Chapter 6

“Okay ask your question.” I can feel her looking at me waiting for me to ask my question and I feel those butterflies starting to do their dance again as my heart beat speeds up. It is now or never.

“Jay, would you be interested in being more than my friend? I mean would you be my girlfriend?” She just sits there again saying nothing and I now realize that I am turning down her street and she still has not answered me. I shouldn’t have said anything. What if I just ruined our friendship by asking this question? Lost in my thoughts, when she finally answers I barely hear her so I ask her to repeat what she just said.

“Renee’ I said yes to a relationship with you. There are going to be some rules though.” Wait a minute did she just say rules? What kind of rules could she possibly be talking about?

“Okay. What do you mean by rules? What kind of rules?” Maybe I should have thought this out more thoroughly.

“I see that look on your face and you have no reason to be nervous. The only thing I mean is that we have to be honest with each other. I understand we weren’t together when you lied to me but we were and are friends so you should have been able to talk to me. We could have talked about your feelings and probably could have worked through all this a lot sooner.” She was right. I caused all of this by lying and being a coward and running away instead of facing my problem head on.

“I agree with you. I am sorry that I didn’t tell you the truth and I promise to never do it again.” Is it wrong that I want to kiss her now? “Slow down Juliet. There will be time for that later. You need to spend this time getting to know one another better.” Damn my subconscious sometimes. Oh well there will be time for that later and we do need to get to know each other. We sit and talk in the car for a little while, both of us obviously not wanting to be away from the other just yet. Finally her phone rings and she answers it. I let my mind wander while she takes her call and think about what having a relationship with her will really mean. Do we tell people or keep it a secret? She is completely out of the closet as they say and has been possibly her whole life, but how am I going to tell people that I like women? How are people going to react to me? I probably should have thought about that beforehand. “When you love someone it no longer matters what the world thinks. You’re not hurting anyone, so as long as you’re happy that is all that matters. The people that really love you will be there for and with you through anything, so don’t worry about it.” Did my brain say the “L” word? It is way too soon to be using that word even inside my head. Besides I have never used that word in any relationship so how would I know how love feels? “One of these days your heart will catch up to your brain but until then go on believing whatever helps you sleep at night.” She finishes her call and tells me that she is going to head inside now because her sister is on her way to pick her up and they are going shopping. I tell her I will talk to her later and to call me when she is done shopping. She says she will definitely do that and we say goodbye to one another. As I drive off all I can think is how unreal the events of today seem to me. It feels as though this is all a dream that I will wake up from any minute but I know that it is far from a dream. It turns out that today was a great day.

The next few months seem to pass by in a blur. We have been together three months now and things are going pretty well if I do say so myself. I celebrated my 23rd birthday at a club with my sister and some friends and had a wonderful time. She was out of town with family so she did not celebrate my birthday with me, but she promised we would go out another time. Then for New Year’s Eve, I went out riding with my sister and two of our friends and brought in the New Year by the boardwalk looking at the water and the lights with a few daiquiris to help keep us warm. My sister’s birthday was in January and we didn’t really do much. She mostly celebrated with her boyfriend but that is fine with me because I feel like I’ve been doing too much partying for once. I have been working a lot lately trying to get as much overtime as I can since Valentine’s Day is approaching. I have never liked this holiday because it is pointless to me but my girlfriend wants to celebrate so that is what we are going to do this year. It will be our first one together. No pressure. Our relationship has been going great so far with no problems or arguments. We talk on the phone every day every chance we get and always hate to hang up. She works early in the morning and I work graveyards so while she is up I am sleeping and vice versa, which makes it a little hard for us sometimes, but we make it work. When I get off in the mornings, I usually go over to her job to visit before I go to sleep. It gives me a chance to see her in person and she likes when I show up. She says it makes her day better and I believe her because it does the same for my day when I see her.