Little Talks

Sarah has started school so she’s not living with Mike anymore, at least not until May (she’ll be graduating in five years instead of four due to her double major so she’ll be graduating in two years rather than this spring). As a result, Mike and I have been spending a lot of time at his place. Partly or privacy and partly because my relationship with Mike is a point of tension between Molly and I and it’s just better I think for our friendship if she’s not around when he is. We were sitting on his couch snuggling (and making out) when Mike stopped.

“I need to talk to you about something.” He was blushing slightly and I immediately felt nervous.

“Okay…” I said dropping my hands from his waist.

“We’ve been seeing each other for about a month now and I…I think I’d like to make things exclusive between us.”

I was floored. I was planning on bringing this up with him during this very date but he’d beat me to the punch. I wanted to say yes and be done with it but I felt like I needed to tell him what happened with Adam. I hesitated with my answer and Mike’s face fell.

“…Or we could just keep doing this…” He motioned between us.

“It’s not that I don’t want to.” I said, “But I need to tell you something and it’s not really the greatest thing, either.”

“Okay.” He said warily.

“About two weeks ago I sort of freaked out about us and where I wanted things to go and…I just feel like I need to stress this: what I did was SUPER dumb and completely because I was freaking out, not because my feelings for you have changed at all.”

“O-okay.” Mike looked really concerned.

“I ended up calling my ex-boyfriend and seeing if he wanted to start things back up. I figured you and I weren’t exclusive so…”

Mike’s face looked even more concerned and slightly angry.

“You did what?”

I shrank into the couch and kept my mouth shut.

“Faith, why would you do that?”

“I was…I was confused and panicked. I regret it completely and nothing came from it. He and I are completely over. Completely. I’m…I’m not seeing anyone else but you and more importantly, Mike…I don’t want to.”

He looked confused and shook his head. Then he shrugged.

“I…you’re right, we weren’t exclusive so you’re obviously free to see whoever you want but I don’t know, Faith…I know you said you’d just ended a serious relationship but how serious are your feelings for this guy?”

I looked at my hands and then back up into his eyes.

“I was in love with him, Mike. But I’m not anymore.” I wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not.

I don’t WANT to love Adam anymore, it would make everything so much easier (for both of us) but at the same time I still think about him a lot, even when I don’t want to. I want to move on and in a lot of ways I feel like I have but the fact that Adam and I were such good friends before we fell in love with each other makes the way I feel about him now so…messy and hard to separate from my current feelings.

“But you called him to…”

“I know and my only explanation for that was me being an idiot who reacted to being scared at the thought of wanting to be exclusive with you and you not feeling the same. I’m sorry…I wish I could take it back.”

I looked down sadly and I could feel him looking at me. He was trying to figure out what to do with the information I’d laid out in front of him. I felt his arms pull me in for a hug.

“I do want to see you…and only you.” He said.

“I want the same.” I pulled out of the hug and looked into his eyes to show that I meant it.

“So, you’re my girlfriend.”

“And you’re my boyfriend.”

We smiled at each other and started laughing. I stopped, though, and looked at him seriously.

“Mike, I really am sorry that I did that.”

“It’s okay, Faith, I’m just glad you told me. You certainly didn’t have to.”

He gave me an approving look and then pulled me in for a kiss which turned into some seriously good we’re-in-an-exclusive-relationship-sex.

(Author's note: Just an FYI, I started my new graduate program this week and it is awesome but also super intense. Scary intense. I don't know how long I will be able to manage to keep up the blog with this program going; I'm going to try really hard to keep it as regular and consistent as I can. That means I might miss some days of posting or have to go on a hiatus but I'm trying really hard to keep my head above water with school. We'll see how this goes, I guess. -del)