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August 30, 2004
there's something about a sunrise.
it's 730 sunday morning. we're lying on a too-small futon, listening to a rooster crowing in the chicago suburbs.
I can't remember the last time I woke up before noon on a weekend, let alone awakening before noon to find myself all smooshed up, beltbuckle to backpocket with an adorable someone.
something about the way the sun is shining, the way we smell of beer and cigarettes and sleep, the way my shoulders ache from sleeping on an uncomfortable pillow - this all gives me a not-unpleasant jolt of nostalgia for those mornings after parties at my frat in college, where we'd all eventually straggle into the party room and half-heartedly clean up the junk from the night before and watch cartoons and gossip about who did what to whom the night before.
except, this sunday, we hadn't. done what to whom. we just slept and rolled over and slept some more. and when the rooster decided we were done sleeping, we talked. about him. about me. about washington dc and normal illinois. about the past, while carefully avoiding the present and the future.
and, oh my god. ouch.
I'm sure he wondered why I was quiet and kind of distant at breakfast, and then on the train back from the suburbs. and I'll tell you. . . I was busy trying to keep my shit together. I finally realized what sucked about staying friends. what sucked about unrequited . . . no . . . semi-requited . . . er . . . something. Three hours after the sun rose that morning, I felt like we were closer than we really should be, for two rebounding emotionally unavailable adults who need attention but aren't really ready for involvement. and I couldn't take anything back without losing something we both gained.
I'm not sure exactly when it'll happen, but when I stop calling him as often as I used to, stop writing a dozen times a day, stop agreeing to meet him for drinks after work, he'll probably think it's because I stopped liking him. or because I started becoming more serious about one of the guys I've been dating on the nights we don't talk.
"thank god we didn't date . . . I like her too much to hurt her" he'll tell himself.
he's been telling himself that all along. I know, I've been there. I've given myself that line dozens of times. and believed it each time, to the point of being pissed off at the other guy for not understanding that by withholding I was "helping".
but I'm on the other side again, the hurting side of the equation. the thing is, I'm finally realizing that it's not dating that hurts. or even the breakup. it's the glimpse of the possibility that hurts. sitting on that couch at 10 in the morning, after too many beers and not enough sleep and way too much proximity, I didn't have the energy to not see what i've been struggling not to see.
I thought I understood impossible affairs, unrequited love. but I had no idea.
and on top of it all, I was worried that this is upsetting and painful because he said "no" - but that's not the problem.
the problem isn't that he said no. No, I can take. I can work with No.
it's that, in so many words, he said: "Maybe."
Posted by Heather at August 30, 2004 05:10 PM
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Comments
This is an excellently written story.
Posted by: Sarah at September 29, 2004 07:16 PM