Broken Hearts Damaged Goods (13 page)

Oct. 17, 2010

With the hayride on
Friday night and no mention of anything else for the weekend, I had put all
hope for a Sweetest Day with Jack away as just some stupid girl fantasy.

He had gotten Megan to
take me out shopping and do “girl” stuff as he called it.  I hadn’t really
thought anything about it.  Jack is good at giving me space and letting me hang
out with my female friends.

And it felt good to
discuss my problems with and feelings for Jack with Megan.  I thought that
maybe she could tell that I was having problems.  It just turned into a nice
girl’s day out.

When we came back home,
Jack was sitting in the living room.  As soon as we entered, he stood up like
he was presenting himself to somebody important.  He was wearing a shirt and
tie and had a bouquet of roses in his hand.

He looked really
handsome and really nervous and unsure of himself.  I wasn’t much better.  I
was speechless.  Thankfully Megan took my bags and pushed me towards him before
going into her bedroom and shutting the door behind her.

In one of the more
awkward moments of our relationship, we just looked at each other and didn’t
know what to say.  I was just so happy that I didn’t want to ruin it.  And
maybe I was waiting for him to finally tell me that he loves me.  It’s always
best to just kind of let a man dangle out there by himself at such moments.  It
lets them stammer a little bit more so that they can spit out the right words
that they have been trying to say.

Jack’s words were,
“Here I got these for you”, as he handed me the bouquet of roses.

I thanked him and
wished him a Happy Sweetest Day.  He half-heartedly wished me a Happy Sweetest
Day in return.

“Are you okay?  You
seem to be acting strange”, I said as I was putting the flowers in water.

“No, I’m fine.  I
just...”

“Oh, God, Jack.  I’m
sorry.  I didn’t know we were celebrating Sweetest Day.  I didn’t get you
anything.  Although I don’t know what you usually get a guy for these
holidays.  I usually just have sex...”

And that’s when I
stopped talking and didn’t look at Jack.

He came up behind me
and put his arms around me and said, “If it makes you feel any better, I forgot
about Sweetest Day, too.”

“But the flowers...”

“It’s the one month
anniversary of the first time we kissed.”

For some reason, not
remembering the first time we kissed when it was special enough for him to
remember didn’t make me feel any better.  And maybe I should have remembered
it.  It was the first time in our relationship where we started to act like we
were more than friends sharing a bed.

And I wished my mind
would have spent more time on thinking about how I didn’t remember the
anniversary of the first time I kissed him.  But there was this part of me that
realized that if he was celebrating the first time we kissed as some sort of
anniversary that he must really care about me.

And that’s when I
blurted out, “I love you!”  He kind of jumped when I said it, which I can’t
blame him.  It didn’t sound very affectionate.  With all of the excitement of
the moment and thinking that he actually loved me, I just kind of yelled it... in
a very scary way.

It was bad enough to
say it, but to say it like that was just stupid.  It came out like I was some
crazy stalker girl, which I am probably a little bit obsessed with him.  I’m
just obsessed with him in a moderately normal and healthy way considering we’ve
been sleeping together in a consensual way.

And I just waited for
him to say something and to get me out of this situation.  Of all of the things
he could have said, he said, “We have reservations at 6.  You should probably
get dressed.”

A simple “I love you,
too” would have been nice.  Even if he would have sounded scared and unsure of
himself, it would have been better to at least hear that he loves me.  I mean,
who doesn’t tell you that they love you right after you tell them that you love
them?

Unless he thought that
it was like the whole blowjob comment and that I didn’t really mean it.  I
could see him doing that.  I’ve given him plenty of opportunities to not take
what I say seriously when it just comes out of nowhere.

Of course, he could
have also thought that I was just saying it to cover up for the fact that I had
forgotten it was the anniversary of the first time we kissed.

I discussed all of this
with Megan as I was busy getting dressed.  And it may have taken me a little
bit longer to get dressed.  We had to try to decide what dress would be best in
a situation where a) I had forgotten that it was the one month anniversary of
the first time I kissed a guy I’m in love with.  b) I had just scared the guy
that I’m in love with by shouting my feelings for him. And c) I had to make him
know that I was romantically interested in him in a perfectly normal and
acceptable way.

With everything that
the dress had to convey, it took me a while.  And it wouldn’t have been so bad,
but I also told Megan that I wanted the dress to say that I wanted to sleep
with him tonight while not looking cheap or desperate.

That’s when Megan
snapped at me.  “Jesus!  You seriously can’t keep a man without fucking him,
can you?”

And then I started
crying.  But she was right.  Over the years, I would cover up all of the stupid
things I would say by just having sex with the guy.  It’s just that I learned
that having sex distracted the man from all of the crazy stuff that I would say
or do.  It somehow made it be socially acceptable to be a nut job.

Like if Jack had been
like any other guy I’ve dated, I would have just started kissing him while
undressing him after I had yelled my affections for him.  By the time the sex
would have been over, he would have totally forgotten about what I had said. 
And everything would be normal between us, like it never happened at all.

So between the sobs and
the inaudible crazy talk coming out of my mouth, Megan somehow figured out what
I was saying.  She hugged me and told me that I had a guy out there that loved
me, even if he couldn’t say the words.  She also said that I need to take it
slowly with him.  He’s learning to love again and is trying to make sure that
he doesn’t get hurt by love this time around.

Once I got dressed,
Jack took me out to dinner.  It was a really nice restaurant.  Everything was
perfect, but it was all wrong.  There was just this tension between us where we
weren’t even acting like ourselves.

“I’m sorry that I
screamed ‘I love you’ at you earlier.  I just...  And I’m sorry that I forgot it
was the anniversary of the first time we kissed.  You put a lot of thought into
tonight.”

“It wasn’t that hard. 
All I had to do was think of you.”

And that’s when I said
it.  “I love you!”  It wasn’t as loud as last time.  Still it was pretty scary
sounding.

He just looked at me
and said, “Are you okay tonight?”

I didn’t want to tell
him that I was madly in love with him.  It’s better to secretly love somebody
and not to have that love returned than to declare your love and not have it
returned.  It might not seem like much of a difference, but at least a secret
love allows you to continue to be around the object of the affection.  A
rejected lover tends to throw you out with your proposal.

So I told him that I
was perfectly fine.  He should just ignore me today since it was my time of the
month.

I know I shouldn’t
blame something like this on my time of the month, but guys are all too willing
to believe anything you say and do just by putting the blame for it on your
period.  They won’t even question it, if you start acting normal again in a
couple of days, which gave me a very small window of opportunity to get
everything worked out emotionally with Jack.  I mean, I’m sure that I could
stop screaming that I love him in a horrifying way in the next couple of days.

Anyway, dinner went on
in a mostly uneventful and awkward way.  I think Jack wanted to talk, but the
whole female problem kind of scared him away from talking about anything,
especially if it had to do with feelings.

After dinner, Jack took
me to the aquarium.  He was kind of distant, which I thought was odd.  Actually
I thought the aquarium was odd for an anniversary type of thing to do.

“Thank you for taking
me to the aquarium.  I really like it.”  I tried to say it with the most
sincerity that I could.  I just really didn’t know why he would take me here
when he was so good at picking out date things to do.

“I’m glad you like it. 
I didn’t know where else to take you for an anniversary celebration.”  He
seemed as though he had put a lot of thought into it.

I didn’t know why a
bunch of fish would make him think of me, so I asked him in the most
un-embarrassing way that I could.

And as he told me about
how he chose it because I liked
The Little Mermaid
when I was little and
always thought that it was romantic, I realized just how much effort he did put
into making this date perfect. 

And it wasn’t just that
he had thought of me.  It was that he had been listening to me all of those times
when I had just been rambling.  He paid attention and actually remembered the
stupid stuff that every other guy had ignored.

As this hit me, I
stopped in the middle of the aquarium and was completely numb, while feeling a
lot of different things at the same time.  Jack just looked at me.  He kind of
was bracing himself for whatever horror was going to come screaming from my
lips.

Not really knowing what
I was doing, I walked slowly over to him and never lost eye contact with him. 
He started to look around to see how many people were going to be witnesses of
what he was sure was going to be some psycho-crazed woman on her period.

That’s when I kissed
him.  And more than just kissing the man that I loved, I was kissing the man
that tried to fulfill my stupid little girl obsession with trying to find the
perfect man in the form of a handsome prince.

And while he was still
in shock and unsure of what had just happened, I whispered softly and sweetly
in his ear that I loved him.

He looked at me like he
was still confused about what was happening.  So I stepped back a little to
give him a little space and to show that I wasn’t totally crazy.

“I’ve been trying to
tell you that all night.  It’s just come out wrong every time.”

And when he didn’t say
anything and looked like he was stuck in some sort of coma, I got scared and
ran off crying.  I didn’t know where I was going to go.  I just had to get away
from him and from the perfect night that he tried to make for me and I ruined.

I’m not sure what
happened next exactly.  The next thing I know, I felt some resistance on my arm
as I was running.  And then I turned around to see what it was.  Then I was
kissing him.

When we stopped kissing
long enough to take a breath, I was the one that was in shock.  He seemed alert
enough to notice the group of people just staring at us.  “Do you want to
finish looking at the aquarium, or would you like to go home?”

Not being entirely in
my right mind, I said, “I’m going to fuck you.”

He looked at me, nodded
his head, and said, “Let’s go home.”

That was the longest
car ride I have ever been on, even with Jack speeding and running a couple of
the stop signs.  When we got home, Megan was surprised to see us so early.  I
mouthed that we were going to do it and then told Jack to wait for me in the
bedroom while I got freshened up.

When I got back into
the bedroom, Jack was waiting for me.  He was sitting there in a t-shirt and
boxers.  He still had his socks on.  He looked really cute.  I walked as
sexily as I could and started to kiss him.

He pulled out of the
kiss and said, “I really like you.”

“I really like you,
too, Jack.”

But before I could
start to kiss him again, he stood up.  “That’s just it, Liselle.  I can’t say
that I love you.  I don’t think that we should do this until I can say that. 
It’s not fair to you.”

Oh, My God!  I know
that I’ve given guys blue balls before, but Jack is the first guy to ever give
me a blue heart.  I could understand him not wanting to sleep with me the first
night that we spent together.  But he likes me know.  He even really likes me,
which is totally code for “I’m on the verge of being in a relationship with
you.”  Really liking me is a step beyond Facebook’s “It’s complicated.”

And I don’t know why,
but I ended up saying, “What the hell, Jack.  You take me out on some of the
most perfect dates I have ever been on, and then you end up telling me that you
only just really like me after I say that I love you.”

“I just want to be sure
that you don’t get hurt”, was all he could say.

“Bull shit!  You love
me.  You’re just afraid that you’re the one that’s going to get hurt.  I’m not
like Brittany.  I’m not going to do anything to hurt you.  I’m not going to
just suddenly one day end this with you.  This is the relationship I have been
looking for all of my life.”

“Okay.  Answer me
this.  How do you know that I love you?”

“You remembered the
first time that we kissed which by the way, according to today’s date, you were
not counting the time that we were drunk and you first came home with me.  That
was the first time that we kissed.  If today is the one month anniversary of
our first kiss, then you must be counting the kiss the night that you told me I
was beautiful, or the kiss the night of the party when we kissed in the
shower.”

“What’s wrong with
celebrating the one month anniversary of the first time when we kissed when I
told you you were beautiful?  It’s the first night that I started to have
romantic feelings for you.  I’m sorry if I wanted to celebrate it with you.”