The Me That I Became
Page 16
“Are you asking me out, Ms.?”
“I am. I’m a modern woman. Meet me there afterwards? I’m going to browse some books in the meantime.”
“I will.”
I shop for about thirty minutes and buy a couple of new fiction books that I’ve heard good things about. After that I sit in my car, listening to music and reading a little of each book. When I know book club is over I head over to the diner across the block. I know he’ll be over before too long.
When he comes in he scans the room. He looks around frantically until he sees me, and then he gives me that smile again before coming over to me. “How was book club?” I ask.
“Terrible. I felt like a high school teacher. No one did the reading this week, and they all tried to hide it, as if I can assign them detention or something. It was strange. Why sign up for a book club if you’re not going to read the book?”
“Fair question,” I say. “People behave in all sorts of weird ways, you know?”
“So I’ve heard.” The waitress comes over and we each get a coffee. I’m not in the mood to eat anything, and apparently neither is he. I just need to talk to him. “It’s great seeing you, Talia. I wasn’t sure that I ever would again.”
“Really? You thought I wouldn’t contact you again?”
“It was probably just my fear, my insecurity about us, but you of all people know how real those feelings can be.”
“I certainly do. I’d never do that to you. Even if it was over between us, I’d tell you.”
“Is it?” he asks. “Over between us? Is that how we end? Two months of self-discovery and a blow off at a local diner?”
He looks so sad, but he’s trying not to. All it would take is a single word of ‘yes’ right now to shatter his heart and leave him broken. But I can’t be with him for that reason—I can’t be his girlfriend to save him pain, or to pity him. No. If I’m going to be with him it has to be pure. It has to be for the right reasons.
“It’s not over between us at all, Brandon. Are you kidding? How could I? I never doubted us. I doubted myself. I had to make sure that I was me—the real me—before committing to everyone else. It’s not over. I think it’s just beginning, actually.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. You can ask me anything you want.”
“Can I kiss you right now, or is that breaking the rules?”
I smile. I’ve missed his lips so much. “I’ll be angry with you if you don’t. And the rules have changed. We have a new set of them now, and that includes kissing me at all times.”
“All times? So, like now?”
“Especially like now, Brandon.”
He comes over to my side of the booth and kisses me. My body ignites at the touch of his lips, and in one moment the relief of two months of their absence comes swelling over me. When we break apart I feel empty, and I wonder what I was ever thinking sending him away. He goes back to his side and reaches across the table to grab my hand. “I love you, Talia. I always have.”
Those words penetrate my tough exterior, and they shoot right into my very soul. On some level, I’ve been waiting to hear them for a long time, and when I do something interesting happens inside of me—I feel good. I don’t worry about reciprocation, or pressure to feel a way that I don’t, or panic that those words mean something I’m very afraid of. When he tells me that he loves me it feels right, like the words had been missing from the conversation between us, and there was only one thing left for me to say.
“I love you, too, Brandon. I love you, too.”
I don’t know what the future is going to bring for Brandon and me. This isn’t happily ever after, this is the possibility of happily ever after, and that’s just fine with me. I’m tired of guarantees, because my guarantees were always bad ones. I want to keep getting better, and I want to discover how far the new versions of Brandon and I can go. I can see us together in fifty years, our grandchildren visiting us at our upstate vacation house. It’s an easy image, and an even easier thing to want so bad. I hope that we get there. I believe that we will.
In a way, Brandon and I have had two different relationships. The first time he fell in love with not-really-me, with the Lia I pretended to be. And in many ways, I fell for a broken man who was afraid to tell me about the demons he was struggling with. But something crazy happened along the way. At some point, we met each other for a second time—the real versions of ourselves. I think we really met for the first time tonight, and I’m excited to see where the future is going to take us. More than the certainty of our future, one thing means even more to me.
Brandon loves me. He loves the me that I became. He loves Talia.
I think I’m starting to love me also. I never thought I’d say those words out loud.
The Beginning. . .
Resources
I began this book with a quotation from the great Andrew Solomon, who articulates his experience with depression and anxiety maybe better than anyone I’ve ever read. While I certainly recommend the book from which the quote came, The Noonday Demon, for a quicker and powerful experience I recommend taking fifteen minutes to watch his brilliant TED Talk on the subject. I promise it will be worth it.
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (book)
Depression: The Secret We Share (TED TALK)
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