Last
May I had a conversation with him about dating more later that summer, to which
he agreed easily, but with a caveat of sorts that this was highly unlikely to
evolve into a conventionally monogamous, committed relationship—best summed up
in his exact words, “I love being around you, but I don’t love you.” I didn’t
raise much of an objection at the time. We’d known each other for barely half a
year; what was there to object to? That summer (well-documented in these
archives) passed by uneventfully, and so did the rest of the year as we
continued talking, connecting, staying in touch—learning more about one another
and growing closer as a result.
Should
this week have surprised me then, when he came back into town for a visit, and
we fell on each other, starving for tangible contact—his, mine, not anyone else’s,
not at that moment—ruining his bedsheets, wrapping arms around the other afterward,
and I, carefully holding my breath before gently exhaling, telling him how I’ve
felt for the past few months? If the previous sentence sounds rambling and
leisurely, that is because it intimately parallels my own emotional journey
through what has been the steadiest, most stable sexual/romantic arrangement
with a partner thus far. The feeling came in time, nearly two years in the making, and
didn’t take me by surprise so much as tap my shoulder one day to say, “I’m
sorry it’s taken me such a while to show up, but I’m here. I am here.”
I wasn’t
sure I would tell him until Tuesday afternoon when we both reclined there in bed
with his head on my chest and my fingers combing through his hair. When I didn’t
feel afraid, I knew that it was okay to say the words, even if he didn’t return
the same sentiment, even if I’d be exposing myself in the biggest way since
Chance, even though that was my very first time telling anyone—out-loud—that “I
love you (a little bit.) Don’t
be scared because I’m not scared either.”
“...I
love you (a little bit) too.”
Time
changes things and the nature of things so quickly.
