L-O-V-E

I got to the bar Sean’s band was playing at about 5 minutes before they ended up being done and taking down their instruments. Karen was there and it was the first time I’d ever seen her. You guys…she looks almost exactly like me. Her hair is a little shorter (and platinum blonde) and her nose is kind of different but we could easily be mistaken as twins if our hair colors weren’t practically the opposite of each other (I’m a brunette with natural mahogany highlights thank you very much). She came over to me while I stood next to the bar and watched the band wrap up their set.

“Faith? Hi, I’m Karen. I just wanted to thank you for the lovely gift you sent me over the holidays.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome.” I said shaking her hand, “It’s so nice to meet you, Sean’s mentioned you a lot.”

“Did he tell you about the tour?”

I looked at Karen, startled.

“No. He didn’t.”

“Oh.” Realization came over Karen’s face and she made an excuse to go help Jake put his keyboard in its case before walking away from me. Sean walked over with his guitar case.

“I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

“Neither did I, really. I just think we need to talk and the sooner the better.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I think here is fine.” I motioned towards a booth towards the back of the bar.

We sat down and both got glasses of water from the bar before I felt like starting.

“Look, Faith I’m sorry. I-”

“Sean, I need to talk and I need you to listen to me, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean really listen to me.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t be with you if this is how things are going to be. You always say that I think about others too much, well, now I need to think about myself and I can’t be with you if you’re going to punish me for what happened. I won’t be able to get better or come to terms with what happened while you treat me this way and if you can’t come to terms with the damage that Kevin, “Sean flinched at his name, “ has done, then I’m going to need to take a break from being with you because I already feel bad enough and I don’t need you to make me feel worse while I’m trying to deal with this. I have been nothing but supportive of you in this relationship and I’m asking you to do the same for me. If you can’t do that, then we need to end this because I’m exhausted. We do nothing but fight and I really don’t need more negativity in my life, especially from someone I love. I can’t keep fighting with you and feeling guilty about it. I won’t do it anymore. You don’t get to shut down or walk away from me when problems come up because both of us are in this relationship and I feel like I’m the only one who actually works or compromises for it.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been going through some pretty difficult stuff in therapy and I haven’t been doing a very good job of dealing with it.”

“Do you want to talk to me about it?”

“No.”

“Is it partly why you’ve been so damn angry for the past few weeks?”

Sean nodded.

“I think you should probably tell Dr. Deerhorn that you need some anger management help.”

He nodded again.

“So can you please stop resenting me for everything?”

“Yes.” Sean held my hands across the table, “Faith, I really am sorry. I should have kept my promise to talk with you more about things that are bothering me and I didn’t. I need to do a better job of listening to you and what your needs are. If you’re ready to try being intimate again I really need to stop thinking about myself in that regard. You’re the one who went through it, not me and I should trust you more, that’s really what it comes down to. Not everything is about me and what I want, we’re in this together.”

“So, when were you going to tell me about the tour?”

“I’m not sure.”

“When is it?”

“We’re leaving in March and we’ll be on the road for about 9 months. I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

“How long have you known?”

“Only for about a week. We hired Karen at the beginning of January and she got the record label to agree to it, she thinks it’s better for our careers if we tour. We’re getting so much notoriety now, she doesn’t want us to be a local band anymore, and neither does the label. They’re still booking venues and working on the set and lights, I figured I had more time to let you know.”

“Oh.” I was overwhelmed with this information.

“I’ll be able to come back every month or so for a few days. I’m planning on subletting my apartment so I don’t have to lose it…we’ll be okay.” Sean said that last part more for himself than to reassure me, I think.

“So we have about two months to get to a good place before you have to leave?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, we better get started, let’s go to my place.”

I got up and grabbed Sean’s hand to pull him outside. We waved at Karen as we left and on the way home, Sean held my hand. I know it probably seems like a juvenile gesture, but I really appreciated it. When we got to my apartment I fed Murphy and my boyfriend, because apparently he was going to die if he didn’t get to eat all of my chocolate chip cookies. We caught a late-night movie to watch on cable and snuggled under a blanket on the couch. I was leaning up against him on the verge of sleep when he unknowingly snapped me out of it.

“I love you.” He kissed me on the forehead.

“You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.” I said snuggling into his side even more.

(Author’s Note: this is the blog’s 150^th Faith-related post!)