She told me she wanted to ask a favor. Who would have thought after all these years that Amelia would remember me, let alone need a favor. There’s something very primal, very innately satisfying, when a man can do a favor for a woman—provide. Prove his worth. And it’s the kind of thing I used to do for Amelia all the time, back when we were friends. Hell, we still are friends. We’ve been friends ever since the first grade.
I think love feels differently when you’re in the first grade, and then evolves over the years as our bodies and minds change. When I first saw Amelia I wasn’t sure what I was feeling—except that nothing else mattered that day but making her laugh. Her smile somehow distracted this seven-year-old boy that was obsessed with superheroes and for hours, maybe even days, all I cared about in the world was making her laugh.
I’m sure anybody back then would have told me, “Just wait till you grow older. You’re going to meet so many other girls that are going to ‘distract’ you from life.”
But even as a teenager, I still knew I felt something strong for Amelia. She grew up pretty and cute but turned into a redheaded bombshell. She had that quirky face and bubbly smile that definitely made her stand out at any formal affair. She didn’t belong with the super-classy bourgeois. She was just too much fun. She was a real woman, had a real body not supermodel thin, and dressed a little conservatively just because that was her way.
As we grew older, reluctantly aging into our twenties, she always stayed the beautiful and quirky girl I fell in love with. The only thing that I could see that changed about her was her green eyes. They grew distant.
I guess she did what most girls do, and entered a series of bad relationships where her trust was violated. Her eyes grew cold, even though her smile stayed shining so bright.
It’s about right now that everyone asks me, “Why didn’t you tell her how you felt?” If you were in love with her since day one, what made you wait?
I wish I could say something romantic like, “I never wanted to risk losing our friendship” or maybe even something pathetic like, “I was afraid of rejection”. But the truth is that the timing has always been wrong.
Timing means everything in love and maybe that’s not what people want to hear, but it’s true—it’s everything.
Friendship has to be stronger than fickle romance, that’s just the rules of a long-lasting friendship. You don’t take advantage of someone if you genuinely care about their well-being.
So yeah, I gave her a big shit-eating smile when she told me she was dating some guy from high school. Some stupid jock. What was I supposed to tell her? No, dump him for me so we can turn our platonic friendship into a red-hot romance and you can dump all of his football game celebrations for my chess club victories.
Timing, man. It’s timing.
At some point, you just have to let your friend go. Because that’s what good friends do. And yeah, I guess it is kind of ironic that all these years later I work as a vitamin distributor, selling health products, vitamins and herbal products to athletes, high schools, colleges, gyms and fitness centers. I became the “jock-whisperer”. Instead of hating dumb jocks, I actually became their enablers and help them to work harder, think less and embrace their physical peak performance.
But maybe it’s all for the best. All of my knowledge of health foods and my crazy work travels have me looking like a young Hugh Jackman, abs of steel, thanks to my home treadmill and my tendency to do sit ups when I’m stressed. I am the type of guy who can pick up girls by just showing up at the bar. And yet I’ve reached that point of adult social responsibility, where just because “I can” doesn’t motivate me to want to.
The truth is all I ever think about is Amelia, even after all these years later.
I’ve tried to stop thinking about her, I’ve done everything short of going to therapy, where I would inevitably talk more about how crazy I am for Amelia, which sort of defeats the purpose.
I even did the unthinkable. In a desperate attempt to forget the woman and move on with my otherwise awesome life—full of world travel, two vacations a year, job security, great sex and all the free vitamins I could ever want, eh not exactly a Starbucks membership but it’s something—I even met someone else.
I tried to forget Amelia by doing the only respectable thing: meet someone else equally gorgeous and make love like bunnies. That’s supposed to be the cure for lovesickness right?
Except that well…it’s not. When I first met Crystal, a cheerleader for a very prominent NFL team that has been unfortunately on a losing streak through no fault of her own, things were great. She’s perfect. She’s very much opposite of Amelia and very devoted to making my life complete.
So why then do I still lay awake at night thinking about this woman from my past? I admit, the problem has gotten much worse within the last two months. Because that’s when I found out that Amelia is single again.
Yes, she finally broke it off with another loser and is probably wallowing in despair. My instincts are to comfort her, to talk to her, to make a move…
And yet I know it’s the most terrible sort of betrayal to do that to Crystal. Crystal and I got engaged last year and have been going steady for about a year. This is my future…this is the final chapter in my love life.
Right?
And that’s why right about now I would be drowning myself in work and getting the hell over my stupid baggage from the past.
And then THIS happens.
Amelia calls me out of the blue and asks me a favor.
What is that? What is a favor? Is this the kind of favor that means something, that hints at something or is this the kind of favor that just means, we’re still good friends—please drive me to the airport, or help me get my hot French boyfriend some new clothes. What kind of a favor, I wonder.
I have to overanalyze the way she said it, because that’s just my OCD nature. She said she wanted me to come and help her MOTHER. That’s definitely not sexy. Not at all seductive in the least. Admittedly, she did call me a big strong guy that could have just been flattery to get me to say yes. Any man likes his ego stroked, no matter how “spoken for” he is.
Of course, I can’t help but wonder if maybe somewhere, whether on the tip of her tongue or in the back of her subconscious, maybe she’s feeling me out. To see if I’m interested? I know she’s protecting herself, which is why she kept throwing her mother in there as a shield from sounding too personal.
But I still wonder if now is the right timing. Not only is this bad timing with Crystal, but if she’s rebounding from a relationship, it’s the worst timing for Amelia too. I can’t seriously do anything, can I? How can I risk a good relationship with Crystal with just a possibility?
I don’t know…maybe this is just a fantasy. A vivid dream that I can’t seem to wake up from. I just wish…I wish I knew what Amelia was thinking.