"We met on the front porch
Fell in love on the phone
Without the physical wreck"
- Ben Kweller
Part 2
I was attached to my phone. I couldn't be without it. We were always texting each other. I was always trying to get a good signal, or sneaking him a message under the table when I was supposed to be engaged in a serious conversation, or a guest in someone's home. He wanted to know me, really know me, and it scared me to death. J asked hard questions, he always wanted to talk on the phone. I was never ready, I was still convinced that he liked my sister and was stringing us both along, and I knew that as soon as I heard his voice there would be no turning back. It's one thing to be messaging back and forth, it was nice and I came to depend on it, but as soon as you hear a voice, it means everything. I knew I had talked to him once, in the beginning when things didn't matter, but now we were working towards something. I knew that talking on the phone would make everything real for me, for both of us. It felt safe to just have a texting relationship, he was thirteen hours away, he wasn't real, or at least that's what I told myself.
One night my sister was over for family dinner, she went into the other room to do something and I grabbed at her phone, scrolling through her text from J. I was convinced that he was flirting with both of us. I guess I was just a little paranoid. My sister had no idea how much we were talking and I didn't want to tell her. She was never good at keeping secrets. I found a text where she complained to him about being sick. He told her he would make her soup and sing to her. I was so angry, that's exactly what I thought was going on. It seemed silly that I reacted so strongly to this text, it wasn't like we were actually together, and he hadn't actually said anything that weird. I was just so insecure about the whole thing and wanted an excuse to get mad at him, to blame him for something.
J played hockey almost every night of the week. He had been begging me to call him, and I was so mad about those texts that I took that opportunity to call him and give him a piece of my mind on his voicemail. He called me back later that night, all confused as to why I was mad. He told me that he hadn't meant anything by his text, that he was just saying it as a friend. I let it go, we started talking like normal. J tried to get me to admit that I liked him. I told him he was crazy. He kept trying to convince me to move there, it seemed so ridiculous to me that he was even suggesting it. I would never move for someone I barely knew. It wasn't even a question for me. I was so close to my family and friends in my city.
I knew that once our phone conversations started, they wouldn't stop. He would call me all the time. At that point in my life I had just moved into my own apartment and I was always job searching. My days were often really long, lonely, and discouraging before he came along. He filled up my days, he gave me a reason not to sleep past 10 a.m. I loved waking up to something encouraging from him. He seemed really serious about me, really soon. I was terrified of ever meeting him. I felt so sure that once he met me, he wouldn't like me anymore. I guess I'm more insecure about my disability than I realize. I felt like once he saw me, and how I walked, he would change his mind about me. He told me over and over that this wasn't true. I know that it is one thing to know someone from online and on the phone, but another thing to be around someone in real life. You can play twenty questions every day for months, and get honest answers, but when it comes right down to it, you need real life to actually understand it all. In real life, you are able to see how someone interacts with others, how they converse, and what really matters to them. It's easy to say things, but everyone knows that it only counts for something when you really live out.
J was always telling me how much he loved God, and how he was always trying to grow in his faith. We read the book, "The Shack" together. I found it really controversial and blasphemous, he thought it was beautiful and that I went into reading the book with a closed mind. I just couldn't get past the fact that they portrayed Jesus as a black woman. We argued about it for days, he won. He always had really good points, and made me second guess myself. I liked the way we were always challenging each other. It was a new feeling for me.
I was so scared to admit to him that I liked him, even though he had more or less admitted it to me. I felt like as soon as I admitted this, I would be less appealing to him. I always blame it on the fact that boys play sports and they like the competitiveness of "the chase." I remember the night I admitted it to him. I didn't know how to tell him, I knew it wasn't fair to keep pretending that I didn't care about him. I didn't want to play games. I remember starting a fight, and him finally saying, "what is this really about?" Then I foolishly admitted that I liked him, I just didn't know how to say it. I wasn't used to having someone call me out on things. I had never told those words to a boy in my whole life. I was so used to hiding my feelings, and them never being reciprocated. I kept telling J over and over, I don't know how to do this stuff, I've never done this before, this is a big deal to me. I kept telling him that, but I don't think he ever really understood. J was always able to pin point the problem, and address it. Boys are pretty good at simplifying things, I love that about them. I could hear him smiling as he said, "oh, that's all?" We laughed about it, and that was it. There was nothing left, but to finally meet each other.
Oddly enough, my roommate and I had been planning a trip to North Carolina that April, we were going to the Outer Banks. I know it was still a big drive from where he lived, but I felt like God had this amazing sense of humor, that maybe this was part of the plan, as bizarre as it all was. We rented this adorable little house on the beach, for me, my oldest and youngest sister, my roommate, and her blond sister (Taylor Swift.) J promised to rent one close to us for him and a couple of his closest friends. I was so excited and nervous. I had so many fears about myself, about him liking my oldest sister instead, but I was a tiny bit hopeful, that for once my exterior wouldn't matter. That he knew and liked enough about me that it would mean more than the physical part. I remember trying to prep him for me, I made myself sound way worse than I actually was. I remember saying, "I'm kind of like a rag doll, I need to be propped up in a corner to sit." I would laugh so hard after I sent these text, and anxiously away his responses. It was a little mean how entertained I was by it all.
As the time grew closer for us to meet, I got more and more excited about it. I had such high expectations, he told me he was so sure of me, of us. I wanted so badly to believe him. He was dragging his feet about making reservations, it made me nervous. I even sent him links to a place that I thought would be cheap and nice. I left the rest up to him. I would stare at that picture of the beach house that we rented and dream up these really nice scenarios that always ended up with us taking long walks on the beach at night. I would fall asleep every night with my ipod on, listening to the same song over and over again. I'm not sure why it fit our situation so well. Every time I hear it, I still think of him. Everything seemed like it was falling into place. All I had to do now was pack my suitcase, and wait for April to come.
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