by Cee, DW
I laughed again.
When will lunch be over? You want to come visit me at the hospital?
I don’t know when lunch will be over and no, I don’t want to go to the hospital anymore. After the ER incident, I’m afraid of doctors now. Everyone at my table is giving me an unpleasant look because I’m ignoring them while texting you. Come over tonight. I will consider whether or not I want to kiss you since you’ve now reminded me of Allison. I have to go. Bye.
“Sorry,” I said to all my friends. Sarah rolled her eyes at me.
As the hour was up, Sarah and Charlie both had to get back to work, and Peter left soon after. Max and I decided to walk off our lunch and browse the shops. We had a surprisingly pleasant time together. I shopped for Christmas presents for Jake’s family since I would be seeing all of them in Hawaii and for Christmas dinner. I had no idea what they might like so it was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
We stopped for coffee and Max had that look again—the one that made my heart fear.
“Em?”
“Hmm?” I asked looking up from my coffee.
“I need to ask you a question.”
“OK. What?” I felt queasy about where this was heading.
“Do you love Jake? Is he the man you see yourself with, for the rest of your life?” Such a matter-of-fact question caused me to burn my lips taking an unintentional gulp of hot coffee.
“What? Where did that come from? Why are you asking?”
“Just answer. Do you love Jake? If he proposed to you today, could you say yes?” He was now demanding an answer from me rather than just asking. His demeanor turned abrasive, and yet there was fear in his eyes.
“Max. I don’t know why this concerns you.”
Max glared at me, and I hesitated, but answered his question.
“No,” I answered softly. “Not yet. I mean…I don’t know. We just started dating.”
“You’ve been dating for a while. Didn’t you tell me that you loved me from the moment we met?”
My unconvincing first answer obviously gave him courage to move forward with this conversation.
“Yes, but what does that have to do with this situation? Not every love is love at first sight. With us, we spent every waking moment together. With Jake, it’s different. He’s so busy, I feel like we’re just getting to know one another.”
“We would’ve spent every moment together if you weren’t so stubborn.”
I ignored his last comment.
“Max, I really like Jake. You know how introverted and shy I am. He’s the only person I’ve dated since we broke up. When we’re together I feel like…like I’m with my family…like I’m home…he makes me feel…”
“Yeah, yeah. You made yourself clear last time when you told me how he makes you feel comfortable and secure.” He imitated my tone. “I can’t believe after four years together, you tell me now that you were never comfortable with me, that I never made you feel secure.”
“I never said I didn’t feel comfortable with you!” I shot back. “I loved you more than anyone in this world. You were the most important person to me.” The tears began. “What I said was, I never thought you felt the same way about me. I was never the most important person in your world, and now I understand why. You have your family. I technically was not your family. Why would you put me above the people you grew up with your entire life? I don’t fault you for this. I was just stating a fact.”
Without much warning, tears spilled over. I hated myself for crying so easily. I remembered our love and the happiness it brought to my life. I also thought about the countless days of misery after our breakup. “Why are you bringing this up now?” I asked him. “Why do you find such satisfaction in hurting me? Wasn’t once enough? I finally felt like I was putting all this behind me.”
I knew it hurt Max to see me hurt. He was never outwardly expressive but I could see tears of sorrow outlining his eyes as well.
“Em, would you ever want to start over with me? Do you think it would be possible? If I told you that I was an idiot, that I had no idea what I wanted in life till I lost it. I never realized till after we broke up that you meant the world to me. However much you loved me, I loved you just as much, probably more. I was just too stupid to know it back then. Would this be enough for us to try again?”
I was too shocked to cry anymore. These were words I had hoped to hear right after we broke up, not now. Only in my world, would I have to contend with the passion I once felt for Max and the hope I now felt with Jake.
“Max, why now? Why didn’t you come to me eighteen months ago when I missed you so terribly? I would’ve given up everything to be with you again. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I can’t do this again. I won’t give up Jake.”
“But you just said you don’t love Jake! Can you say the same about me? I know you still love me, Em. Please, Em? I know what I finally want…I want you.”
I stopped the conversation and asked Max to drive me home. The ride home was silent till I marched out of the car, straight onto my bed, and wailed like the night we broke up. I didn’t understand why I hurt today like graduation night.
A severe headache greeted me as I woke up to the ringing of the doorbell. Glancing at the clock, it was almost midnight. I opened the door and found a warm face that quickly morphed into an alarmed one.
“What’s the matter, Emily? Have you been crying?”
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“Your eyes are puffier than a marshmallow. Why were you crying?” Jake walked into the house and sat on the chair.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that both my top and bottom lids were puffy. What would I tell Jake? I sat at the table with him and contemplated what to say. He waited patiently.
“Does this have something to do with your lunch with Max today?” It didn’t take much intuition to figure that one out. “Do you mind telling me what happened?” His troubled look made me feel terrible.
“Max is having breakup remorse,” was how I summed up our afternoon conversation.
Jake looked puzzled. “He and Jennifer broke up and he’s upset about it?”
“Um, I’m told he and Jennifer broke up but his breakup remorse is not about Jennifer. He, um…regrets our breakup.”
“Oh,” was all I got from Jake. “What did you say, or should I ask, how do you feel about his regret?”
Damage control needed to be put into effect immediately, but I didn’t know how to put into words what I felt in my heart.
“I told Max that I really like you and that I don’t want to be in a relationship with him.” Jake looked somewhat relieved but only for a second. He asked the next logical question—the one that truly begged an answer. “Why were you crying, then?”
This one, I really couldn’t answer. Why I hurt so much today was beyond my understanding but could I tell Jake that I just didn’t know?
“I cried because a lot of the pain I felt after we broke up resurfaced. Those were the words I wanted to hear eighteen months ago, not now. Maybe I was angry with him for…”
“Waiting this long?” He tried to finish my sentence. “Do you want to get back together with him, but can’t because of me? Am I in your way?”
I vehemently replied, “No. I want to be with you, Jake. I want to give our relationship a chance. Please don’t think that. Please, please believe me when I say how much I cherish our relationship.” I wrapped my arms around his neck as insecurity crept back into my heart, scared that I might lose this wonderful man.
Jake held me close and calmed me down. “Emily, explain to me what’s on your mind. There must be something lingering in your heart for Max for you to be in such anguish.”
“To be honest, I don’t exactly know what hold Max still has on me, if any. I know there’s no more connection between us, but why I still hurt so much when he brings up the past, I can’t explain.” Apologetically my head fell down. “I’m sorry I
’m such a mess. This is the kind of stuff I don’t want you to see. What I do know is that in the short while we’ve been together, you’re the one I want to be with, not Max.”
“Emily,” he called my name softly, and lifted my chin with the crook of his index finger, “I’m not letting you go anywhere.” His lips tenderly traced my own. “We are not separating for any reason. I can’t imagine my life without you anymore, and I hope you feel the same way about me. You must know by now how much I love you. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long to tell you.” He embraced me intently.
Jake’s words stopped my heart. I had heard correctly on the airplane. The optimist in me reveled at the thought of Jake loving me. The pessimist in me wondered what he would think when I couldn’t reciprocate. I faced him with a signs of hope, guilt, and confusion.
“And…you don’t quite reciprocate, I gather by your look?” Jake asked.
“Jake, I’m not there just yet.”
“Emily, are you really not there? I think you’re just afraid to admit it.”
He was probably right. Somewhere in my heart, I loved this man and would tell him when I worked up the courage to admit that I loved someone with all my heart again.
“To me, when I tell someone I love them, it’s a forever kind of word. I can’t take it lightly. Forever is not in my vocabulary just yet with us.”
Jake looked frustrated again. “Why do you keep saying that? Didn’t you tell Max you loved him? Why are you so negative about us all the time? Do you think I take the words ‘I love you’ lightly? The words ‘love’ and ‘flippant’ do not coexist in my vocabulary either. This appears to be a weekly argument with us.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. Can we not argue about this again? Just give me a little more time? Please?” I placed myself on his lap, put my arms around his neck, and attempted to coax him out of his ire.
“You can’t admit you love me, and you refuse to have sex with me. Why am I still here with you?” he asked with an irresistible smile.
“Because you love me,” I answered with kisses.
Max called several times during the week, and I purposely evaded him. Instead, Sarah kept me apprised of his life. She told me he was moping around, trying to rally our friends to help win me back. I, in turn, focused my attention on Jake. He stopped by every morning before work and every night after work. In the short hours we had together, we talked about our lives past, present, and future. When he wasn’t with me, he attempted to call, but his patients had other ideas.
Tuesday night Jake came over early, and after dinner, I told him stories about my parents. Happily, I started with their college years where they met and fell in love. I pulled out all my photo albums and Jake repeated the same words I’d heard all my life.
“Your mom was stunning!”
“I know, isn’t she beautiful? When I was younger, I used to hate it when people told me how pretty she was. Unfortunately, I didn’t appreciate her till I got older.” So many years I’d wasted thinking of her as competition rather than a companion.
“Why would you hate someone telling you your mom was beautiful?”
“Because I was jealous. No one ever said anything remotely complimentary about me. The comment I got repeatedly was, ‘I hope you grow up to look just like your mom.’ It bugged me. Plus, my mom had such a vibrant personality, and I was so shy. She was always the life of the party, and I was the wallflower in the corner.”
“Love, girls don’t come much prettier than you…even your mom.” Jake did his best to reassure me but I wasn’t convinced.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d seen my mom in person.”
“I’d say it regardless. So how’d your dad get so lucky?”
I laughed, thinking about my parents telling me this story back in middle school. Jake was in for a great story. “My dad told me when Mom got to college she was the talk of her Texas campus. Every guy wanted to date her. She was in some sorority and every frat and non-frat guy had visited her house to ask her out.”
“So did your parents meet at a frat party?”
“No, my dad was the antithesis of my mom. He was awkward and extremely shy. He was a senior when Mom was a freshman, and they became friends only because she needed help in calculus, and he was her school-appointed tutor. He tutored Mom her entire freshman year.”
I kept looking through the photo album. It had been months since I’d visited my parents or really thought about them. Jake had consumed my mind and heart. I felt guilty that I had forgotten what they looked like back in college. My last memory of each of them was their peaceful faces lying in their caskets.
“She was really beautiful, huh?” Wistfully, I touched her face in the picture. What I would do to be able to touch their faces or hold their hands one more time.
“So my mom was dating some hotshot guy on campus but spending loads of time with my dad, because her math skills were so pathetic, and they developed a friendship during these tutorial sessions. My dad was probably one of the very few men who was more attracted to my mom’s heart than her face. Do you know what he told me he loved most about her?”
“What did he love most about her?” Jake was as into this story as I was into telling it.
“Dad said that Mom was the most caring and attentive person he’d ever met. Every time they were together, she’d bring him a little something to thank him for working with her. She’d bring him lunch if it was lunchtime, or a piece of chocolate she knew he liked, or buy him poetry books. My dad was a bit of a poet. He devoured the attention. Oh my gosh…” I’d just had an epiphany.
“What?”
“I’m dating my mother. You remind me exactly of my mom. You’re both attentive and outgoing and exceedingly sure of yourselves. Oh gosh…” I said one more time.
“What?” he asked again.
“Max was the epitome of my dad—shy, reserved, and gentle. How sad. I miss my parents so badly, I need to date people who remind me of them.”
I had to laugh at myself. The four years I’d loved Max, never once did I think he reminded me of Dad. But tonight, as I told this story, it was very clear both Max and Jake substituted for my lost loves.
“So all this time, my dad loved my mother, but didn’t do anything about it.”
“Was your mom into your dad also?”
“I asked that same question and they both said no. She was dating someone else, but she said she always thought of my dad as a dear friend.”
“So how did they get together if she was dating someone else?”
“When school ended, Mom was driving home to LA, and about an hour away from school, she got a flat tire. She said the first and only person she thought to call was not her boyfriend, but my dad. She knew then he was the man she loved and trusted to take care of her. Of course my dad came to her immediately upon receiving the call.”
“And that’s how they got together?”
“Kind of…remember how I told you my dad was terribly shy?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, Mom knew he liked her, but wouldn’t admit it unless something extreme happened. So when he got to my mom, she ran to him and hugged him as if he had rescued her from death.” I proceeded to laugh really hard. Jake patiently waited for me to continue the story. “She embraced him dearly and started confessing her feelings. My dad, being in a state of shock, didn’t say a word, but tried to pry her body off him.”
Jake had a bit of a why look on his face so I explained, “You know, they were in the middle of the 10 freeway and cars were honking everywhere.”
“Did she let go of him?”
“Nope. My mom told me she held onto him till he was forced to confess his feelings for her. You want to know what else she forced him to do?”
He nodded yes.
“He was about to go off to grad school, and she didn’t want to be separated from him, so she got him to propose to her and tied him down all within the same hug. Isn’t
that insane?”
“Lucky guy! Could something like that happen with you?”
“I doubt it. I’m not brave like my mom. She always knew what she wanted and she went after it till it was hers. Strong and secure would be the two words that epitomized her personality. She rarely wavered. I, on the other hand, take too much after my dad. I’m introverted and insecure. Even if I wanted something, I probably wouldn’t outright tell anyone. It can be a bit of a guessing game with me.”
“So when did your parents get married?”
“They got married that summer. Mom transferred schools and finished undergrad while she was married to my dad.”
“You mean she got married when she was eighteen?”
“Just about…I think she turned nineteen just before her wedding day. Here are their wedding photos.”
Mom looked radiant in her wedding dress. She looked so happy. I wished she could’ve stayed this happy even after Dad’s death. It would have helped me during my difficult days after Dad left us.
“That’s a great story. So when were you born?”
“The day after my mom graduated from college. She was a balloon at her graduation. Look at her.” I touched my mom’s picture again. She looked even more beautiful.
“When I was young, I was painfully shy, just like my dad. My mom thought she could turn me into a mini-me but failed miserably. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t want people other than my family giving me any attention or why I couldn’t speak my mind. The only person who really understood me was my dad. He knew exactly how I felt, because he felt the same way.”
“But you’re not shy now, although I suppose you get embarrassed easily.”
“That only happened after my dad died. My dad and I were really close. When I was younger, I preferred my dad over my mom. Because I was unusually small for my age, Dad carried me around like a little child till I was seven. He understood my need to be alone and my fear of unwanted attention. He showered me with love and affection and protected me from all my fears.”
The tears finally appeared. They had been brewing, but for Jake’s sake, I held off as long as I could. My story started off so happy, I didn’t want it to end on a sad note.
