by Jo Watson
3. Ten Ways To Tell He Likes You. (Why do these things always come in tens, let’s try sevens next time. Quicker. Less thinking.)
More later . . .
20 Feb. (later that day)
As it turns out I am not mad and hallucinating and I can hold my drink. Matt (that’s his name btw) is very real. In fact, Matt has been away on business this entire time. Because Matt is an actual adult with a real job—unlike myself. Matt, as it turns out, is a Quantitative Analyst. Of course I have no idea what that means, but nodded my head and made a note to Google it later.
(Googled: A quantitative analyst is a person who specializes in the application of mathematical and statistical methods—such as numerical or quantitative techniques—to financial and risk management problems.)
Okay. Now I really don’t know what it means. But Matt is also rather confusing. Very.
He claims to only vaguely remember meeting me in the lift and no mention of the kiss. At all. He’s not even acting awkwardly around me. I’m not sure if I should be offended. No. Of course, I’m offended that he doesn’t remember that kiss. But things are still looking promising, because he did invite me to his house-warming party. Mind you, there’s still a possibility that Matt might turn out to be very boring. Very, quantitative-number-crunching boring. He could also be a total asshole. Men that look like he does often are. I’ve always noted that the hotter the man, the less developed his personality can be.
Anyhoo . . . I’ve decided to do the article on Ten Ways To Tell If He Likes You since it will be very beneficial to know these things moving forward. So far this is the list:
1. He initiates conversation.
2. He listens and remembers what you say.
3. He leans forward when you talk.
4. He makes direct eye contact and smiles.
5. He compliments your appearance.
6. He teases you playfully. (This one reminds me of school days, when a boy would throw a ball at your head or snap your bra strap to convey his feelings. Maybe men really don’t change that much.)
I shall look out for these signs at the house-warming.
More soon . . .
CHAPTER FOUR
Here’s the big, fat universal truth about unrequited love . . .
It hurts. Period.
It holds you in its fiendish grip and it squeezes the life out of you. It makes you feel physically ill and turns you into someone with a single-minded obsession that rages inside your head day and night. Make him love me. Make him see me, make him love me . . . It’s exhausting and draining and constantly chaotic. And, eventually, it becomes completely all-consuming. It becomes the thing that defines you. Loving him, and not being loved back, becomes everything.
Profound, hey? Great insight, don’t ya think? I know, because I wrote an article about it once. As a freelance writer for various women’s magazines I write all kinds of articles about these very things:
How To Tell If A Man Just Isn’t That Into You.
How To Get Out Of The Friend Zone.
And of course . . .
How To Get Over Unrequited Love.
But you think I would take my own advice. What’s that saying about the shoemaker’s children having the worst shoes? Well, I was like that. Except now I only had one shoe. Not that any of the articles I write have any real basis in scientific fact or proven theory, though. The most research I do is typing something into the Google bar.
I was still sitting in my car on the side of the road. I was squeezing the steering wheel so hard that my fingers were about to fall off. I clenched my jaw; it felt like I might crack a tooth. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to will away the avalanche of tears that had been streaming down my face for the last five minutes. I was like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike, desperately trying to hold it all back. But I was failing, and now, it was just spewing forth with the pent-up vengeance that was three, long, painful years in the making.
Because Matt was it.
If I couldn’t have him, then there was no one else for me. Of course my friends were all very fond of pointing out how utterly irrational that thought was. But it was what I’d thought every single day, at least ten times a day, for the last three years. I’d thought it so damn much that now I genuinely believed it. If not Matt, then who?
I glanced in my rear-view mirror, there were hardly any cars on the road at this time and no sign of THE BOSS, DIVORCED or Matt. I pulled back onto the road and started driving in the direction of my hotel. Matt and most of the engagement party were staying there and the prospect of bumping into them was more than a little horrifying. So as soon as I reached the hotel, I ran to my room and threw myself in.
But once inside, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. I was experiencing a kind of prickly anxiety that was making me want to pace the room and scratch my arms. And so I did. I walked and scratched the psychosomatic itch that was emanating from the inside, that no amount of scratching could fix.
This was not how I’d seen this situation playing out. And, believe me, I’d seen it play out many times before. There had been many nights when I’d lain in bed playing the scenario out over and over in my head. Firstly, in my scenario there had been no audience. And secondly, Matt was meant to look at me adoringly, love emanating from his eyes, open his mouth and . . .
“Oh my God! Yes. Yes. I love you too, Val. I’ve always loved you. I’ve loved you since that day we kissed in the lift (in my version he remembers the kiss). I love you! I choose you!”
Or some such variation of the above. Anything other than what he’d said tonight.
“I’m so sorry, Val, I had no idea. I’ve never thought about you like that. You’re my best friend. You’re family.”
A stab of pain, mixed with embarrassment, kicked me in the gut again. Although, I’m not sure you can even call this embarrassment. This feeling transcended any normal understanding of embarrassment. This was nothing like the feeling I’d gotten when I’d had my legs up in stirrups at the gynaes, and a strange man had walked in thinking his wife was in that room. Or the feeling I’d gotten when my nephew had found the vibrator in my drawer, turned it on and run around the house with it thinking it was a toy while my parents were visiting.
No, this was nothing like that. This was something else entirely.
25 Feb.
Dear Diary,
He is not an asshole. He is not boring. He is, in fact, one of the funniest, coolest, nicest guys I’ve ever met. Just come back from Matt’s house-warming party. It was very interesting. Matt’s friends were all very “finance-y.” They all thought it was fascinating that I was a freelance features writer. They asked so many questions, as if I was some kind of exotic species that they had only just discovered living under a mossy fern in the Amazon.
But I did get to spend a lot of time with Matt. And I don’t think I’m imagining it, but we really bonded. We have the same sense of humor, the same dislike of French foods: frogs’ legs, foie gras, escargots. We both like beer, pizza with pineapple on and watching rugby (maybe me for different reasons to him, though. Truthfully, I only became a fan of the sport after seeing those calendar pictures of the rugby players wearing nothing but strategically positioned balls).
I also watched out for all the signs tonight too, and this is what I think:
1. He initiates conversation—Check! As soon as I walked in the door.
2. He listens and remembers what you say—Yes! At the beginning of the night I told him how I liked my martini, and at the end of the night, he still remembered.
3. He leans forward when you talk—Yes. But to be fair, the music was loud. So not 100% sure about this one.
4. He makes direct eye contact and smiles—Yes.
5. He compliments your appearance—Not sure. He complimented my fitbit—said he liked the color of it and asked if it was any good.
On a bad note, he still hasn’t said a thing about the kiss and I am starting to genuinely believe that he doesn’t remembe
r it.
More later . . .
CHAPTER FIVE
The knock on the hotel room door happened at precisely 3:33 a.m. I know this, because I was still awake, staring at the clock, willing morning to come so I could get the hell out of there.
“Val, I know you’re in there. We need to talk.” It was Matt.
Maybe if I ignored him he’d go away?
“Val, pleeeease,” he implored me in that oh-so-familiar tone. The tone that was so bloody hard to resist. Like when he’d asked if I minded throwing his laundry in with mine and doing it for him because he was so busy at work. Or when he’d asked if he could borrow my car, because his was in for a service, and I’d said yes and cancelled a coffee with my friends.
But not this time. “No,” I finally managed feebly, sounding unsure of myself. Which I was. “NO!” I said it again, a little louder and firmer this time, but still not quite convincingly.
“Please,” he whined into the door, and I couldn’t help it, but I moved closer. I waddled all the way up to the door—it was hard to bend my bloody, scraped knees—and rested my head against it. I could see the shadows of his feet under the door and I could hear his breathing. He was so close . . . yet he was so, so very far away.
“I can hear you,” he whispered against the door in that other familiar tone. It was that playful voice, with the lilting quality to it that always made it sound a little flirty. This was the tone that had perpetually fueled my hopes these three years, like petrol to a fire. It was the tone that had me riding a relentless emotional rollercoaster that I was now so dizzy and exhausted from.
“I can’t,” I whispered back. I heard him sigh. Something about his sigh pissed me off. Why would he be sighing? Shouldn’t all the sighing and huffing and puffing be reserved for me?
“I need to talk to you,” he continued. And because, clearly, I wasn’t quite through embarrassing myself for one evening, I opened my mouth.
“Need? Ha! Well, I’ve needed a lot of things too and I haven’t gotten any of them. Now have I? We all need things, Matt. Everyone fucking needs things, don’t they?” As soon as I’d finished the sentence, I regretted saying it. There was no need to add any more drama to this already overly-dramatic situation.
Another sigh from him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know how to make this better.”
“You can’t make it better.” My voice quivered and tears began to sting my eyes. “Where’s Sam?” I suddenly asked.
He paused for the longest time before speaking. “I waited until she was asleep.”
God, he sounded guilty as hell. Like the husband who comes home late after work because he’s been in an “emergency meeting” (Miss Scarlet, in the boardroom with a whip).
“Aaah . . . I see.” The guilt in his voice made me feel cheap and dirty. Like I was his slutty Miss Scarlet on the side. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way either. There’d been many a night when Sam had been working late and we’d hung out together and phrases like “please don’t tell her we went out, she thinks I’m at home working” were thrown around.
“Please leave,” I said. There was a long pause and I waited with anticipation for his answer. Truthfully, there was still this part of me that was hoping he might barge through the door at any moment, take me in his arms and tell me what a mistake he’d made with Sam. We’d fall into each other’s arms and kiss and then make love all night long.
God, I hated that part of myself and I wondered if it was possible to kill it off somehow?
“I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but at least open the door so I can give you your shoe. You left it on the driveway.”
Shit! And under normal circumstance I might have just told him to keep it, but the things had cost a bloody fortune. “Leave it outside,” I said.
“Okay,” he replied feebly.
I pressed my ear to the door, waiting for the sounds of his footsteps, and when I was confident that he was no longer there, I opened the door and looked down. My one fancy shoe was on the floor and the irony of this moment did not escape me.
This was my Cinderella slipper, delivered by Prince Charming himself. Only, this prince wasn’t mine. His heart belonged to someone else. The problem was that he was in possession of my heart, and I had no idea how to go about getting it back.
4 March
Dear Diary,
Matt has asked me around to his place today to watch the rugby and drink beer! And it’s just going to be the two of us. We’ve seen each other almost every day this week, either in the lift, walking past each other in the corridor, or having a conversation in the parking lot. I think he likes me, I mean, why else would he be inviting me to his place tonight? Alone. I have to get ready.
More laters . . .
4 March (later)
Dear Diary,
Okay, quick update, nothing happened. But he did hug me goodbye and I’m sure the hug lingered for a few seconds longer than it should have. Maybe my friends are right, maybe he’s just shy around me because he does remember the kiss but doesn’t know how to broach the subject?
More laters (hopefully!)
CHAPTER SIX
I arrived at the airport at 6 a.m., four hours before my actual flight. Matt and Sam and the rest of the engagement party were also booked on that flight and I was hoping to avoid them all by getting onto an earlier one. Because I hadn’t slept a wink that night, I felt almost drunk on the exhaustion.
The rental car inspection had not gone well. The angry-looking man with the clipboard and clicky-pen had been very displeased when he’d seen the state of the car. I was made to fill out a hundred forms and in my haste and strange, tired state, I didn’t read any of them. For all I knew I could have signed my soul away or joined a pyramid scheme and my box of miracle slimming tablets was already en route to my house. But I didn’t care. I had much bigger things to worry about today than the silly bumper that had fallen off and was now in the trunk. Yellowstone could have erupted today, I could have learned that ground baby panda bear paws were being used in the manufacture of my favorite face cream, or that the Amazon had been completely flattened for a Trump theme park—and probably still wouldn’t have cared.
When I finally got inside the airport I discovered that the earlier flight was fully booked. But I was put on standby, just in case a seat became free. If I couldn’t get on that flight, I would need to find a safe place to hide, and then book myself onto a later flight—thus avoiding the engagement party. So I found myself a chair in the far corner of the airport. But I couldn’t get comfortable. And it wasn’t because the seats were hard and cold and my knees were stinging. I could feel that overwhelming monster of an emotion building. I dug in my handbag, pulled out a piece of gum and shoved it in my mouth; it was all I could do to stop myself from screaming. And that’s when I saw it. I reached in and pulled it out. My diary. It flopped open on a page. I swallowed hard. This was where it had all began . . .
20 June
Dear Diary,
I’m in love. I’m totally in love with Matt. I have no idea how this happened so quickly. We’ve been spending almost every day together, either my house or his. And when we’re not spending time together, we’re messaging each other constantly. He messages me something boring that happened in his office like, “Board meeting with entire finance department” and I message him back with how I might turn that into an article, like “Seven ways to have an orgy on a boardroom table without being caught by your boss.” Okay, it sounds so lame when I write it like that, but it’s not. It’s so much fun. And it happens all the time.
We already have an inside joke! This has to be a sign that it’s more than “just friends.” Surely? Friends don’t spend all day together and then constantly message each other when they’re apart. Well, friends of the opposite sex anyway. I just wish I knew how he felt. I’ve been dropping hints like crazy and steering the conversations in directions that are conducive to “relationship talk.”
And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve also steered them to a rather sexy, flirty place once or twice, but I’m not sure he’s getting it!
More later . . .
CHAPTER SEVEN
My bum had just started going numb from sitting on the hard metal airport chair when I saw someone familiar in the distance. I recognized the walk immediately. Matt has this cool kind of swagger that makes you think of sexy, lasso-wielding cowboys. Panic seized me and, without thinking, I dove straight onto the floor.
“EX-ca-uuuse me!” the woman sitting next to me said. I glanced up and saw she was looking down at me in horror, as if I’d just committed some monumental crime against humanity. As if I was personally responsible for global warming, world poverty and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
“What?” I looked up at her.
“Do. You. Mind?” Her eyes flicked from my face, to my hand, and then back again. I followed them.
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t see it . . .” I mumbled, removing my hand from off her shopping bag.
She reached down and picked the bag up angrily. “Oh, now look!” she moaned, pulling something out of the bag. “I bought this chocolate for my grandson and you’ve gone and crushed it.”
“Hardly,” I said looking at the perfect slab.
“Here.” She pointed to the corner of it, where a tiny piece of foil wrapping had been ever-so-slightly disturbed.
“Oh, please. I didn’t do that.”
“Young lady,” she said, her voice slightly louder than I would have liked, and I looked up quickly to see where Matt was. He was still walking in my direction and, oh-no, Doctor Samantha had just joined him. What the hell were they doing here so early? Perhaps they’d also had the same thought; try and get on an earlier flight to avoid me?