A Little Bit Older

Saturdays were my favorite day of the week. There was no work to think about and I got to, generally speaking, spend them with my friends and family. Today, for example, I had the joy of spending the day with Matt. We didn’t even have any reason to be hanging out, but he didn’t have the boys and neither of us had anything else going on so we’d agreed to hang out to pass the time.

“Can I ask you a question?” Matt asked and I looked up from my phone and nodded at him.

“What’s up?” He was sitting at the other end of my couch painting my toenails. It wasn’t how I intended to spend my Saturday afternoon, but he had seen my collection and asked if he could paint my nails. On my fingers, it never lasted so I’d told him he could paint my toes.

“Do you think this is weird?” He asked switching to my right foot and started on the unpainted toes there.

“You painting my toes?” I asked raising my eyebrow. “Yes. We’ve already gone over this.”

“I know, but like do you think it’s intimate weird?”

“Intimate weird?” I repeated confused.

“Like is this normal for friends to do?”

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. “I don’t even know anymore, Matt.” I confessed honestly.
It had been two weeks since Halloween. Since then, not much had changed. I’d been trying to work more to keep busy just because I felt awkward around him ever since I’d concluded that I wanted our fake relationship to be real. We often spent time together though even when others weren’t around which blurred the lines and left me more confused that otherwise.

“I keep finding myself doing things and questioning if it’s normal.” He explained finishing with my toes and avoiding eye contact with me.

“I keep finding you doing things and questioning that too.” I answered without thinking about it thinking back to the kiss we’d had almost a month ago now. It still played in my head sometimes at night. Sleeping had progressively gotten harder the more that our relationship developed.

“Would it be a bad idea to ask you to come to my parents for Thanksgiving?” He asked abruptly after we’d sat in silence for a few seconds longer than was comfortable.

“I’m spending Thanksgiving with my family in North Carolina.” I answered looking back down at my phone and trying to distract myself a little bit.

“Oh… When are you leaving?” He asked and I shrugged lightly.

“Next weekend. I’m staying down there for a week.” I answered truthfully. I hadn’t seen my parents in a few years in person – even though I regularly skyped my Mom on Sunday evenings.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked and I looked up confused.

“I didn’t know I should?” I responded as a question. I had assumed that things like this fell outside of the realm of a fake boyfriend.

“No, I mean you don’t have to. I just figured it would’ve come up.” He answered before picking up my feet and gently placing them on the couch so that the wet paint wouldn’t get messed up.

“Where are you going?” I asked confused as he moved to put his shoes on.

“I just need some air.” He said and I stood up and walked over to stop him.

“What’s going on?” He wasn’t acting normal and I couldn’t pinpoint what was happening but it made my stomach feel uneasy.

“I’m really conflicted right now.” He confessed and I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him into a hug.

“Talk to me.”

“I don’t want a relationship. I want to be single and focus on my life – the boys, the band, video games, stupid shit. But like, you.” He explained grabbing my shoulders and stepping away from me when he said ‘you’.

“Me?”

“You! You are this perfect woman who just appears out of nowhere and fucks it all up. I don’t want to be in a relationship but I want to be with you and I can’t figure it out.” My jaw dropped slightly and I stared at him in disbelief.

“You want to be with me?” I repeatedly slowly. Part of me was hoping that this would happen but the overwhelming majority had no idea how to react with this new information.

“Yes and I don’t want to be all at the same time.” He released my arms and started pacing around my living room. “It’s so fucking frustrating because I have no good reason not to date you. Hell, we practically are dating already.”

“I’m confused.” I confessed.

“Why?” He asked stopping and staring at me where I stood still in the same spot by the door next to his shoes.

“We are practically dating already.” I reiterated staring at him. “What is different about this and a relationship?” I asked slowly as I started to have the revelation on my own. I had been so afraid to have a relationship and then basically created one anyway.

“I don’t know?” He answered questioningly staring at me as though I had an answer.

“I don’t either.” I responded walking over to him. When I reach him, he shook his head and walked away from me and started putting his shoes back on.

“I think we should take some time off. Like we can talk about this after Thanksgiving. This isn’t what either of us signed up for.” He started and I felt frozen to my spot as I listened to him ramble on. “We shouldn’t date. We don’t even want to be dating.” I nodded along slowly and watched as he turned to leave. “I’ll text you later sometime.” He finished noncommittally before walking out.

I stood on my spot for several minutes staring at the door. I was no longer unsure of his feelings at least but I was very certain that he didn’t want a relationship. The hardest part of that though was figuring out what I could do next.

When I was 25, I’d been left by my fiancé, Ryan. It had left me feeling pretty much the same way. Standing alone with egg on my face trying to collect my thoughts and words and figure out where to move next. The difference though was when Ryan left me, I’d seen it coming. It had been months in the making following a hard to deal with spontaneous miscarriage that neither of us could explain. We’d been frustrated and angry and realized that we weren’t good enough to support the other through their pain. We’d broken up, not for lack of love, but because we couldn’t handle being around the other any longer.

In a weird way, this felt eerily similar. Matt was leaving right now, not because he didn’t want to be with me, but because he couldn’t handle the idea of being with me. The difference though is that when I was 25, I had bit the bullet and rolled with the punches. I had given in to Ryan and his desire for space and let him go. We hadn’t talked in over 5 years. This time, I wasn’t going to let Matt walk away forever.

I quickly snapped out of my trance and quickly pulled my shoes on. This was not how this game was played. I was not being left behind again.