The Real ***tangle

So it's been over a year now and I don't know if anyone will even read this or care about it. But with the hot-mess-express that you guys have last seen me as, I feel like I should wrap this up with what's happened since I last posted. Again, this is not exactly a story chapter, but also is because this is a true story. This will once again be a fairly condensed version.

When I last left off, I was curious and jealous over what I thought was a blossoming relationship again between Graham and Sarah. If I remember correctly, the second I posted that chapter, I because writing a letter to Graham. Our high school's marching band had just begun summer practices and I had stopped by a few times to help out a little and just visit. So I decided that I would write this big letter to Graham explaining how I felt about everything and run up to the school before I had to go to work so I could put the letter in his instrument cubby while they were out practicing (avoiding confrontation as well).

In the letter, I told him how I was still occasionally confused about us and how sometimes I wondered if we were doing the right thing by staying apart. I told him how I had thought everything over about a million times and eventually came to the conclusion that I made the right decision and that I didn’t want to get back together. But I told him how I realized that over the past two years, we had become best friends and that I missed my best friend. I talked about how it wasn’t the same not having him to talk to and how I found myself wanting to reach for my phone to text him all the time. I told him how I hated that we couldn’t even say hello to each other when I had visited at band the day before.

I also told him that I noticed him and Sarah looking close. I said that, yes, I felt some jealousy over her, but I still thought we were better apart. I also told him that I wanted him to be happy, and that if him getting back together with Sarah made him happy, than I would be happy for them.

I said a lot of things and probably said many of them multiple times on accident, since I was barely thinking before the words came out of my head and onto paper. I didn’t think about what I was saying. I just wrote it all down and ended up with a letter that was very close to breaking onto a third page. I read it over and sealed it in an envelope before I could change my mind. I cried through writing most of it, and for a good ten minutes afterwards.The next day, I drove to the school, snuck into the empty band room, and dropped the letter in his cubby, making sure he’d be able to see it. Then I went to work and tried to not cry during my half-hour drive as I thought about everything I had written.

A few hours later at work, I checked my phone and found a text from Graham. He said that he was sorry he didn’t say hello at band the other day and how he hates that we can’t seem to speak to each other anymore. I responded that I felt the same way and then said something about the letter. “Wait, what letter?” was his next text. I was floored. He didn’t get my letter? Then why was he texting me about what I had just written him about? I told him that I wrote a letter and put it in his cubby and did he not get it? He said he must have missed it, but what did it say? I told him that it would just be better if we talked about it tomorrow after he read it because it was pretty long. He said he’d text me once he got home from band tomorrow so we could talk (because we had this thing where we for some reason barely ever called each other, even for important conversations. Almost everything was over texts with us).

I didn’t have to work the next day, so I holed myself in my room about the time that Graham would be getting home from band, since I figured I’d probably cry while talking to him. Soon enough, he sent me a massive text responding to every point I made in my letter. He said that he missed his best friend too and that, while he was still trying to get over us and still felt a lot of things for me, he didn’t know if he could even handle trying to get back together again because he didn’t think he could keep doing the on-again-off-again thing, no matter his feelings. He said that he was glad that I’d be happy for him and Sarah, but that there was nothing going on between them. They were just becoming friends again, he reassured me.

For hours, we talked things through, and we decided that we really wanted to try to be friends again, because we really did become each other’s best friend and missed talking to each other. It was a little weird for a while, but we eventually got back into the routine of texting each other close to everyday, talking about just about everything with each other.

Meanwhile, I was in my first semester of “real” college, on the main campus, in the marching band, and quickly making a pretty large group of friends.

After a couple of months maybe (I honestly don’t remember when this was anymore), Graham told me that he and Sarah actually ended up realizing that they wanted to be more than friends again. He assured me that he didn’t lie to me before, when he said that there wasn’t anything happening between them. He said that they were just friends for a while, but ended up rekindling what was there before. I told him that I was really happy for him, but to be honest, I was selfishly worried about what it would mean to our friendship. I said that I felt bad about it because I really wanted to be fully supportive of them, but that I was worried that he would stop wanting to talk to me as much. He assured me that he understood, but couldn’t guarantee that something like that wouldn’t happen. And for a good few months, we really didn’t talk all that much less than before. Or if we did, I didn’t realize it because I was gaining a couple new, very close friends.

Somewhere along the line, Graham was looking for a job and couldn’t find one. I told him that I could get him a job where I worked if he really wanted, but that he was warned. It wasn’t a great place and he’d already heard a ton of my horror stories. But he really wanted a job, so I talked to my boss. He was hired the next day and I began actually training him. But he didn’t have his license, so his dad would have to take him to work every day. I mentioned that, if he was okay with it, I could always swing by his house on the days we worked together and pick him up. That ended up becoming our routine for a while.

A little bit after we started working together though, he told me that Sarah’s mom (who we both knew was a good bit overbearing and possibly some kind of psychotic) thought that he was only dating her to make me jealous. She apparently told him that if he wanted to to keep being allowed to date Sarah, that he would have to stop talking to me so much. So we began basically only talking at work. But then we also stopped working together as much, so we started talking a lot less than before. And eventually I stopped picking him off before work because it was too far out of my way to get him when I was coming from school. So we really didn’t get much time to talk anymore. What I was worried about ended up coming true only a few months into Graham and Sarah’s new relationship.

But I wasn’t as devastated about it as I thought I would be. I missed talking to my best friend Graham, but I had a new best friend at school, Aly, who I talked to all the time now. And our group of friends in general had over ten people in it, all of us really close to each other. I could talk to any of them about almost anything and I saw them all a hell of a lot more often than I saw Graham.

I also started hanging out with Mike a lot. Mike was in our group of friends, and we somehow ended up getting class schedules that matched up pretty nicely a lot of the time. We would sometimes hang out with some of our other friends that lived in his dorm and sometimes hang out with just the two of us. I started seeing Mike as kind of another best friend, although I could talk to Aly about so much more than him.

Aly and I talked about guys a lot. She told me a lot about her past relationships and I told her a lot about mine and Graham’s relationship. She didn’t really have a whole lot to say about it all that I hadn’t already thought about, but she did think that there were a lot of ironic sort of things in our relationship that could be seen as fate speaking; the initial party and the kiss there, us getting back together on what would have been our one-year anniversary, and the fact that he texted me to talk about things the day I gave him the letter, but before he even read it. We talked about it and decided that if something is meant to happen with us, it will, and that I shouldn’t dwell on things anymore.

But then ironic things started happening between me and Mike. I couldn’t tell at first if I was actually getting feelings for him, or if I was projecting my best-friends-with-a-guy thing from Graham into our friendship and misreading things because I didn’t have much else to go off of.

At a party towards the end of the first semester, about ten of us were kind of camped out on a couple mattresses pushed together on the floor in Aly’s parent’s basement. I brought up how my friends back home would have called this a fucktangle and everyone ate it up. Then we all started playing those truth-or-dare apps on a couple people’s phones. That turned into sexual truth or dare, of course, and things got interesting.

Of course, my always-over-thinking mind thought to the last time I’d played that game and how it lead to a relationship. I looked around the room and thought to myself that there were really only two guys in the room that I wouldn’t hate kissing if I ended up with that dare again. Rob was already in a relationship, so it reminded me of Graham of course, but I didn’t have any romantic feelings for him anyways, so I knew that wouldn’t lead to anything. But then there was Mike, sitting right next to me, and who I still felt conflicting feelings towards. I thought to myself semi-cynically, “wouldn’t it be fucking rich if Mike and I had to kiss and then we started dating? I’d laugh my ass off.”

Spoiler alert; we didn’t have to kiss.

But one spin did result in “JESSIE lick MIKE from the navel to the mouth”, which was by far the raciest dare anyone had been given all night. Everyone roared with laughter, but asked if we’d be willing to do it. Mike and I looked at each other through both of our red-faced laughs, shrugged, and decided why not?

Still laughing slightly, Mike took off his shirt and laid down at the instructions shouted by all of our friends. I felt my eyes widen a little, since I’d never seen him without a shirt until then, and I laughed off my initial reaction of “holy shit, he’s a lot more fit than I thought he was”, especially when everyone else commented on how none of us knew he had a six pack. I collected myself a bit, but couldn’t help thinking, “I won’t mind licking that.”

So I leaned over, tried not laughing too much (mostly from embarrassment of how attractive I realized I found Mike to be at that point), and licked all the way from his belly-button to the top of his chest, where I just about fell over laughing from our stupid friends’ comments.

That somehow ended up being the raunchiest dare anyone got all night, let alone that anyone actually went through with. A few hours of bullshitting around later, we all decided it was best to go to bed and started figuring out sleeping arrangements. Somehow, Mike and I ended up right next to each other again and were basically alone on a fairly large mattress, since the other girl on it with us didn’t like anyone sleeping too close to her. And somewhere along in the night, we ended up spooning for a little while. That was when I realized that I was really pretty attracted to Mike.

At this point, Graham and I were still talking a little bit when we ended up being scheduled together. One day, I asked how he and Sarah were doing and if her mom was still being kind of psycho about us talking. He said that they were doing well, but that her mom was still being weird and that he was sorry that we couldn’t talk much anymore. I told him that it was alright, that I had a pretty big group of friends that I talked to a lot, and that there was actually one of them that I was interested in and that might be interested in me as well. He said he was happy for me and that he hoped it worked out for me.

Mike and I kept getting closer to each other, but I was having a hard time reading how he felt about me. At another big fucktangle-esque sleepover, he and I ended up sleeping next to each other again, adding to our relationship irony. The next semester, I had a four hour break between classes and Mike didn’t have classes until way later in the day, so we ended up getting lunch together a lot over the first few weeks of the semester. One day after we ate, he offered that we go back to his dorm and watch Netflix until we had to go to class. That soon became our routine; either eating somewhere and then going to his dorm, or just eating in his dorm and watching shows.

Then our friends started asking questions, surprisingly almost at the same time. I got asked by at least three or four people in one week “what’s going on with you and Mike?” Eventually, Aly and I had a pretty long talk about it all. I told her that we hang out a lot because we both have a huge break that aligns, but that sometimes I feel like there’s something more than just friendship there. I told her that I’ve liked him for a little while and that I didn’t really know how to read how he felt about me. She said that she has a hard time reading him too, and that she didn’t really know what to tell me unless she somehow was able to get it out of him.

I was spending the night at her dorm that night, so we stayed up most of the night talking about guys (even though I swear, most of our conversations don’t actually revolve around guys). The next morning, a few of us were planning on having a girl’s day kind of thing, so we were trying to figure out what we were doing. I was texting a couple people when I got a text from Mike asking what Aly and I had planned, since he knew I was on campus and he didn’t have anything to do that day. Aly asked which of the girls responded to me when I got his text, and when I said ‘none’, her face lit up and she cooed, “O-oh,is it Mike?” and proceeded to make embarrassing comments for the next five minutes.

After a couple of the girls canceled on us, it ended up being girls-day-plus-Mike, and Aly made faces at me all day whenever Mike would pay any attention to me alone.

A couple weeks later, I was getting ready for work when Mike texted me saying that “we should do something tonight”, which I assumed meant we as in the group. I texted Aly, who was kind of the coordinator of the group, and asked her what we had planned for the night. She didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, so I told her about Mike’s text. She said that she and our other really close friend Allison had sat Mike down to ask him about his feelings for me. They eventually got it out of him that he did like me but that he didn’t know if I liked him.

I just about screamed when she said that, but asked if they told him. She said that they told him that he should just “grow some balls and ask her out” and that he must be planning on doing that if he wanted the two of us to “hang out”. All of this happened quick enough that I could respond to Mike without it seeming like I just had a conversation with Aly about the whole situation. I told him that I had to work, but I could come down to campus afterwards and hang out. Since I worked late, I planned on spending the night on campus, whether that be with Aly or otherwise.

I ended up getting to campus around 11pm, and there wasn’t much open, but we decided to meet in the Student Union and move elsewhere when they closed. So we sat there for a little while, just chatting normally, but I noticed that Mike was acting a bit off. I knew why though, and I was trying to hide my smirk the whole time. But it was really hard to not smile when he started saying that he wanted to talk to me about something specific, but wasn’t sure how I’d react. Part of me wanted to just lean over and kiss him. But the other part - the more sadistic part - told me it would be more fun to listen to his nervous speech. He told me that he’d liked me for a little while but didn’t know how to tell me because he’s bad at talking about things like that, but that some of our friends basically figured out his feeling and told him to go for it. I waited for him to stop speaking before I smirked just about as wide as possible and told him I liked him too. He sighed so hard I couldn’t help but laugh. We talked about how neither of us knew how to read each other, but apparently all of our friends could see it a mile away. I eventually let it slip that Aly told me about how they cornered him, so I thought I knew what was coming. He laughed and cursed her for making it easier on me but not him. Then we decided to go back to his room and watch a movie, only as a couple this time.

That ended up happening a little bit after Graham and I really lost touch with each other, and it took a while for me to be able to casually let it slip around him at work that I had a boyfriend. I wanted him to know, but I didn’t want to just walk up out of the blue and say “hey, I have a boyfriend now, maybe your girlfriend’s mom will lay off with the thinking you’re just trying to make me jealous thing”.

It didn’t change anything between us though. We only talked while at work, usually just in passing because we didn’t actually work next to each other very often, and if we ever texted each other, it would be related to scheduling or other work issues.

Mike and I have now been together for 10 months, and have a really good relationship. I really do love him and love being with him, but I still get heartaches sometimes over Graham. I have always been jealous of how pretty Sarah is, which was a sore point in that relationship at times because it made me doubt why he would break up with her for me. So when I see them together (because yes, they are still together as well), I feel a stab of jealousy and it’s sometimes very hard to separate whether it’s from them actually being together or if it’s because of how beautiful she is. There are times, though, where I really do miss Graham and think about what would’ve happened if we’d have stayed together. But then I think about what I have with Mike and it usually goes away.

I think I’ll always wonder what could have been and I’ll always be slightly jealous over Sarah (even though I genuinely like her as a person and have nothing against her). The heartaches have definitely lessened over time, and having such a great relationship with Mike really helps like nothing else, but they haven’t completely disappeared.

Even writing this all down, my heart hurt a bit while I talked about Graham before Aly, Mike, and the rest of my friends really heavily came into my life. Part way into writing all of that, I wondered if it would actually do me any good to get this out there. I felt too jealous or in too much pain for it to have been good for me. But then I got to all of the parts about Mike and I could feel almost a lightness flooding through my chest. I knew then that this was definitely a good thing for me to do. It’s given me some odd kind of self-induced, not yet realized closure.

It’s almost like, when I think about Graham this way, my heart gets dark and heavy with the past. But then I think about Mike and what we have together and that light pushes out the heaviness and the darkness. When I start thinking about Mike, it feels like a weight is being lifted and I start smiling and feel less like crying. That gives me hope. I can still visit the past and be darkened by it, but I’ll have my present to push all that out of the way and fill me with happiness.