of his friends. I remember being hurt that he hadn’t asked me to be his date, but then I had reminded myself… I had no idea where we stood right now. And I knew that attending this wedding had been a last minute decision on his part.

It would be the first since the demise of his own marriage.

I heard from him again just before midnight. He was asking if I could come pick him up. I had just been crawling into bed, but figured I could go get him if he needed a sober ride.

I just hadn’t counted on him being so far away.

It turned out that after the wedding, the party had headed in the opposite direction from town. He was more than an hour away from me at this point.

Tucked away in the valley.

But when he called, I could hear how drunk he was. And when he said he was there at the bar by himself, and that the friend he had been hanging out with at the wedding had left with his girlfriend over an hour ago – I was worried.

I knew he was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. That even getting a cab to his own place would cost a few hundred dollars at least. And I knew he was drunk. By himself, and drunk.

I was worried.

So, I got in the car and went to pick him up. In the pouring rain. Past midnight. Out in the valley.

He called me when I was about half-way there to see how far I was, and I started talking to him. Just trying to ensure he stayed in one place and didn’t get himself into any trouble.

Which is when he said it.

"I love you."

And I said "Oh my hell."

I’m not kidding. That was my reaction.

He started laughing before drunkenly replying "I know. I just dropped the first legit L-bomb. And I meant it too. That wasn't an 'I want to sleep with you' L-bomb. That was an 'I seriously love you' L-bomb."

I couldn’t stop laughing at this point, so I pointed out that he was drunk and that I would be there soon. I begged him to stay out of trouble, and then we got off the phone.

When I got to the bar, he came barreling out to meet me. Swept me up in a giant hug right outside the doors like I was his favorite person in the entire world.

And then, he said it again.

I again made mention of his less than sober condition. But he just looked at me and said "No, I mean it. And you know what? You love me too.”

In my head, I wanted to deny it.

But in my heart… I knew I couldn’t.

So I just didn’t say anything at all.

We walked to my car with him draped all over me and began driving to his house (a half an hour away, versus the hour plus going to my place would have taken).

As soon as we were driving, he reached out and started holding my hand. Began telling me about the girls in the bar who had taken care of him until I had gotten there. He said he had told them all about me. That they had even given him advice, and told him not to let me go.

Then he said "I was thinking about you all night."

I had to laugh, before reminding him that lately – he only to seemed to be thinking of me when he was drunk.

But he protested. "That's not true!” he argued. “I think about you all the time. I think about you more than I should. You are always on my mind. I've never gotten so close to anyone as fast as I have to you. You have become one of my best friends, and I am always thinking about you."

Again, I stayed silent. As he moved the chair back to fall asleep – never once letting go of my hand.

When we finally made it to his house, we both brushed our teeth and got ready for bed.

And then - he stripped down naked and crawled in beside me.

Completely naked.

He cuddled up next to me and started trying to convince me that my getting naked would be a good idea as well. But I turned him down pretty quickly. Reminded him that just a few days before, he had basically told me I was never meant to be anything more than a rebound. I also reminded him of his request for us to stop sleeping together, and his insistence that maybe we should just stick to being friends.

He got all serious. Looked me in the eye and said "I like you. As more than a friend. You know I like you. No matter what I say, you know I like you. And now I guess you know I love you too. But right now, I just don’t know how to trust in anything we've got."

Then he started talking about sex. Explaining how weird it was for him, still, to be sleeping with someone who wasn’t her. To be sleeping with anyone who wasn’t her. He said there were so many emotions surrounding the whole thing that he really did just have a hard time explaining it. Or even figuring out what it was he really wanted.

But he knew one thing for sure – he cared about me. He didn’t want to see me getting hurt, and he didn’t want to lose me.

At this point, through all the talking, I had managed to convince him that sleeping together now probably wasn’t the best idea. Instead we just cuddled up in bed, with him holding on tightly as he seemed to be doing so often lately.

Like he was afraid I was going to disappear on him in the middle of the night or something.

Just when I was sure he had finally fallen asleep though, he stirred.

And then he said “I know you think it’s because I’m drunk, but it’s not. I love you. And you love me too.”

I pretended to be asleep.

His final divorce date was a little over a week away.

At that point, we would be just shy of having spent 2 months together.

Only days before he had expressed serious concerns about where it was we were heading.

Yet here he was, telling me he loved me.

And there I was, believing him.

(to be continued…)

Excuse Me While I Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

2012-01-04T21:27:00.001-09:00

I had an installment for the story planned for tonight, I swear.

But instead of being able to come home and write after work, I found myself needing to come home and become reacquainted with my bathtub and dilaudid.

I burst another cyst around 3:00 this afternoon. One minute I was fine, just going through my day at work, and the next the pain started stabbing and radiating around my right side, making it almost impossible for me to breathe.

I knew as it started to come on, but I kept telling myself I would be fine.

Until I wasn’t.

Shaking, and fighting back the urge to throw up I was hurting so badly.

I hate how quickly it comes on.

And even more, I hate that I’ve now gotten to the point where I know exactly what is happening when it does.

More than anything though, I hate the embarrassment I feel going through something like that at work. Hurting so bad I can’t stop shaking or fighting back the tears.

Thankfully, I have some amazing co-workers who got me home. I resisted going to the emergency room right away, knowing that I had dilaudid here from my last burst cyst and that in reality – all they would do for me there is assist with pain management.

I’ve been through this before, and frankly – I had no interest in dealing with that ass face doctor I’ve now had to see upon two of my visits to the ER.

Plus, it’s now the 4th of January. Meaning all my deductibles with health insurance have been reset.

The free ride I’ve enjoyed since meeting my out of pocket max with surgery last year is no more.

I haven’t quite made it through the worst yet, but having dilaudid on hand has definitely made managing the pain on my own possible.

Which I suppose means I should be thankful to Dr. Assface at least a little bit, if not for having any bedside manner at all, at least for having enough trust in the pain I was in after finally seeing confirmation on an ultrasound to send me home with a strong enough medication to get me through if ever it happened again.

I hate that it happened again, but I just keep telling myself… women burst cysts every single day without ever having endometriosis. My stepsister is actually a prime example of this. My dad said she just had another burst last week – describing and feeling exactly what I feel every time it happens as well.

And she does not have endo.

I’ve been doing well, and even my periods have been manageable with no need for anything stronger than ibuprofen lately.

My day to day pain has been practically non-existent.

This isn’t endo. It’s just… my body.

Sometimes I hate my body.

But I’m doing OK right now. Being taken care of by the world’s most amazing roommate. I haven’t puked in an hour, and my fever hasn’t risen above 100. I’m about to take one more pain pill, and then as that wears off hopefully the worst will have passed.

Unfortunately though, I’ve been too curled up with my heating pad or in my tub to get any real writing done today.

Fret not though – I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a long day spent in bed. Recovering, and writing, and reading.

Have I ever mentioned how incredibly lucky I am to have a job that comes not only with amazing health insurance, but also with a team of co-workers who are unbelievably flexible and understanding when it comes to me needing to take care of myself.

If ever I am driven to forget, or start to find myself becoming restless, it’s incidents like this that remind me.

I’m lucky.

Blessed even.

And I don’t just think that’s the drugs talking.

What Happens In The Woods, Stays In The Woods

2012-01-03T19:06:00.011-09:00

I wrote an e-mail this weekend, and in it I mentioned that I hadn’t realized I had so many words for the subject at hand.

I think at this point, the same can be said for this story. I didn’t realize I had so many words built up and waiting to be told. Let’s face facts – as of now I’ve written the equivalent of 1/5 of a Twilight novel.

And I’m nowhere near done.

So if you’re still following along, be sure to check out parts one, two, three, and four before moving forward.

Most of my fears about that trip were alleviated as soon as we pulled up next to his friends on the side of the road. I hadn’t taken two steps out of his truck before his buddy Jay was by my side sweeping me up in a massive hug.

That first night, when I'd shown up to the boy's house for a BBQ with Loo by my side, Jay had been equally welcoming. Right from the start. He and his wife had stayed the night and gone to breakfast with us the next morning, so they really were the first of his friends I had gotten to know on any kind of personal level. I adored his wife Mel, immediately. She was easy going and drama free and exactly the kind of girl I typically prefer to spend my time with.

But Jay and I especially hit it off. He was genuinely warm, but also sarcastic and witty and playful in a way that reminded me of some of my best guy friends.

There isn’t a whole lot I love more than a guy who can verbally spar back and forth with me, and Jay could absolutely do just that.

Plus, I somehow instinctually knew from the very beginning that even though the boy was his friend – he still wanted the best for me too.

I knew that he was on team S.I.F.

And that felt good.

As soon as I saw the two of them, I was able to remember that if nothing else, I would have fun this weekend; even if it meant the boy sulking off by himself the entire time.

Thankfully though, his mood seemed to perk as soon as we were in their proximity as well, and we all excitedly moved supplies from the trucks to the four wheelers before taking off on our journey.

It was about a 30 minute trek out to the lake, and the boy drove while I snapped pictures and took every opportunity I could find to get him laughing.

We were going to be fine. This was going to be fine.

Once we arrived at the lake, we had to take Jay’s boat from there to the other side where his cabin awaited.

A one room, wood floored, cabin with an outhouse about 15 feet behind it.

I immediately realized that packing all my hair essentials and Arbonne products had been unnecessary.

This was basically camping in a tent, but with a roof.

Everyone had a good laugh over my clear ineptitude with roughing it, but I was excited. Just because I hadn’t been fully prepared, did not mean I wasn’t ready to embrace the adventure.

Of course, when Mel and Jay suggested we take a dip in the lake to clean off after our dusty four-wheel drive in, I thought for sure they must be kidding.

After all, the ice on the lake can’t have melted more than just a few weeks before.

They weren’t kidding though.

And I was definitely in for a bit of a jolt.

We all started drinking fast and furiously once we had settled in (if only in an attempt to warm up), and before long we were all sitting around a campfire eating and laughing and sharing stories.

Which is when Jay began to tell us the story of how he and Mel wound up together.

A story I’m sure he had told to the boy more than just a few times at that point, but one I had yet to hear.

It turned out that Jay had been on the heels of a rough divorce himself when he and Mel met. He and the boy had always been good friends, but over the previous few months he had definitely gone out of his way to be there for his buddy. I found out now that it was because he remembered being there himself. Having his heart completely ripped out by the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with.

The way the story goes, Mel was just supposed to be his rebound. And over the course of a year, they had a lot of ups and downs until finally; Mel put her foot down and said no more. She wasn't willing to take the back and forth any longer.

They parted on less than amicable terms.

And months passed. Months. They didn’t speak, didn’t interact. They both dated other people.

But for some reason, while in the midst of dating someone Jay described as a “pretty cool chick”, he just realized – she wasn’t Mel.

And even though he hadn’t been ready before, he was now.

And he wanted her.

He had to fight a little to get her back, but when she finally came around – there was no more back and forth.

They were solid.

He had proposed a few years before, almost in the exact same spot we were now all drinking.

Jay looked at me, and he looked at the boy, and he said “I know exactly where you two are. We were there too. It isn’t easy, and he’s not ready. But still… I have a good feeling about where the two of you will end up.”

The boy and I met each other’s eyes, and he was smiling. A drunken and disorderly smile to be sure, but one that still spoke to how he felt about me. One that made me feel safe in that if nothing else.

The funny thing was, I had always assumed our relationship would take a similar detour at one point. In the back of my head, I knew that I had only ever been meant to be the rebound chick. And that the move our relationship had instead taken in another (far more serious) direction would eventually come back to haunt us. In ways that would be far more painful to get through than the silent treatment had been.

I knew that eventually, we would have to fall apart before we could come back together. I had anticipated it from almost the start.

Not that I wanted it that way, because I didn't. I wanted it to be smooth and easy and perfect. It was just that, I knew it wouldn't be.

But here they were, a happily married couple, describing almost the exact same trajectory I had already begun preparing myself for.

Looking at us, and thinking we had the same potential.

It was just one more of those random pieces that seemed to be pushing us together.

It became a long night of drinking and laughing and storytelling from there. We all went past our limit that evening.

But before we found ourselves crawling into one of the two air mattresses on the floor of the loft and drifting off to sleep, the boy and I first snuck away for some alone time on the porch.

After Jay and Mel had already gone to bed themselves, but while the midnight sun was still hanging in the air.

It was drizzling on us, there at this remote cabin out in the middle of nowhere where thankfully there was no one around to catch us in our moment. There was a passion between us that we hadn’t quite found before then.

A desperation.

I’m not so good at painting pictures of intimate moments (nor do I particularly want to – I have family who read here!), but suffice it to say… it was good.

Amazing even.

My knees go weak a bit even just thinking about it now.

Once we were done, we both curled up in a sleeping bag together and cuddled up tightly for the remainder of the night.

Neither one of us ever once letting go.

And for a split second, it felt like we had found our way back again.

The next morning was rough for us all. Hungover and moving slowly, we did what we could to make breakfast before Mel and Jay began working on some chores around the cabin they had wanted to complete. Mel suggested the boy should take “his girlfriend” fishing, and I felt the air freeze around us at the mention of that word. I was the first to hop on it, joking that she should be careful with the use of that term if she had any hope at all of ever seeing me again, but the boy complied and we went off in the boat with two poles in hand.

We didn’t catch a thing, nor did we say a whole lot while out on the lake. I could tell he was contemplating, but he wasn’t pulling away. He was just… quiet. In thought. And with that I was OK.

When we returned a while later, he and I curled up in the back of the boat for a nap under the sun. We were cozy and laughing and in a completely and totally comfortable place.

Once we woke, the boys started right back in on the drinking again. I had long since lost my ability to engage in drinking like that two nights in a row, so I stuck with water and instead just watched the entertainment as it unfolded. Those two were in their elements, cracking jokes back and forth with ease. I hung back and took pictures. Glowed in the moments when he turned his attention to me.

Eventually, the rain started to come down. Harder than it had the night before. Enough to push us all inside where we attempted to engage in a few card games.

An interesting experiment, seeing as I was the only one sober enough to enforce the rules.

It was at this point when the boy became overly affectionate. Holding my hand, telling me how beautiful I was… just being incredibly sweet. As his eyes began to droop under the weight of too much to drink he pushed for us to go to bed, where we crawled right into our sleeping bag and cuddled up talking for a few minutes about who knows what before drifting quickly off to sleep.

He remained spooned up against me the entire night, holding on tightly and again never once letting go.

But in the morning, something had shifted. Even with his arms still around me, I could feel the distance between us. As Jay and Mel began to stir, he whispered in my ear that he didn’t want to stay another night – he was ready to head home.

I had been having fun, and was bummed to see us cutting the trip short, but I didn’t want to argue. Didn’t want to push if he was feeling the need for space. Jay and Mel convinced him to hang out most of the day, I think assuming he would change his mind as time wore on, but he remained withdrawn and adamant in his desire to go home.

The only solace I took was in the fact that at least he wasn’t distant with just me – his coldness seemed to be expressed towards us all. The three of us laughed and talked and tooled around the lake while he hung off by himself, never really engaging or joining in on the conversation at all.

Around 4, Jay loaded us up on the boat and took us back to the other side of the lake where the four wheelers were waiting before turning around for one more night at the cabin with his wife. He gave me another giant hug before departing, and told me not to take the boy's moods too personally. That it would just take time. That he still saw good things for us.

We didn’t talk at all the entire trek back to the road, and once there we loaded the truck up in silence. On the drive to his house, the quiet remained until suddenly, out of nowhere, he began talking about her.

I’m not sure what prompted it; how long she had been on his mind. It’s possible her e-mail had never really left his thoughts. He started to open up about what she had said; about how it had made him feel. And eventually, he told me that he was sure he would never love anyone again as much as he had loved her.

The statement hung in the air, without either one of us really acknowledging what it meant about us. About me.

We spent most of the remainder of the drive in silence.

The only thought on my mind being that I was sure that text from her had changed everything. And that this hot and cold game was only going to get worse before it got better.

If it ever got better at all.

I just wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

It was nauseating not knowing from one second to the next where I stood.

But I kept telling myself that it had only been a week. Not even. That we had been in such a solid place before that text had come through, and if I allowed him the space to work through this; we would get there again.

I just kept telling myself to give him whatever breathing room he needed, because eventually – he would find his way back to me.

Not just in fits and spurts, but wholly and completely.

When we got to his house, I knew not to wait for the invite to spend the night. Our drive home had been too reminiscent of that other drive spent in silence.

I packed up my car and asked if he needed help unloading. When he said “no”, I didn’t push. I just got in my car and drove away.

Feeling the déjà vu the entire drive back to my house.

Only this time, there was no call as I turned down my street.

There would be no call that night at all.

(to be continued...)