After our little conversation up in my bedroom, things went from strange to very bizarre as we went on with our little secret relationship, but I simply rolled with it, happy in the knowledge that Joe finally loved me back. I felt like it must have been obvious to the rest of the world that we were together, I was sure that it was written across both of our faces, but no one ever mentioned it. No one ever acted any differently around us. Somehow, despite the odds being stacked against us, we managed to keep everything private.
At school, I had to continually fight the urge to race over to him, to kiss him, to claim him as my own—especially as other girls flirted with him without even thinking—but I didn’t. I decided to see it as a fun thing, as a secret that was just for us. Joe would play around with the other girls, acting the way he always did, but if he caught my eye he would send me a private wink, reminding me that he was mine…even if no one else knew it.
When we were at home, things could kick up a notch and we could have a secret rendezvous, filled with the lust we had to keep inside during the daytime. Of course, we had to keep things out of our parents’ sight, but that was all right…that simply added to the excitement in my mind. When we kissed, it felt like we’d been apart from one another for years, when we held each other it was as if all the unsaid things were flowing between us. I felt whole, loved, truly happy for the first time in my life.
It was the way things were meant to be, and I was content with that.
At one point, a rumour kicked off that threatened to tear that wonderful sensation apart. I was in the bathroom, locked in one of the cubicles, when I heard a couple of girls whispering about Joe, suggesting that he’d been sleeping with Heidi again. It caused my breath to stick in my throat, it gripped tightly on my heart, it knotted and coiled in my chest. I didn’t want to believe it, I didn’t want to accept it, but there was a small pool of doubt in the pit of my stomach. It could have been true, and that was gutting enough. Everything I’d been viewing as exciting, suddenly became a part of his much bigger deception. All that I’d enjoyed was now wrenching at my heart.
It didn’t help I had to stew on that fact all day long, that I couldn’t even confront him about it until we were at home, because by the time I finally got to say my piece, I’d been driven to a crazy, irrational state. I could hardly talk through the angry stutter that the rumour had brought on.
“Did…are…are you still having sex with Heidi?” I spat out, tugging my fingers painfully through my hair. My pulse rate was too fast for me to keep track, my ears were burning hot with temper, and I really wasn’t sure whether I wanted to punch him, throw up, or burst into sad, sobbing tears.
The worst part of it was I couldn’t even begin to think about having sex, I was far too inexperienced for that. I’d only just had my first kiss not so long ago, yet here I was arguing with Joe about something I knew he’d done in the past, if not now. I couldn’t help but think that I wasn’t ready to be with Joe, that maybe I should have kept it as a fantasy, and I shouldn’t have really been dating him after all.
“What are you on about?” he gasped, smiling at my idiocy. “Why are you asking me that?”
I folded my arms stubbornly across my chest and pouted my lips out. I knew I was acting like a child, but that was exactly how I felt, so I really didn’t care. “I heard some girls talking about it today.” I felt young, naïve, and really stupid. I hated that Joe—however unwittingly—had done that to me, it didn’t feel right. “In the bathroom, they said you were back with her.”
“Don’t be silly,” he gushed, pulling me in to him. “I’m with you, why would I want to be with her? We’re long done, I wouldn’t go back there ever.”
“How…how long have you liked me?” I asked, finally asking the one question I hadn’t felt brave enough to tackle before. I finally felt like I really needed to know now. I couldn’t help but hope he’d been harbouring a secret love for as long as I had, but I wasn’t totally sure. After all, why would he have been dating all those other girls if he was into me the entire time?
“I’ve always liked you, silly,” he shot back playfully, rubbing my hair as he did. “What makes you ask that?”
I sucked in a deep, shaky breath, feeling like I didn’t want to just leave it at that. In the past, I would have accepted that answer, no questions asked, not wanting to rock the boat, but we’d been doing this for over a month now, and with the crazy rage not fully subsided, I wanted to know it all. “You know what I mean,” I trembled as I spoke. “How long have you liked me?”
He looked at me with love in his gaze, and he pushed a strand of my hair behind my ear. Then he leant in and pressed his lips lightly up against mine. That made my heart race like crazy, caused desire to swim into my veins, and lust to vibrate loudly through my entire body. It almost made me forget everything, but I knew I couldn’t totally.
But then he pulled back and rested his forehead against mine, and he whispered something to take all of my fears away. “I love you,” he told me, for the very first time. “I love you, Lotts.”
How could I worry about how long Joe had or hadn’t liked me, when we were in love? None of the petty crush stuff mattered, not now. Not since it had finally become the true love I’d always needed from him.
“I love you too,” I replied quietly as my body filled up with it. My chest swelled, I felt warm and happy, joyous that we were finally complete. “I love you, Joe.”
He stood up and held out his hand to me, causing me to give him a curious look. “Come with me?” he asked curiously. “Come inside my house.”
“What?” I whisper-screeched. “What do you mean?”
Was he about to tell his parents about us? Were we finally about to go public? I had no idea how to feel about that, but I couldn’t deny I had a massive beaming smile spreading across my face…
“My parents are out,” he shot back, suddenly stopping me in my tracks. “Didn’t you know? They’ve gone to see your mum for drinks, or something. Marie is at her friend’s too, so we have the place to ourselves.”
The way that he wiggled his eyebrows at me had panic consuming me entirely. Was he suggesting what I thought he was? And what did that mean? Was I ready for that step? I certainly hadn’t felt like it a few seconds ago, but we’d declared our love for one another now…didn’t that change everything?
I nodded slowly and stepped up behind him, the entire time my mind racing. I walked, but I felt like I was in a dreamland, my mouth was so dry with fear I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be ready to progress our relationship, but I just didn’t feel quite there yet.
Maybe I should never have asked him about Heidi, maybe that had made him think too much about sex. Or maybe I should have been ready…after all, everyone else seemed to be. I didn’t know anyone else that had the same problems I did. We were in love, after all, so that was the next logical step. Maybe it was time for me to get the hell over myself.
I only had myself to blame for this fear, really. In my childish, overly romantic notions, I’d only really thought about kissing Joe, I hadn’t ever thought about anything else. I’d never allowed my fantasies to go that far.
We walked into Joe’s room, the place we’d hung out a million times before, but this time it felt very different. There was an atmosphere clinging to the air, one we were both acutely aware of.
“Shall I put some music on?” Joe asked me smilingly, clearly unbothered by the worries that plagued me.
I nodded, agreeing with him, but I wouldn’t go fully inside. I stood in the doorway, just waiting to see what was going to happen next. Under normal circumstances, I would race in and jump on the bed, but I couldn’t…not knowing where it could lead.
This was too much…it was too intense…but I didn’t know what to do. If I refused now, would I lose Joe? Would he grow bored of me for being so childish? Would he move on to someone else, someone more like Heidi?
“Are you okay?” he eventually asked, with sadness in his eyes as he sensed how odd my behaviour was. “You look a little…strange.”
“I don’t know,” I rasped back, unable to form proper words with such a dry mouth. “I don’t know what to do.” I knew I was confessing too much, which was why the tears instantly began to pour down my cheeks. I felt humiliated, totally sick by my idiotic behaviour, but I just couldn’t stop. I allowed my head to slump in my hands, and the sobs to overwhelm me.
“Hey, hey, don’t worry,” Joe cooed kindly, whilst throwing his hands around my shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing needs to happen just because we love each other. We can wait.”
Unfortunately, him taking things so well simply made the crying worse, and before long I was a total blubbering mess. What the hell was wrong with me? Joe loved me, he didn’t care that I wasn’t caving in to his every whim, he was perfect…I didn’t feel good enough, that was my main problem.
“I don’t mind,” Joe kept telling me, over and over again. “I don’t mind, it really doesn’t matter.”
But I did mind, I had wanted to be everything to Joe, his perfect woman, and I’d failed him. I knew then that I wouldn’t fail him again. I would be everything to him. I had spent far too long wanting this to happen to throw it all away now.
***
By the time I finally felt ready to sleep with Joe, we had been together for almost five months, which in our youth felt like forever. I’d spent a long time trying to gear myself up for it, and I felt incredibly lucky to have such a patient man to wait for me. He could have broken up with me, I was acutely aware of that, but he never did. In fact, he didn’t even bring it up again until I shyly mentioned it.
With a trembling, terrified voice, I told him that I loved him, and that I wanted to show him as much. He didn’t seem to get it, he stared at me totally confused for a while, but when I kissed him hard, and I pressed my body up against his, it seemed to spark a realisation inside of him and he ran with it as quickly as he could.
Unfortunately, by the time it actually came about, I had built it up so much in my head that it was nothing like I expected. I found the entire experience awkward, uncomfortable, and painful in parts, but I didn’t mind. I figured we would get other opportunities, and it would get better, just like the kiss.
Again, it was probably the romantic inside of me that expected it to be something wonderful and mind blowing. The books I’d read, the films I’d watched, none of them told the truth, but it was fine. At least we were still together. At least we were still in love.
After we’d been together, in Joe’s bed just like we would have done if I’d been brave enough the first time around, we got dressed in a weird, isolating silence. I wanted to ask Joe what it was like for him, if it was okay, if I’d done everything right, but I couldn’t…the words just wouldn’t come out. That hurt, because I could so clearly remember a time when no topic was off-limits, yet here we were, keeping silent about something huge and important.
Things had changed irrevocably between us, and I wasn’t sure if we could ever go back.
In that moment, my heart broke and pieced itself together all at once. I hated to finally say goodbye to the people we once were to one another, the people that we’d always been, but if I did my best to see the positive, then I could note that we were moving forwards, into something that would be everlasting. We needed this change, to shake things up, to move us forward, however scary it was.
I watched Joe out of the corner of my eye, realising that the worry was stupid. I’d gone through years not knowing where I stood with him, and now I did. What I needed to do now was to stop finding things to freak out about.
There wasn’t anything to worry about, so I had to stop worrying.
If only that wasn’t easier said than done…