This is part seven. Read the previous six parts, or expect to have no fucking idea what's going on.
That is all.
I knew when I got back from San Diego that I needed to talk to Bill. I knew he knew now for sure that I was seeing someone else had gotten engaged to someone else, and I knew he was mad, if not hurt and upset. We started emailing back and forth, and he laid everything he was thinking and feeling about me, us and Neil on the line. He was sad, he was confused, and most of all he was misguided. He thought I had started seeing Neil before he and I had broken up, which wasn't true, but I had hid Neil from him so completely that I knew why he would feel that way. I just couldn't tell him about what was happening. It was too painful to tell the person I had loved for so long, that I was trying to love someone else. It felt like if I told him that, then it was final. It was really over, and I would never be able to tell Bill that I loved him ever again.
I hid so much, from everyone.
I hurt Bill. I hurt Neil. I hurt myself.
I made so many permanent mistakes.
For three days we emailed back and forth, him trying to explain how hurt and upset he was, me trying to explain why I had hid things, how I was feeling, and why I had moved on so quickly. Neither of us got anywhere, and each email hurt more than the last one.
One night I opened my email to find a message from him that said he couldn't be a part of my life anymore. I had moved on, and he needed to let me go because it hurt too much to see me happy with someone else.
I broke down.
I cried as I read the email over and over, and I got that familiar feeling of panic in my chest that I used to get when I was little and I couldn't find my Mom. I felt like she had somehow disappeared forever, and I felt like he was disappearing and I couldn't stop it. I called him, no answer.
After I caught my breath, I typed out an email.
With tears streaming down my face, I told him goodbye. I said I understood why he couldn't stay, but that I would miss him and love him and think of him forever. For the rest of my life I would wonder where he was, and if he was ok, and if he missed me too. The words seemed so incomplete.
How do you say goodbye to someone you'd loved so much for so long?
It's like being asked to say goodbye to half of your heart, and being expected to not notice the missing beats.
I said goodbye though, as eloquently as I could, and I laid down in bed feeling shattered. I had lost him. For good.
The next day I was a zombie. I didn't expect to ever hear from him again.
That night, much to my surprise, I got one more email from him.
He said he was sorry, but he couldn't walk away from me forever. He had given me a piece of his soul and he wanted me to keep it. He wanted to stay in my life but he needed time apart to heal and get his shit together.
I would grant him all the time apart he needed, if it meant I wasn't losing him forever.
Days went by, then weeks. We didn't speak. We didn't text. I missed him like hell.
And then fate intervened.
I got in a car accident.
Nothing major, I just kind of sort of rear ended somebody in the kiss-and-ride line at Lainie's school. Whoopsie.
I posted on Facebook about it, and that night, I got a text from Bill asking if I was ok.
And that was all it took.
We started texting.
We started talking again.
And just having him back in my life, even in that simple small way, was enough.
I felt almost whole again.
When we finally hung out again, I went over to his house to see him. We were laying in bed talking, and I don't remember ever feeling that close to him before. It was like some layer of him had been stripped away, and he was laying there beside me more warm and open than ever before. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to lay in his arms and feel his heat for the rest of the night-for the rest of my life.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but something distinct had changed.
He was vulnerable. Open. Honest. Real.
As we laid there talking, he wrapped himself around me, and told me: "I know you don't think I ever loved you, and I know I never said it, but I did love you. I do. I love you."
With my head held tightly to his chest, I was still somehow freefalling. I fell through the sky, through the clouds, I was spinning and rushing toward the ground, and the impact was going to kill me, I could feel it in my stomach.
I was a crashing plane.
How could he love me NOW?! How could he say that NOW?!
I wanted to be angry, I really tried to be. But all I felt was love. Relief. Happiness.
Our story wasn't over. I knew that for sure.
The next night, we agreed to hang out after he got done going out with his friends. Before going to see him, Dave took me to the movies. We decided to see Crazy Stupid Love, thinking it was a funny, sweet RomCom that would provide some mindless entertainment and a few laughs. Just what I needed.
It was not!
It was a two hour long kick in the emotional testicles, with a few funny moments thrown in there. But not even the happy kind of funny. They were the painful kind of funny that you only laugh at if you too have had your heart ripped out in some terrible way.
What touched me the most about the movie, was that Steve Carrel's character was divorcing his wife for cheating on him. Well, she had asked for the divorce because their marriage was beginning to feel like a sham, and she had cheated on him because of that.
And he was going to just let her go.
Even though he loved her with all his heart.
Even though she was his soulmate.
He wasn't going to fight for her, or for their love at all.
His 13 year old son ended up being the one who reminded him that when you love someone, you don't give up. Love doesn't run. It doesn't back down from a fight and if you're meant to be with someone, Goddamn it you don't stop trying until you draw your last breath.
I sat there staring at the big screen with tears rolling down my face.
Bill said he loved me.
Then why didn't he fight for me?
After the movie, I practically ran out of the theater. I rushed to the car, sped home, showered and dressed, and headed for Bill's house.
The whole way there I kept telling myself "when you see him, you'll know what to do"
It's sort of my motto.
I got to his house, rang the bell, and stood there shaking waiting for him to come to the door.
When you see him, you'll know what to do...
His dog ran up to the window. I heard music playing.
When you see him, you'll know what to do...
I could hear him coming to the door.
When you see him, you'll know what do....
The door pulled open, and there he was. He pushed the security door open for me and I tentatively stepped inside.
When I saw him, I knew what to do.
I threw myself against him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and kissed him.
I didn't stop kissing him. I couldn't stop kissing him.
When I saw him, I knew what to do.
Part 8, LAST CHAPTER I PROMISE, tomorrow! :)
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