Self Help

The "L bomb"

I froze.

How could this be happening? Of course after all this time, we still weren't on the same page.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

I turned to him and held him close to me. Seconds, minutes, passed and we stood still, listening to each other's breath rise and fall. Sirens screamed in the distance but we were locked in the silence of my answer. Nothing.

When I was finally brave enough to look at him, meeting his eyes was harder than I'd expected. I'd never seen him look so vulnerable. Of all the things I'd ever said to him, this silence had meant the most.

We stood for a while longer before going back inside. Nathan attempted to change the subject, to move along and on to something else, but neither of us could shake what had just happened.

That night I lay beside him as he slept soundly, listening to the even pattern of his breathing. It felt like hours before I fell asleep. I could trace the outline of his features in the darkness of my room, and I felt a searing pain in my chest knowing that I had the power to make him so happy, and instead I was hurting him.

In the morning it seemed as if nothing had happened. We were both preoccupied with saying goodbye. He was leaving that afternoon.

Nathan and I walked the three blocks to the bus station and I waited with him until it was time to board. I hugged him close, breathing deeply to memorize the smell of him, the feeling of his soft flannel shirt.  I kissed him goodbye and smiled, "I'll see you soon". He kissed me on the forehead, let go of my hands and stepped onto the bus. "See you soon," he said, turning back with a crooked smile.

Walking home alone, I could feel myself losing composure. Taylor Swift's "Love Story" was playing on my ipod, and though I knew it was silly and melodramatic, I felt the tears building. That song reminded me of our summer, of driving together and singing and smiling and be silly. When everything had been simple. Before I'd screwed everything up.

I took the stairs to my apartment two at a time, sprinted to the bathroom and as soon as the door was closed behind my I slid down to the floor and sobbed.

Everything I'd wanted for so long was right in front of me and suddenly I was acting like I didn't want it anymore. People will tell you "timing is everything", "life isn't fair" and a million other clichés. I knew I shouldn't feel like I was owed this relationship, or that somehow things with Nathan were just meant to work out, but I couldn't help but feel let down. Just one year ago, with Aidan, things had felt so incredibly right. If I was finally getting what I had wanted before, why did it feel so wrong now?

When Nathan was back at school, we tried our best to work past his awkward confession, but our relationship was clearly under pressure. Okay, so I hadn't said it then, but was I ever going to say it? We were lucky we lived so far apart because the tension between us filled all that space.

A few weeks after Nathan visited I took the bus home to my hometown for Thanksgiving. I knew we'd both be busy with family but I was excited to see him, even if it was just for a short while. As soon as I got my foot in the door at home, I was texting Nathan, eager to see him as soon as possible. It took hours before he even responded, and when he did, he was cold and distant. We made plans to hang out at his house the next night.

The next day came and it was well into the evening before I heard from him. When he arrived to pick me up, he was happy to see me, but something was..off. We drove to his family's farm, and when I asked excitedly what we would be doing, he told me we were going to spend the evening with his cousins. Drinking beer. In his garage. Needless to say, this was not exactly the romantic reunion I had been hoping for. I tried to be happy and brush it off.  "This doesn't mean anything," I told myself. But I couldn't quiet the voice in the back of my head warning me that we were headed for disaster.

After a few hours of listening to the boys talk about sports and drink beer, I'd had enough. Nathan drove me home and we hardly spoke. He'd been distant the whole time and now I was sure that my gut had been right. We felt like strangers.

The next night was my last night in town and he cancelled our plans last minute to go to a hockey game with his sister. To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. Since Nathan's visit I'd been worried that things were ruined between us, and I was counting on our Thanksgiving weekend to set my mind at ease. Instead, I was only now beginning to realize just how much damage I'd done. In that moment on my balcony, that one moment of silence, I'd changed our relationship forever. 

Sensing I was upset, Nathan asked me to meet him for breakfast in the morning before I had to catch my bus back to Ottawa. We met in the same diner where Aidan had begged to have me back the morning of his prom. Same bright orange leather booths, same relationship disaster. We talked it over and Nathan apologized for not spending more time with me. We made polite excuses for our behaviour and each other's over the past month, and vowed that things would be different. We promised we would be okay. 

It was only a week after that promise that Nathan decided to call it quits. "This is too hard," he wrote in a facebook message, "If it was meant to be, it would be easy."

I wanted to argue, but how could I? 

After years of chasing each other, we were both exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. I wanted to be angry - to kick and scream and tell him he was terrible. Instead, I told him I understood. I knew I would miss being with him, the ease and security of being loved by someone who knows you so well. But I had also come far enough to realize you can't force a relationship.

No matter how much we'd wanted it to work, we still weren't in the right place to be together, and I'd begun to accept that maybe we never would be.