Wednesday, July 2, 2008
MY MIND WAS WITH him. He was taking a shower.
I needed a shower. In some small way, I wanted to get into the shower because it made me feel like I was closer to him. We'd just finished sending messages back and forth like telephonic Ping-Pong. I could hear his chuckling at some of them. That was weird, right? That I could hear him laugh at my texts?
Well, I could.
Every time he replied with an LOL I let my mind hear it. The best part about my memory was it did this funny thing with his laugh. It wasn't the same laugh every time. My imagination would invent laughing sequences for a guy who I'd only met briefly. It was the strangest and most wonderful thing.
I stood there running the hot water about to get in, when I thought about Grant. Which I did a lot when I was thinking about Casey.
I'd become accustomed to comparing the two.
Casey was devilishly playful and crass. Grant was sweet and smart and thoughtful. But both were genuine.
Casey was low maintenance. We could text, stop for a while and then hours later pick up our conversation. Or we’d start a new one. It didn't matter. He was easy.
Grant was higher maintenance. He liked a schedule. He'd admitted that me taking the new job was awesome and that he was proud, but he was so minute-to-minute. He wanted to know where I was going, what I was doing, and did I like it so far? All things a boyfriend should. And even though I was excited about all the things he'd asked me about, everything always fell flat when he asked. It felt a little suffocating at times. It was probably just me, though, right?
Every girl wants the man with a steady job and a huge heart. Everyone wants the man who would spend time with your parents and—to the best of your knowledge—enjoy doing it. Grant wanted a family and home, a good life, which I was sure I'd have with him. The perfect, traditional life.
Casey lived out of a suitcase and hadn't slept in his own bed for days. He sold beer and needed a haircut. All right, I liked the hair. He was two years older than Grant and me, yet he acted like he was twenty-one, I thought, but I didn't know him that well.
I stepped up to the mirror and wiped away the steam from the water, which was hot enough to distract me and clear my head for an evening with Grant.
I noticed my bangs were growing out fast. They needed trimming already. I made a snap decision to get the kitchen scissors and trim them myself.
After rifling through drawer after drawer, I finally found them in the dishwasher. I shut the dishwasher door and I saw my phone light up and heard it vibrate. Maybe it was him, but I told him I'd text first and so far he'd always waited. I hadn't wanted to be rude to Grant and text Casey back right in front of him. Grant wouldn't think anything of it. I text my family and friends all the time. He'd never acted the slightest bit jealous or suspicious.
Why would he then? And I'd be guilty, because I'd answer him. I just knew I would. I couldn't help myself.
The screen said I'd got a text, but the number didn’t jive with my contacts.
Unknown Number: Why are you texting my boyfriend?
I read. Blinked. Read it again. My heart raced.
Casey told me he was going to get a shower and something to eat. Then he'd be around later. I couldn't understand. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to delete it and block the number. I didn't want to respond.
I needed to take a shower. I needed to get ready for Grant.
Casey was someone's boyfriend. What the f*ck? I felt ill.
I'd known what we'd been doing was wrong on some level. All right. On every level. I'd been unfaithful to Grant, but I honestly hadn't thought about the girl Casey was with at Micah's since he’d said they'd broken up that night in my hotel room, when I was drunk.
I supposed things changed.
Maybe they'd gotten back together.
Maybe that was a different girl.
Maybe he lied about all of it. I felt a cold sweat break over my chest and back. I felt lightheaded. My clammy and nervous hands held the phone out in front of me and every time the light on the screen timed out, I'd press the button and swipe it open to re-read it over again. Minutes passed and I did it over and over.
It wasn't like I'd thought Casey and I would ever have a chance or that we'd even see each other again. Although, in the back of my mind, I thought it was possible if Micah and Cory ever got married. But that wouldn’t be for a while.
I hadn't spent a whole night with Grant since we started texting. Not that I was afraid of getting caught. Honestly, I wasn't. It was that I liked being alone and with Casey at the same time. I didn't want to be around anyone when he was giving me his warped brand of attention. It felt all my own. My crazy secret.
I loved talking, well texting him. Lately, it was the highlight of my day. Where I never wanted to talk to Grant when he asked me about anything and everything, Casey not asking made me want to tell him every minute detail. Having that small connection with him had been awesome. Every night I looked forward to hearing my phone buzz. I anticipated what he would text; he always told me the strangest things. Things I didn't even know I cared to know.
Some of his weird messages ran through my head.
Casey: Did you know that you can use semen for invisible ink?
Casey: I read that the inside of a female's nose plumps up when she's aroused. Like a nose boner. LOL
Casey: Bees have five eyeballs. Gross.
Casey: Only one state has one syllable. Maine. Boom. Betcha didn't know that.
I went to sleep happy every night.
Now seeing this message, although I had absolutely no right to be angry, I felt like I was the one who'd been cheated on.
How f*cked up was that?
A surge of some type of territorial feeling flooded me.
Me: I am texting your boyfriend because he sold me some line about Bait, and I think he's right.
Delete.
Me: Who is this? I think you have the wrong number.
Her: He calls you honeybee.
It wasn't a question. He called me honeybee in San Francisco and sometimes in our messages. She'd read our messages. She wasn't asking. Thank God for the most part they were harmless.
Thank God? What was I hoping? That he didn't get caught?
I don't know what I was thinking. I was so damn confused.
When I'd been typing the messages, I felt like I'd been good at staying in a friendly zone. But now thinking about them through this girlfriend person's eyes, they'd seemed anything but.
Unease moved straight into anger, then it turned around and headed to denial.
Me: We are only friends.
Her: Leave him alone.
Me: I told you we were just friends. I think he can decide on his own if I should leave him alone.
Girlfriend.
Yes, from that point forward that would be her official name. Not like his girlfriend. In my mind it sounded a lot more like bitch.
Her: He said you were nobody when I asked. That doesn't seem too friendly.
Bitch. Girlfriend. Girlfriend. His girlfriend. Who obviously cared about him enough to stand up for herself and their relationship.
Who does that make me?
Nobody? Casey's nobody? I'm nobody's nobody. I'm Grant's somebody.
My mind struggled with what she'd told me. Did I believe her? If I were her I would have said the same thing. Hell, I'd say anything to make me leave him alone.
Her: He was with me today when you sent so many messages. Maybe you should have taken the hint. He said you won't leave him alone. In fact, he gave me your number. Don't call him later.
Her: Leave.
Her: Casey.
Her: Alone.
If only it were that easy.
It had to be. I was with Grant and Casey was with this girl, Girlfriend Bitch, who seemed to be ready to throw down if I got in their way.
I felt another rush of that cold hotness spring to the surface of my skin.
I needed a shower. Grant was going to be there in a little while and I needed to wash the grossness away. I needed to get my shit together. I needed to grow up.
Casey wasn't my cheater and I wasn't his hypocrite. Or maybe it was the other way around.
I turned off my phone. I couldn't allow myself to think about it anymore. That was it. It was done. I could finally move on. I needed to focus on the man who I had. A man who would never text another man’s girlfriend behind my back. A man who was faithful and in love with me.
It was time I let this thing with my perfect stranger go. Let the secret become a memory. I didn't want to though, I only told myself I did.
I'd miss him. Even only spending one weekend with Casey, and barely a dozen days texting, I'd come to rely on him for something. Friendship, I guessed.
Maybe we were friends after all. I guessed I'd never really know.
Grant was a little late, a bit unlike him, but it was good. It gave me more time to regroup, get my game face on, and prepare myself.
I'd known for a while now that he was waiting for the right time to propose and I'd given him some pretty obvious “not now signals” in my Casey fog.
I was just angry enough to make a decision. That's the thing about anger. It makes you decisive.
I wasn't taking what I had with Grant for granted anymore. Not after Girlfriend's messages.
When he came to my door with flowers, I looked at him like I hadn't seen him in weeks. Then I realized I probably hadn't.
He looked nice. He was still wearing his work clothes, brown pants and a blue shirt. He'd even had a haircut. He handed me the roses and I took them, feeling a little shy and unworthy.
“Thank you, they're really pretty.” I turned back around then glanced back at him. “Come in for a minute? I'll put these in water.”
“All right,” he said. “Then I'm taking you somewhere.” He walked into my foyer, sure and calm.
I busied myself with the flowers, looking at my phone on the kitchen counter next to me, the entire time. I wasn't even going to take it with us.
After sorting the flowers and putting them in a tall vase, I grabbed my purse.
He didn't say much, but he held my hand on the way to the car and it felt nice. After the afternoon I'd had, it was reassuring. That was what our love and relationship was, comforting and familiar.
No bullshit. No worries. No girlfriend.
He kissed the tops of my fingers before he dropped my hand to walk around the truck.
I didn't know where we were going, but I didn't really think it mattered. I was where I was supposed to be if I was with Grant. Even my parents thought so. Even Shane.
Before I realized where we were, he was putting the car into park. We were in the parking lot of the gas station where we'd met.
Tonight was the night.
“Blake, I love you. We met here at a gas station on Christmas Eve. I think I might have fallen in love with you that day.” He turned and faced me, his freshly shaven skin looked so smooth. “I know that there's been something on your mind lately. I can tell. But I don't want to wait any longer.”
I didn't know what to say. I was rotten.
He said, “I want to talk to you tonight about our future. Do you want to talk about it? The future? Our future, maybe?” He smiled and it was endearing, full of hope and love and goodness.
“I'd love to talk about it.” I gave him the best smile I had.
“Do you see me in your future?” he asked. Cars drove around us and looked into our windows since he parked in the middle of the lot. Almost the exact same place we’d been standing when he got my number.
I thought about my future. I saw him there. It was peaceful and happy and predictable. In that moment, it felt good. Then, as I did, I put Casey in my future to see what it would look like. My evil imagination tried these men on like jeans in a department store.
In my alternate Casey-future, he would always be gone on business. I’d be stuck at home. And he would cheat on me.
After all, he did admit to cheating on other girlfriends and not just Aly, which created a mental image of flashing red warning lights reading “Danger!”
I didn’t know. Casey’s version was unpredictable, but the future with Grant looked nice, safe, and comfortable.
“I see you in my future,” I said looking at my hands in the streetlight that poured through my side of the vehicle. I wanted to bite my nails badly. When I peeked up at him his face was alight.
“I see you in mine, too. Ours. If you want that.”
“I think I want that.” I didn't want to feel like I had earlier that day. I knew that for sure. “I know I want that.”
“Good, then I have a surprise.” He put the car in drive and we left the gas station where it turned out Grant and I made all of our major plans. First to see each other, now to be together in the future.
We drove through side streets close to where my parents lived. They'd been in the same house since I was small. The neighborhood was familiar and I'd always liked it. I scrolled through my mental map trying to figure out which restaurant we were going to. I came up short. There wasn't a restaurant in that area.
Grant pulled over to the curb and got out. Walking around to my door, he opened it for me. I didn't know what we were doing there. Maybe we knew the people who lived in the house. He grabbed my hand and walked me toward the bungalow's porch. It was a brick house and it had a porch swing, a holstered flag swayed over the front steps and big ferns hung on hooks between the four squared-off, white pillars.
There were a few lights on inside, but looking through the windows it didn't appear there was anyone home.
There on that porch Grant got down on one knee.
He produced a white, velvet box from his pocket and offered it to me for inspection with one hand.
“Blake, I love you. I love everything about you. I always have. I know I didn't discuss it with you and we don't have to stay here long if you don't like it, but I bought this house for us. I want this to be our home. I want you to be my wife and I want to be your husband. Will you please, please say yes and marry me?” He swallowed back some of the nervousness that must have risen to the surface of his throat.
Kneeling on the wooden plank porch, he looked so right. Everything did. The house. The ring. The man. It all seemed the way it should be.
It had been coming, but the house was a true surprise. It had a porch swing. And I loved porch swings.
It all felt surreal. I looked around. The bushes were perfectly trimmed. The windows were clean. The grass had been mowed and he was offering it to me. He was proposing a life, not just a marriage. A life I could be proud of. He would love me and care for me.
He wouldn't hurt me. He wouldn't leave me. He didn't have a girlfriend.
“Yes.” I let a relieved smile melt across my lips. “Yes to all of it. I love it!”
He stood up quickly and kissed me. His lips were warm and soft and like always, his kiss was measured. Even in this emotional life-changing moment, he kept his control and his emotions at bay. So I did, too.
I always pictured that I'd cry when I was proposed to. But I didn't. There wasn't anything to cry about.
Breaking our sweet kiss he asked, “Do you want to go in?”
“Yeah. Let's see this house you bought.” Maybe it was the terrible emotions from earlier colliding with the elation I was supposed to be feeling, I didn't know, but walking into my new house for the first time with my fiancé felt okay. Just okay.
I'm sure it would hit me later and the sense of excitement would fill me. I'd just have to wait for it all to sink in.
“We have some work to do, but I think it's going to be a great first home.” He looked almost more apprehensive about the bungalow than he had about the proposal. “I know the floors need refinishing and the carpet needs replacing, new paint, new kitchen—you can do whatever you'd like in there—and a lot of other things, too. But it's ours.”
“What's the address?” I asked.
“9335 Aloha Street.”
I thought it was funny. Aloha meant hello and goodbye at the same time. Even the street name felt appropriate.
He showed me around and we had pizza delivered our new house. He walked me through every room and described every idea he had for the future of our home and he had lots of them.
We ate the pizza on the floor of the empty dining room and drank champagne, which he'd dropped by earlier, out of plastic cups.
“Do you want to come back to my place?” I wanted so badly to connect with him. To feel him. To get swept away by him. If ever there was a night to do that, it was the night he'd asked me to marry him.
When we got back to my apartment, I felt anxious, like it was about to be our first time all over again. Grant and I had a pretty decent sex life, until I got back from San Francisco. But lately we'd been busy. I'd had my period. He had been working a lot of extra hours—only then obvious to me—to save for both the ring and the house.
So we hadn't been together much lately.
Grant was a gentle lover. He was generous and sweet. He kissed my neck and caressed my skin. He looked deep into my eyes.
I'd asked him to stay over, and that wasn't anything new for us pre-San Francisco. He followed me into the bedroom. I didn't turn on any lights on my way, walking through the small apartment through the moonlight that spilled in through my windows.
When we got to my bedroom, we both sort of stood there. It had been a little while and it was taking a few minutes for us to find our rhythm again. Then he walked over to the bed and sat down. He took off his shoes and socks methodically in the dark, making sure not to make a mess. Not that I would have minded. That behavior wasn't anything strange for him though.
I had been in the same room, doing that same thing many times with him. It was only then I'd ever noticed how he took his clothes off himself and I found myself walking around to my side of the bed. I took my sandals off, followed by my pants and shirt. I left my bra and panties on, wanting him to take them off me. But when I saw him stripped bare, I followed suit and took them off myself.
He lay back on the bed and faced me. I mirrored his actions rolling on my side to the center to meet him.
“Thank you for saying yes,” he said as he ran a soft hand down my cheek. I leaned back and he moved over me.
I only nodded.
I shouldn't be doing this.
His other hand found my waist and then moved south. I rose to kiss him, trying to shake this weird feeling that was blooming in my stomach. My mouth met his and I kissed him with fervor. My mind pleaded with my body to get on board.
His hand found my center. His fingers found all of the places he knew I liked. His touches weren't urgent or desperate; they were calculated with over a year’s worth of history guiding their ministrations.
Grant took his time, not rushing through foreplay. He kissed me where he should. He stroked and caressed me in all of the right spots.
I touched him and worked his erection with one hand. He was hard and his tip was slick with readiness. I shifted, as a sign I was ready and that I wanted him inside me. I wanted to feel that rush of love and adoration that came with an orgasm. I needed it. I needed it for us.
He made love to me. He told me how beautiful I was. How he couldn't wait for our future. That I was the only girl for him. It was quiet, except for our breathing and the occasional moan. I didn't feel the usual build. I wasn't climbing like I could tell he was.
I looked at the clock, something I couldn’t remember ever doing before in my life during sex. It read ten thirty-seven.
I should be texting Casey.
Casey had a girlfriend.
I had a fiancé.
I wondered if he'd tried to call.
I'd told him to wait.
Did he know she messaged me?
Grant’s body language was such that I recognized him nearing his end.
“Are you getting close?” he asked in my ear, the closeness made my body shiver as his voice vibrated the little hairs inside of my ear. My body gave a little shake. Grant took the movement as my answer.
“Good. I'm about to, too.” He leaned up on his elbows and slid his hands behind me under my pillow. His hips pushed in and out of me in a synchronized tempo. In and out. In and out. I almost looked at the clock again to work out how much longer he would take.
He thought that the tickle I'd had from his breath touching my ear was the beginning of my orgasm. I knew I wasn't going to get there and that his was knocking at the door.
He wouldn't be angry if I didn't come. He might have been concerned; it was a special night and all. I'd hate to make him feel bad after how wonderful he'd been.
So I began an act that I didn't know I'd prepared. I pushed my head back into the soft satin pillowcase under my head and my hands went to his ass. I began panting and moaning, meeting his thrusts with new energy. I threw my whole entire body into a performance.
“Yes,” I purred leaning up to pair our lips. “Yes.”
Grant wasn't a very vocal or loud man in bed. He told me how good he felt, or how beautiful I was, he would say my name and things like that. I could tell that my actions were ringing true to him, because his brow cinched and his mouth hung open and a long, “Ahhh,” came out as he did.
He stilled and throbbed, slowing his movements inside me, collapsing on my chest. I squeezed my inner muscles in reflex to the sensation. He coated the tops of my breasts with pecking kisses.
“I love you, Blake,” he said, stretching to my mouth and kissing me one last time before gently pulling himself out of me.
“I love you, too,” I whispered loud enough for him to hear. “I'm going to get some water. Do you need anything?”
I had to get out of that bed. I had to be alone for a minute.
“No, thanks. I'm going to sleep.” He rolled over and pulled the sheets up the length of himself.
I thought about another man while I was having sex with my boyfriend. Fiancé. They weren't erotic thoughts, thank God, but they were a distraction when my focus should have been on the man I’d confessed my love to.
An unsettling feeling once again festered inside me. It felt like shame. Like I didn't want anyone to ever know what had happened. Like I'd been unfaithful just now, when I hadn't. I was with the man I was supposed to be with.
Then my mind meandered to a place that turned my mild uneasiness into full-blown panic. What if he's with her right now? Irrational as it was, my thoughts were uncoordinated and didn't make sense.
I grabbed a tank top and put a pair of pajama pants on and walked down the hall to the kitchen in the dark. My phone still sat on the counter. I stared at it all the way to the refrigerator. I stopped, just before opening the door to grab a bottle of water.
I couldn't stop myself. Compulsion controlled my hand.
I powered on the device. It went through all of the startup screens and it felt like it was taking forever. Then nothing.
He'd only done what I’d asked, but I was hoping he hadn’t. It was depressing.
My heart should be excited, in awe, but it felt as though it was slowly breaking.
No Casey. No missed calls. No messages.
No falling asleep happy.