by Lisa Loomis
My heart ached for us or the loss of us. I pushed in closer to him, and he took that as a sign of wanting and in many ways it was. We helped each other get the rest of our clothes off.
“Morgan, you still have it for me bad,” he teased.
I sucked air in my lungs the urge to cry overwhelming me. I blinked back the tears and chose my words carefully.
“Mathew, sex has never been the issue. That part we had figured out,” I said.
I blocked out the world and all the mixed up feelings and let him take me on an intense roller coaster ride. When he sent me off the edge, I pictured the Big Dipper at the Boardwalk. I smelled the cotton candy, and pictured the seagulls, and I wondered where that girl had gone. Somewhere between then and now she had grown up. Afterwards we lay in bed, reliving some of our funnier moments.
“Remember when I caught you and Sean?” he asked.
“I’ve never seen you so pissed,” I said.
He chuckled.
“I thought I might hit you both. It took me till the next day that I remembered kissing Anna. What a dick. Did you hate me?”
“Yeah,” I laughed.
It felt good to be light with him. When we got ready to go the next morning, he held my face in both hands. He looked into my eyes and held my gaze.
“If you change your mind, call me,” he said and kissed me, that kiss.
He could still make my knees weak. I watched as he walked to his car, my heart hammering in my chest. He opened his door, turned quickly and smiled, and got inside.
“I wish you could give me a reason to,” I said to no one, as I watched him drive away.
Chapter 49
My staying away from Mathew was not easy. I spent the first two years fighting with myself. As much as I wanted to go see him, be with him, I knew it would be selfish. He wanted me to try. I needed more than that. I couldn’t accept a halfhearted attempt from him; I couldn’t wait for him to decide if he loved me. I couldn’t wonder about who would be around the corner, that might catch his eye. After everything, if he didn’t know, he never would. I’d had to come to grips with that.
It had been five years since he drove away from me at the Motel 6. I tried calling a couple of times to try and maintain the friendship, but our conversations were brief and stiff. I stopped trying, and he didn’t at all.
During my Park City stint, I’d met Ryan Walker in a bar, a place my mother told me I would never meet anyone I should marry. I had been visiting Pat actually, prior to my move there, and Ryan was a bartender Pat knew. During my winter in Park City, I was still dating Max long distance, so Ryan and I became friends. He worked construction in the day and bartended at night. He was easy to talk to, and seemed genuinely interested. He thought I was a little wild and it amused him. We shared our past dating disasters and trying love stories. He had a Mathew in a sense, but her name was Carrie, a first love that hadn’t worked out. A girl that still tugged at his heart.
When I moved back home to Escondido Ryan visited; in fact it was he who was on that trip to San Francisco, the last time I’d seen Mathew. It was he who’d had to put up with my melancholy attitude after we left San Jose that day. But at that time he was dating my best friend Karen, who I’d introduced him to. Ryan moved to Escondido within that year, the economy in Park City wasn’t so hot and in California construction was booming. He’d come the summer I was flying back and forth to see Mathew, the summer I’d finally said no.
Like Mathew, Ryan and I started as friends, but unlike Mathew I hadn’t fallen in love with him at first sight. In fact it took six years of knowing each other before we came to a point where we were both single at the same time, and we started dating. Like Mathew it wasn’t an easy, smooth, journey, but that’s another story. Ryan was just a bit taller than me with curly blond hair and bluer than blue eyes; eyes that sparkled. I always thought he was cute, but we were just not on the same track originally. When I lived in Park City I still had a boyfriend and then my heart was messed up with Mathew, all of which Ryan got to hear about.
Although my relationship with Ryan was also unconventional and messy we had built a foundation as friends, and we trusted one another. When we finally got on the same page, sparks flew. We dated for a year and then moved in together. We were living together when he finally asked me to marry him. There was no question, I knew he was the one: I said yes. My love for Ryan was different than Mathew. Mathew was a young love and Ryan was a more grown up love. He understood Mathew and I had left it as friends. He knew we had been lovers. We both understood there had been past relationships, and we weren’t jealous of the past.
We selected the end of April to get married and invitations had gone out a few weeks ago. My mom and I were busy with preparations: securing a location, flowers, cake, a DJ, and on and on. It was an exciting time. I got home from work early and was opening the mail when our phone rang.
“Hello,” I said, picking up the receiver.
“Morgan, it’s Mathew,” he said.
He didn’t have to tell me. I knew his voice.
“How are you?” I said, happy to hear him.
“I’m okay. I just got your invitation.”
We hadn’t talked in so long that I was sure he was just calling to congratulate me or personally let me know he wouldn’t be able to make it.
“I hope you will come,” I said.
There was silence, and then I heard him sigh.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked seriously.
I could feel the wrinkle form between my eyes in confusion.
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“I mean, are you sure about getting married?” he asked.
“Are you teasing me?” I asked with a laugh. “Of course I’m sure, you have an invitation, don’t you?”
“I have an invitation, but it doesn’t mean you have to go through with it,” he said.
I figured he would start laughing any moment, that he was being playful and fooling with me. We hadn’t spoken in years. He didn’t have a clue to what had been going on in my life, because he’d failed to keep in touch, so I’d stopped trying. That while our worlds had gone separate ways I’d fallen head over heels in love.
“Mathew, are you high?” I asked cautiously.
“No, I’m not high,” he answered, sounding annoyed.
“You aren’t making any sense, so I thought, you know, maybe. I didn’t send out invitations because I’m not getting married. Be happy for me, would you?”
There was another long pause.
“You don’t have to do this, Morgan, there are options.”
I pictured his face, his blue eyes, his tanned skin, the small freckles, hardly visible, but up close, on his nose, his blonde hair. My thoughts raced back through time, seeing so many moments I had buried. Up to the last time I’d seen him at the Motel 6 in San Jose, when I was with Ryan and Karen. Oh, yes, he had met Ryan I remembered.
“Options? What options? Mathew, what are you talking about?”
At this point I was playing along, waiting for whatever silliness he was brewing up.
“There’s me?” he suggested.
My mouth fell open and I stretched the telephone cord from the kitchen wall to the kitchen table, so I could sit down. I could feel my pulse in my neck. There’s me? I thought. There’s me.
“Are you saying there’s me like there's you to marry?”
“That’s what I think I’m saying,” he said.
I rubbed my forehead with my fingers, hoping some kind of rational response would come to me. He has to be joking, pulling my strings all the way to the end. I kept waiting for his laughter, the minute he would tell me he was kidding and we could just have a friendly casual catch up. It didn’t come.
“Mathew, I don’t know why you’re saying this. There’s me?” I repeated. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’m not joking, Morgan.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After all this time, after all these y
ears he was choosing now to decide. It’s too late, Mathew screamed in my head.
“I don’t understand where this is coming from,” I said irritated. “What I do know is I’m in love with Ryan, and I want to marry him.”
I paused. There was silence at the other end.
“I love him, Mathew. He loves me. For the first time since you, I’ve found love. Real love this time. No glass slipper, no fairy tale, just two people that get it. It’s that simple, nothing complex about it,” I explained.
In a way my words were mean, directed at him. Who was he to question my decision? To throw this out, and expect what from me? That I should understand it? “There’s me.” That I should give up what I had and run to him. That his hold on me was still that strong. I calculated the years in my head; it had been five years since I’d seen him. He was silent for so long, I thought maybe he hung up.
“Mathew?”
“I’m here,” he said. “You gave him your whole heart, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I’ve given him my whole heart.”
Mathew’s crazy half and whole idea. Thinking if you only gave half your heart, you couldn’t get hurt. I wondered if I could have ever had his whole heart, if I had given it a try.
“I was never very good at giving half. I’ve been more of an all-or-nothing girl. You should know by now I didn’t do well at holding back. Ryan and I fell in love…together.”
I could hear his breathing in my head; times I’d laid so close to him. Times when I was never sure of where we stood.
“I should have tried harder in San Jose that summer. I should have tried harder to make you move, to come be with me,” he lamented.
I could feel my throat constrict and my eyes flash hot. I closed them tightly. I pictured us at the Hyatt, the night I told him I couldn’t come, and the next day when he’d asked me to stay one more day. I could feel the feelings, me wanting it to turn out differently, wanting him to make me believe.
“Mathew, our relationship was so convoluted. Maybe too much had happened between us, for too long. I don’t know. There’s not a good answer.”
I sighed. This felt like a dream, like I couldn’t be here now having this conversation.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
The tears came silently and ran down my cheeks. I made sure he couldn’t tell.
“Mathew, I need to go. I hope you will come.”
I didn’t know what there was left to say. I’d heard the hurt in his voice.
“I wouldn’t miss it, kid,” he said. “And remember, there is no sorry.”
When we hung up, the tears flowed. I cried for reasons that blurred together. For the us that was, but never was, that never would be. I cried in joy for the love he had driven me to, the love that filled my life now, a love I would have never found if I’d tried with Mathew. I cried because there was a part of me that he’d taken, an innocence, that no one else would ever have, not even Ryan.
I was sure Mathew wouldn’t come. With his feelings the way they were, and the distance he’d put between us in the past, it didn’t seem like something he would consider. He didn’t call me again, nor did he return his RSVP. I was at the Rancho Bernardo Inn getting ready with my bridesmaids, in the hotel room. Makeup and hair was done. I was so excited for my wedding day that I was trembling. Gayle had brought a bottle of champagne and we were all having a glass.
“We’ll get the dress on you right before,” Gayle said.
My beautiful white dress hung from the top of the armoire. I looked at it again, admiring the satin, the iridescent beading, and the headpiece. I had chosen not to go with a traditional veil over my face. I wanted Ryan to see every expression on my face all the way down the aisle to him. I knew his eyes would sparkle when he saw me in it. Knew he would think I was the most beautiful girl in the world.
“No, how 'bout I walk down the aisle like this?” I teased.
I had on my white stockings and Dolphin shorts with a sleeveless orange button down shirt. I was staying comfortable and wearing clothes I could easily remove when the time came.
“Ryan would take you like that.”
I knew he would too. Ryan knew me, the good along with the bad, and loved me regardless. He loved me for everything I was.
“I’m glad you brought the champagne; it’s taking the edge off.”
“You’re not nervous? Not you?” Gayle teased.
“I am. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“It will be fine,” she comforted.
People were coming and going in and out of the room for various things. Lots of girlfriends dropping in to wish me luck and see the goings-on. It was high energy with lots of chatter going on. There was another knock on the door, and one of the girls got up to open it. I was sitting on the bed sipping a second glass of champagne.
“Is Morgan here?”
I heard Mathew’s voice. I felt my heart race. Mathew. I looked at Gayle and could tell she was as shocked as I was. How had he found my room? Why had he? He was here, here at my wedding. I stood up as he walked into the room.
“Hey,” he said.
The room went silent and all the girls stared at him. He looked stunning. His hair was short again, but still thick and blond and his skin glowed bronze. He wore a light grey pinstriped suit that made his eyes stand out. I had a brief flash of seeing him across the room at Melanie’s wedding. His eyes were locked with mine, like that now. He was taking care of himself, his body buff. In the uncomfortable silence I glanced away and looked at my bridesmaids; only Gayle had ever met him. I wanted to laugh out loud. He could have his choice. I smiled.
“Hey,” I said.
He came to me and gave me a hug, wrapping his arms gently around me like I was a fragile object. It felt odd, him here, now.
“Can I talk to you?” he whispered, as he released me.
My heart flinched as everyone looked at each other, and then at me. Gayle shot me a look filled with daggers.
“Sure,” I said casually.
I looked at him, waiting, and then I realized he meant privately. I set my glass down on the table and took his hand, leading him into the bathroom. I shut the door softly. It was the only place I could take him that was away from everyone. He leaned against the counter and gave me his grin.
“God, you look beautiful.”
I could see my reflection in the mirror behind him, and even in my funky get up I did look beautiful, I was radiant.
“Thanks, so do you,” I said.
My heart was pounding in my chest. He came towards me and took my hands and held them. Seeing my engagement ring he twisted it on my finger.
“Morgan, are you sure?”
His question ripped at my heart. We had come so far. How had it come to this? My wedding day? To someone else? I wished for an instant I could make him happy and say no, that I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t.
“Mathew, don’t make me cry on my wedding day,” I said, smiling and hurting at the same time.
He scanned my face in search of any doubt. Hoping, by being there, he could put a chink in my resolve. I stared into his eyes. Memories flooded into my brain and again I wondered who that girl had been.
“I loved you since I can remember,” I started. “There were times I denied it in the name of self-preservation. I struggled with that love alone. There are a lot of words you used with me, but love was never one of them.”
I searched his eyes, and his beautiful face, at the same time seeing my blurred reflection behind him.
“We can’t change what didn’t happen,” I said softly.
He dropped my hands and leaned back against the sink counter.
“You’re wrong, Morgan, and you still haven’t answered my question.”
I had to think for a minute about what his question was. My head was filled with too many things.
“Am I sure?” I asked.
He waited, staring into my eyes; his so intense it shocked me. No matter how I said it, it wouldn’t be what he
wanted to hear and would hurt him. It made my heart ache.
“Mathew,” I said firmly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
He dropped his head and looked down at the floor.
“You asked me once if my heart ever hurt, and I told you no because I only gave half of it. That wasn’t totally true. It hurt sometimes, but I plowed past it. Thought I was tougher than hurt. Today my heart hurts,” he said.
He lifted his head and looked at me, his eyes sad.
I opened my arms to him. He came to me and gave me a hug. He held me tightly this time, as if maybe this wouldn’t happen. I tried to understand his urgent change of heart. It had been years since we had been together. The only thing I could come up with was he was alone again, and he was about to forever lose the option of comfortable me. When he released me, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
“Good luck, kid. You deserve it,” he said as he turned and opened the door.
I heard him say something to the girls in the room, and I heard Gayle’s voice and then the hotel room door shut. I stared at myself in the mirror and waited for the tears, but they didn’t come. Instead I pictured Ryan’s smiling face, the twinkle in his eye, and all I wanted was to run to him.
“Who was that?” the girls asked when I came back into the room.
It was a hard question; he’d been so many things to me.
“One of my best friends,” I said finally.
Gayle didn’t look at me. I looked at the clock, it was close enough.
“Gayle, help me get my dress on,” I said.
She pulled my wedding dress from the armoire and followed me into the small dressing area next to the bathroom. I smiled as she struggled with the dress.
“What the hell was that?” she whispered.
“A last minute quickie,” I whispered back. “I’m not married yet.”
She looked at me, horrified.
“I’m kidding,” I chuckled, looking her in the eyes. “He wanted to know if I was sure about marrying Ryan.”
“Are you?” she said, opening my dress for me to step into it.
