Dinner was truly uncomfortable. We sat in a round of ten—Peter, me, an empty seat, Sarah, Charlie, James, Will, Christie, Max, and Jennifer. Dinner was served. The roasted tomato soup went untouched. A cold, crisp beet and apple salad, nibbled. Filet mignon, new potatoes, and sautéed veggies, a waste of money, as I only finished the vegetables before having Peter finish the rest of my plate. I consumed some dessert and coffee, along with two glasses of wine. It was no wonder my system wasn’t feeling well.
After dinner, everyone started to mingle and dance again. Jennifer excused herself to use the restroom while the rest of our table, except Max, went to dance. Dreading the alone time, I got up to go anywhere and do anything but talk to Max.
“How come you barely touched your dinner, Em?” Max pulled me back down with a caring yet guarded voice.
“I wasn’t very hungry,” I answered softly.
“You’ve lost so much weight. Are you OK? Have you been ill? You still look…beautiful.” His voice sounded wistful.
With an intense glare I saw Max read my face. It was hard to hide anything from a man who had known me intimately for four years. No, I am not OK. You left me eighteen months ago without good reason and now I’m sitting here watching you with another woman. How can I be OK?
My eyes teared as I saw the sadness in his eyes and I chose to turn away from our silent conversation. Muted, awkward distress, surprisingly couldn’t suppress the friendship, fondness, and love that had lived between us for so many years. Even now, my heart felt glad to be here with him. My mind continued to dissect my heart. I couldn’t free my mind of the way it felt to be held by Max while we danced. His touch brought back so many wonderful memories. There was a part of me that wanted to be held by him again.
Still, I was angry with Max for kicking me out of his life so unexpectedly. How could a man who dumped me after four years of dating, sit here and feign to care for me? He didn’t care anymore, and neither should I. I had Jake, and deep inside, I knew we would make this relationship work.
Chapter 2 The College Years
Hot and humid weather greeted my move into my college dorm. Florida, in the middle of August, had to have been more pleasant than this day. It was never this hot in Los Angeles, especially so close to the ocean. With ten stories and 381 rooms, I lived in one of the oldest dormitories on campus. It even required an old-fashioned key card to open up the heavy doors into this secured building. The usual meeting area and common rooms were all located on the first floor, and the dining hall looked like any other well-stocked cafeteria. It was a glorious first year in college.
My room was all of two hundred square feet. In it were three beds, three desks, three chairs, and three small closets. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get all my clothes in this locker of a closet. Arriving in the dorm room before any of my roommates, I picked the only bed that was the bottom bunk. There was another bed above me and directly across my way, the third bed was perched up high with a desk, chair, and locker-sized closet all neatly positioned underneath it. That was my entire room. Needless to say, there wouldn’t be much privacy during my first year.
Max and I met in the cafeteria on the first day of school. Catching him smiling at me from a table nearby, I was quickly smitten. He and his roommates came over to our table and introduced themselves to us. We all took turns at small talk and then paired off to go explore the campus. From day one, our chemistry was undeniable. Max and I were naturally drawn to each other like the south pole of a magnet attracting the north pole. We marveled at how much we had in common and how we felt such a strong connection from the moment we met.
As the days passed us by, our connection only got stronger. We spent every waking moment together when we weren’t in class. Picnics on the grass, study sessions in the library—if we could have, we would have stayed up every night catching up on the eighteen years we had missed out on in each other’s lives. It was a strange bond that couldn’t be denied.
Our physical bond was equally as strong. The urge to touch and explore scared me. Such a strong desire went against the core of my belief. I wanted to stay “pure” till I got married. Max, of course, had other ideas and thought I was crazy. We argued and fought constantly. Being the tearful one in the relationship. I hurt easily and cried readily. Max accused me of being way too sensitive. He was right, of course—though he’d never get an admission from these lips.
Maybe it was our age. Maybe it was because this was the first real relationship for both of us. Whatever the reason, we just couldn’t hide our emotions from one another. Every disagreement set us off for days. We’d quarrel, not speak, then go right back to our relationship as if nothing happened. I didn’t know if we had ever resolved any issues. In many ways, it didn’t matter, because we just wanted to be together.