Chapter 2:Stephanie
Jake is such a loud dude! I know we’re neighbors and I know you’ve got to be a little understanding when someone lives next door. But I’m not complaining about music or sex noises or anything like that. I can literally hear the guy singing in the shower! I can hear conversations he’s having with his teddy bear at night. He uses a lot of F-words when complaining to his teddy bear, go figure.
I feel intimately connected to the guy, though we only know each other’s name. That’s what thin walls will do to a person.
Of course, our friendship is platonic. We met each other…must have been five years ago when he moved in. I had been here a year already and he seemed like the usual stereotypical big lug. The loud mouthed guy, the jokester, but the one who has a heart of gold. I remember him saying hello to me always with a smile and a very honestly happy face. Most guys when they hit on me are so oily and so icky. Jake was a nice change…
Of course…the reason he was so uh, how shall we say, platonic about his friendship was probably due to what I was wearing.
The first day he introduced himself he knocked lightly—in almost precisely the same manner as my sister. Light, tap, three successive knocks.
That’s why I answered the door without thinking. And that’s why first impressions are a bitch.
“Hey stupid, come on in!”
I said as I opened the door—sans makeup, bad hair day, in pajamas and with a rather tragic case of unexpected rash on my face. The man literally caught me at the exact moment where I was the ugliest I had ever been in my life!
“Oh my God…” I said, staring at him and realizing I just invited a hunky stranger into my horrible disgusting pigsty of an apartment.
“Umm, okay,” he said entering my ransacked living room. He really thought this strange crazy girl was asking him inside. Now it was too awkward to shout out, “I thought you were my sister!” I had to improvise something.
“So uh…” I said nervously. “What’s your name?” I was dying of embarrassment. But at the same time, I couldn’t let him know that. I had to be cool and cocky about it, right? “I’m Stephanie. Stephanie Price.”
“Cool. Name’s Jake. Just thought I’d introduce myself. And hey, don’t worry about the mess. My apartment looks that way too on weekends!”
He said it so cutely, obviously lying and trying to be nice about it.
“So you’re uh…” Jake said, gesturing, maybe a little nervous himself.
“Yes! Yes!” I replied quickly before he even finished the sentence.
“Lesbian?” he said, finishing his thought.
“What? OH uh, YES, yes I am.”
Don’t ask me why I said that. I think I was so horrified that he was invading my space—at my own accidental request—that I just took the first lie that came along and ran with it. Better he think I’m some alpha confident lesbo rather than a ridiculous woman who never cleans, pretties herself up or makes flirty conversation! I’m unavailable, I’m off the market. That felt so much better than admitting he caught me looking like a trainwreck!
“How could you tell?” I asked, a little offended at how forward he was. But since I just admitted to being a lesbian, even though I’m straight, I felt I might as well continue the charade.
“I got good gay-dar, he said with a wink.”
“You’re kind of full of yourself, aren’t you?” I said with a half-smile, not really flirting at this point, but just trying to act like a confident lesbian would act.
He laughed. “Sometimes. But usually I just say really stupid things. All part of being a guy. We get to be stupid. That’s in the rules!”
I laughed softly and pretended to like Jake in a platonic way as a non-sexual acquaintance.
The truth is I’ve always been a tomboy. Even though I could claim that he caught me in a bad moment, which he did, I think it’s safer to say that I just don’t dress up in general. I went through a teenage phase where I dressed down because I was tired of boys’ shenanigans. That phase eventually lasted all the way till now, when I’m in my late twenties.
Now it’s a habit, and yes, maybe it’s work too. Working as a costumer exposes you to the mechanical side of beauty. I really despise the fact that the first thing I think when I see a handsome guy is “Oh, how’s my face?” And so it’s really ironic that the first time I met Jake, the answer was indubitably, “AWFUL!”
Long story short, Jake has been my best friend WITHOUT benefits for five years now. I’ve listened to him chat on about his latest girlfriends and a few times even heard him entertaining company – yeesh T.M.I.!
Over the years, any attraction to him I might have felt was washed away because of the fact that he thought I was gay, and well, I sort of pretended to be, just so I wouldn’t be dreadfully embarrassed.
Fast-forward five years, I’d be triply, quadruply, embarrassed to admit to him the truth now. I have to keep up this stupid persona of Lesbian Stephanie or else he’ll never trust me again! And once he finds out I’m straight, immediately I become a big sexual threat that’s going to intimidate him and ruin our friendship.
Sigh indeed. This is why a woman should dress up every morning…because of stupid situations like this!
**
Anyway the whole mess got started last week when I decided to ask Jake along to my Florida vacation. See, he and I do carpool sometimes for non-sexual purposes and I figured, what’s the harm in both of us going to Florida for the summer? Friends hanging out is cool…of course, my main intention was to see my brother and sister.
Jake, I figured, would do his own thing. He’s a player and he’d probably pick up some girl at the beach, a logical prediction of what could happen.
Now what actually happened…was a turning point in my life!
Imagine the both of us relaxing on the plane, me falling asleep and feeling so at peace…
And then nose dive! The plane is going to crash!
The captain speaks…
“Please ladies and gentlemen, stay calm. We’re just experiencing some major turbulence…but we’re doing our best to make your flight comfortable.”
Just as I wake up I hear people freaking out and screaming. The stewardess is screaming at everyone, telling them to stay calm.
And all I feel is a fucking nose dive! They can call it turbulence but it feels like we’re going down! Of course they’re not going to tell us if we’re all going to die! They will never admit that we’re dead, that would just be mass pandemonium!
Oh my God! They’re telling people not to look out the window?! What the HELL? Oh shit we’re all going to die! We’re going to die! I’m not ready…I’m not ready…oh GOD I’m not reeeeeady!
And then the most peculiar thing happened.
Just as I was praying, swearing and practically going into a seizure of fear…
Jake reached out and grabbed my hand. At that moment, everything around me seemed to fade out and I looked into his eyes. He stared at me—just for a moment—and then squeezed my hand.
“STEPHANIE,” he said, his words seeming so loud and powerful even though he was speaking softly. “IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY. I PROMISE YOU.”
He squeezed my hand and braced himself in the seat. I did the same and I trusted him with everything in me. I said a few more silent prayers and tried to think over my entire life, assuming this moment was really my last. At least I was dying in the hands of an attractive man. A very handsome and strong-minded man, and the more I realized that, every moment I looked over at him.
Eventually, sure enough, we landed. I was fighting tears, as were many of the other passengers who got spooked that day. To Jake’s credit, he took it all in stride and even patted me on the back, asking if I was okay.
I wasn’t and he could tell. The big lug decided to treat me to lunch and still played babysitter to me, calming me down and letting me know that all was good in the world.
“I told you you’d be okay,” he said with a smile. “Statistically speaking, you’re just not going to die in a plane crash. And even if the plane crashes, you probably won’t die.”
“I know…I just freaked out a bit.”
“I noticed,” he said with a grin. “But you’re going to be fine.”
“How did you know? That we were going to be okay?”
“Statistically I just assumed.”
“Statistically?” I said in disbelief. “I just don’t understand how you can be calm in the face of death.”
“Well what are the other options? Freak out and jump up and down like a monkey?”
“Yeah! Why not that?”
He laughed. “Maybe I have too much pride. If you’re going to meet your maker you might as well be well dressed and as debonair as possible.”
“I just…I dunno. It kind of woke me up. It made me realize…if this life is all that I have left…I’ve wasted it.”
“Oh come on,” he said. “You have not wasted your life. What you call wasting is what normal people call living. Besides, I’m sure you have goals and stuff, right?”
“Sort of…”
“So just consider a near death experience as great motivation!”
“Oh boy, you really are a positive thinker, aren’t you?”
He smiled, that silly little grin that that instantly made me feel better. Made me feel alive.
“Hey listen,” he said, looking once again into my eyes and talking sweetly and gutturally, with real feeling. “If you got changes to make, you make them. That’s a good thing. But don’t let people’s fears and their prejudice slow you down. Ignore them and win. Make your life something special…because living happily is the best revenge.”
I almost wept right then and there. And I’m sure Jake, that silly lunkhead was talking about me being gay and people “accepting” me. But the reality was…
I was very straight. I was living a lie with him. And as I looked into his eyes, so earnest, so genuinely concerned about my happiness—just as a friend!—I lost it. I fell in love with him at that moment. Never before had a man been so kind, so giving of his time and his feelings. Not since the day of my late father.
I couldn’t do anything but nod and hide my eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears welling. I had never seen this side of Jake before. Now I realized I don’t ever want to see anything but this side of him again. I want to go through life with this kind of man as support. I want to share my life and make it better—with YOU, Jake.
And oh God…that moment when you realize he still sees you as a friend. That he’s always seen you at your worst…he’s never even thought of you as a possibility. Romance strictly forbidden. And I did the worst thing possible—I fell in love with someone that didn’t want me.
Way to go Stephanie, way to go!