You Found Me

Jenny stared at me with narrowed eyes, looking like she’d like nothing more than to rip me apart limb from limb. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she snapped. “Why the hell would you do that to yourself? Or, actually, do that to him?”

I flushed and flicked my hair off my forehead. “What do you mean?”

“That poor boy clearly wants your body, and you just keep putting up barrier after barrier to keep him from getting it.”

I rolled my eyes and flopped forward on my bed, resting the side of my face on my crossed arms. “Well, thanks for trying to see it from my point of view, you thirsty whore.”

She burst out laughing, throwing her head back, crinkles emerging in the corners of her eyes. “Wow, going straight for the low blow, huh, Leigh?”

“Maybe,” I continued, turning around and cocking an eyebrow at her, “I should give him your number, if he’s so desperate for a fuck.”

She laughed again and shook her head. “Oh, please. From what you’ve told me about this boy, he’s going to be willing to wait for you. Possibly forever.”

“I don’t need forever,” I argued. “Maybe just, like…a month or so more.”

“A month?” Jenny screeched before slapping a hand over her mouth. “Are you kidding? Leigh, the summer is basically over in a month. There’s no way you can make him wait that long. His dick is going to shrivel up and die.”

I shuddered from the mental image. “I think you’re being dramatic. And if he’s so aching for sex, or he’s afraid for his, um…well-being, then he should find someone else. I’m not willing to compromise on this.”

My friend groaned loudly in response before smashing her face against my bed, burying her face in the sheets. “I hate you,” she told me. “I hate you for throwing your chick flick away.”

“I’m not throwing anything away. Just because I’m not ripping off his clothes doesn’t mean that I’m dismissing my relationship with him.”

“But making him wait another month?”

“Jenny, since when are you supposed to be the one pressuring me to have sex? You’re my best friend! You’re supposed to tell me to stick by my convictions and wait until I’m ready, and he’s supposed to try to make me give in to him.”

“Since when has your life been normal?” she argued, propping her chin on her crossed arms.

“True, I guess.”

Jenny took a deep breath. “Alright, now I’m going to be serious for the first time in my life. Really, I’m glad that you’re deciding to wait, if you don’t think you’re ready to take the next step with him. But I also know that you’re kind of a crazy control freak, which I’m sure he’s figured out by now.”

“Hey!” I tried to protest, but she ignored me.

“I just want to tell you to keep an open mind. Just because you’re getting lost in the moment doesn’t mean that you’re going to regret whatever happens later.”

“I am, though,” I sighed. “I know that, when it happens, I’m going to stay up all night, thinking about why it was a mistake. How I should have waited longer because I didn’t know him well enough. What if I feel violated?”

“Oh my God, you’re such a fucking stress case.” Jenny laughed as she sat up and put her hands on my shoulders to ensure that I kept looking straight in her eyes. “If you feel strongly about him, and you can feel right here,” she put her hand over my heart, “that he feels just as strongly about you, then just do what you think is right. Don’t let your worry about the future keep you from living in the moment. If you’re certain about your feelings for him and his feelings for you, then you’re not going to feel violated when you give it up to him. You’re just going to feel closer to him. Okay?”

“Okay,” I breathed as I nodded.

When Jenny put it that way, I had to think for a second. I knew that I felt strongly about Harry, but I wasn’t really sure what those feelings were. Did they go any deeper than lust? Was it possible for me to form a real, solid relationship with him?

And then I thought about how he risked his safety to climb through my window at two thirty AM, the phone calls and text conversations we had at all hours of the day, the way he could sense that I was upset and immediately tried to fix it. The more I thought about it, the more tingles built up in my stomach.

I didn’t realize I was biting my lip until Jenny nudged her knee against mine and whispered, “I guess you know how you feel about him, huh?”

“Yeah,” I responded. I ran a hand through my hair, making the short style stick straight up in the air, and groaned. “Ugh. I’m not supposed to feel like this.”

“Feel like what?”

“Like…this!” I took a deep breath as the words I’d been so long refusing to admit came pouring out of me. “How is it possible that I could feel something so strong for someone so soon after I broke up with my boyfriend? I loved Jared, and I thought, deep down, that we were going to find a way to beat all the odds and end up getting married. He shattered me when he dumped me for Cody. There’s no way that I should feel, like…something close to the l-word for someone so soon after that.”

“So that’s your issue?” Jenny chuckled, shaking her head. “I should have known it wasn’t entirely the control thing. What, do you think you’re disrespecting Jared or something? Hon, that guy’s long gone. God, I thought when you suggested this a million years ago, you were kidding.”

“No,” I muttered, curling up against the wall, pulling my knees close to my chin. “I think it’s always in the back of my mind. What if I’m really not ready for a relationship?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious how you feel about Harry,” Jenny stated plainly. “And it seems like he’s crazy about you, too. But if you really, genuinely think that you can’t push the idea out of your mind that you didn’t take enough time to recover, then tell him.”

“Tell Jared?”

Jenny gave me an irritated look. “Yeah, definitely,” she responded sarcastically. “I think you need to inform your ex about your current love life issues.”

“Oh, right.” I let out a sigh. “So you think I should tell Harry that we should call it off?”

“If that’s what you feel you should do.” Just then, Jenny got to her feet and stretched her arms over her head. “Alright, I gotta head home and get dinner started. Call me and let me know how the Harry thing goes, will you?”

“Alright,” I agreed.

She patted me a couple of times on the head, her version of giving me good luck, before leaving my room, pulling the door shut behind her.

I shoved the heels of the palms of my hands into my eyes as I thought about the possibilities. On one hand, I could keep hanging out with Harry, feeling guilty every time I saw him, while also wondering if I was going too quickly, if I needed to regain control.

But on the other hand, I could stop seeing Harry forever. We could stop the late-night phone conversations, the spontaneous dates, and the kissing. Because as much as I questioned myself about how far I was willing to go, I couldn’t deny to myself that I loved kissing him.

The more I thought about it, the more confused I became about what road I wanted to take. Neither of them seemed particularly appealing. Staying with Harry seemed like the better choice, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to take being with him if I was just going to worry all the time.

I crawled up toward my pillow and buried my face into it, hoping that sleep would make the decision easier.