Eventually (part 2)

Alex had never been one to be particularly subtle, so when he noticed me seeming more nervous and distant around him that I had been even when we first started dating months before, he flat out asked me what was wrong.

I considered lying, telling him nothing was wrong, but that wasn't fair.  I owed him at least something of the truth.  And besides, I had already told him the hardest part on that very first date.  Still, I was afraid.  I was so afraid that history was about to repeat itself.  I was so afraid.  Yet, I was so hopeful that I told him why I was afraid.

"I, I like you a lot," I said.

He smiled.  "I like you, too," he said.  "That shouldn't be a problem."

We were sitting on my couch.  He had been reading a book and I had been fiddling on my phone, but he had noticed how distracted I was, how I wasn't really paying any attention to anything.

I sighed.  "I just don't want to lose this," I said.

"Why would you lose this?" he asked, not bothering to ask what "this" was.  I appreciated that.

I looked away from him and mumbled, "Because I lost it before."

Part of me hoped he didn't hear me, but logically, I knew it would be better if he did.  I didn't want to repeat myself.  There was silence for a moment, a long moment, and then I heard his voice just say, "Tara."

I turned and looked back at him and there was a hint of tears forming in his own eyes.  "I'm not an asshole," he said.  And I almost laughed at that, because of course he wasn't.  But then, I hadn't thought my old high school buddy turned almost lover had been an asshole either, so I couldn't laugh at all.  Now it was his turn to sigh and rub his hand over his face.  When he was looking at me again, he said in all sincerity, "I hate that that ass did that to you.  I know you weren't perfect.  None of us are.  But you didn't deserve that.  Any of it.  I told you that before and I'm telling you again."  He sighed and looked down and said more softly, "Maybe I am a little bit of an ass, because selfishly, I want to be able to say something to you, but I'm afraid, too, because of what I know about how you were hurt before."

I felt my heart pounding faster.  Heat rising to my cheeks.  I was scared, so scared, but I had to know.  "What do you want to say?" I asked him.

He looked back up at me and apparently that was all the prompting he needed because he said, "I love you, Tara."

There was silence after that.  I was struck by the memory, still so fresh in my mind, of what had happened when I had last said, "I love you."  They are just words, but they mean so much.  I wasn't sure if I was ready to say it, but that he had said it first, that he was waiting.

"It's okay..." he started to assure me.

And then I blurted out, "I love you, too" and I kissed him.

He didn't let it go any further than that, not that night.  I think he knew I was still scared.  I think he was waiting for me to say it and really, fully mean it, without fear, without doubt, without this nagging sense that it was all going to come undone.

It took time.  It took many more months with dates and quite moments and him saying the words and me sometimes not saying them back.  It took some crying and some laughing and lots of holding one another close.  But eventually, it worked.  Eventually, I realized this time was for real.  And eventually, I knew that when we said "I love you", we both truly meant it.