Friday, August 27, 2010

''Another Chance'' Cafe...chapter 8

I woke the next morning with Shea on my mind, as if I didn’t know that was going to happen. My dreams the night before were saturated with her. It was like an on-going movie stuck on replay or better yet, like a highlight show of our date recapping all of the best parts. Being that it was Saturday morning, I just laid in bed for a little while revisiting the previous evening over and over again. I went to grab for my phone to look at her text message once more but didn’t want to over-indulge myself. I was still afraid of becoming attached to her. Possibly falling for her and not have her feel the same way. It was like a phobia of mine. Something that just refused to go away. Still wondering how long it would be before she got tired of me or found someone better. Pulling myself out of it, I reminded my fragile and non-existent ego that it was way too early to worry about such matters. My mind seemed to understand my plight pretty well but my heart refused to hear any of it. Still wounded from the last disaster and realizing that the reality of the situation had a “10” once again showing interest in me, possibly a “6” or “7” at best. This doesn’t happen too often in real life and when it does, it usually doesn’t last very long.

Furthermore, the concept of me being her “rebound guy” didn’t help my chances. A girl’s “night and shining armor” fantasy can block their own sense of reality and what they really want in a guy. Having recently been in an assuming bad relationship that I am still unaware of any of the details about, she may still have those “nice guy blinders” on. Blinders that will eventually fall off when she realizes that I am nothing too special.

I got out of bed, avoiding my phone, and decided that this was not the time for a self inflicted pity party but a time for celebration, a small personal one, for a first date gone perfect. Although I was itching to contact her right then and there, I held back not wanting to seem like a clinger. Plus, she did say that she had to do something with a friend this morning. I walked into the kitchen which still had the remains of our dinner last night that my own personal cloud 9 floated me right past when I got home. I began to put things away and made myself a celebratory breakfast of milk and cereal.

As I plopped down on my couch to watch the remaining Saturday morning cartoons, yes I still try to keep up with my Saturday morning cartoons, I could actually feel my feelings for her growing stronger. The harder I tried to focus on my cartoons, the more I couldn’t. What is it with me and feeling this way about girls that I have just met? I’ve known her for a little less than a week and I am already falling into some kind of deep like for her. Happens to me almost every time.

I coached myself after the last time to not allow myself to reach this point again so soon. It wasn’t fun, not at all. Constantly thinking about someone, especially when you two haven’t even met a classification yet. We aren’t boyfriend/girlfriend as of yet, no. Still too early. How long is a good enough time to wait before making that determination? Is there a possibility that she hasn’t shown her real side yet? Will she eventually get on my nerves? Is she thinking these same things as I am? Questions, so many questions that I didn’t have the answers to and wasn’t sure if I even wanted to find them out. For all I know, the answers that I sought could be extremely disappointing. Not being able to control your emotions sucks. It really does. If only we had the ability to regulate who we liked and who we didn’t like. Who we wanted to fall in love with and who didn’t deserve to be loved by us.

Alas, that ability does not exist. At least for those of us who are normal. Sometimes I wished I could be like my friends or my brother. So smooth and cool enough to meet and date girls and then simply move on to the next one without becoming attached somehow and not allowing those girls to even get the chance to possibly break their hearts. That was my other issue, afraid of having my poor little vulnerable ticker smashed into a million little pieces once again. It’s a frightening thought, especially when you feel this way about someone. It can be crippling even, paralyzing. But the end result is that life goes on, unfortunately. You move on and find someone else, or maybe not.

Deciding to end another one of my many sermons about love, I finished up my cereal, completed the task of cleaning the kitchen and decided to go for a bike ride to help clear my head. Still desperately yearning to contact Shea, I stood strong and resisted. I was proud of myself. But I still wondered if she was thinking about me and how much? I wondered if the friend she was helping was another female and if she was sharing our evening with her. The more I make myself busy, the harder it will be for my mind to wander off into such self-esteem lowering waters. My bike ride was nice. The afternoon air was crisp and not too hot, signifying that fall was on the way and soon beach season would be over. My thoughts quickly flashed a mental guess at what Shea would look like in a bikini. Niiiiicccce… Maybe that could be our next date or at least a hang-out session. We could go to the beach and just relax and talk and spend time with each other. Good idea, I’ll store that one for later.

After my bike ride, I returned home and showered up. It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon by now and I wondered what Shea was doing. I really wanted to see her again but felt like it was too soon and didn’t want her to become tired of me. But I was still wrestling with the idea about calling her. I toyed with the notion for about half an hour before I finally gave in and figured I’d shoot her a text:

I should of let you stay and help me with the kitchen, it wasn’t easy.

About thirty seconds later, my phone chimed with a possible response from her:

I told you to, I’m good at cleaning up too. It would have been fun.

She was right, I’m sure it would have been a lot of fun. It would have also been very difficult for me to wash dishes and put away food with her looking the way she did last night.

Shea: What r u up 2?

Me: Nothing much, went for bike ride earlier, now I’m just chilling out. How ‘bout u?

Shea: I actually just got back from helping my friend pick out a dress for a wedding she had today.

Me: So basically u guys went shopping, 2 women shopping, always a fun time.

Shea: Lol, u know it. I actually told her about u.

Me: Yeah? What did u say?

Shea: Well I told her that we always have great conversations and that last night was another huge plus for u.

I said that u deserved an award for the evening that u created. It was really nice and I loved it.

Me: Nice, what did she say?

Shea: She said I sounded kind of flighty and giggly like a little school girl whenever I spoke about you.

It was weird I admit, I haven’t felt that way in a long while. Kinda caught me off guard.

Me: Schoolgirl, really? That doesn’t even sound like you.

Shea: I know, that’s why it’s so crazy, but I like it.

Me: Well, I’m glad I could be of service.

Shea: Lol, you think you’re funny, don’t you?

Me: Sometimes…

Shea: Whatever Mr. Smooth, you must be luvin’ this.

Me: Can’t lie…I am.

Shea: Lol, at least u r honest.

Feeling like the conversation was going very well, I decided to just go for it and tell her what I was thinking about all day.

Me: To tell the truth, I’ve been thinking about you all day.

Shea: Really? What about me?

Me: ur eyes and ur smile.

Shea: Thx, but my eyes? Really?

Me: Yea, they r beautiful, u don’t think so?

Shea: Well I never really got compliments about them and never actually thought about it before.

Me: Well they r, they r pretty captivating, I was tryin not 2 stare into them 2 much last night.

Shea: Wow, thx Patrick.

Me: Np, ur very welcome.

Shea: Since we r sharing things, I can’t stop thinking about ur lips.

Me: Really?

Shea: Nope, I just can’t. They r soft and pretty tempting. I wanted 2 keep kissing u last night.

Me: Yeah? Well that makes 2 of us.

Shea: I’m glad u feel the same way. There’ll be other chances.

Me: Looking forward to it.

After hearing all of this from her, I didn’t feel so bad about revealing that I had been thinking about her the entire day. It seemed that maybe she had been thinking about me as well. That was a good feeling. A very good feeling, knowing that my feelings were being reciprocated. Her telling her friend about me had to be a good sign as well. Duh! Women are very real with their friends. Especially when it comes to telling each other about guys. Unless she was lying which she really didn’t have any reason to, she had shared her thoughts about me with her friend. All very good thoughts.

We finished our text conversation a couple minutes later and I figured I’d let her be for now. I still very much wanted to see her again but some off time in between days was a good thing. I just wished I could stop thinking about her. She invaded my mind and I had absolutely zero defenses against her. Nothing to even try to prevent an onslaught of thoughts about Shea presented itself. I felt as if I had become infatuated with her. Maybe she was the one, who knew? I found myself considering what marriage would be like with her. We had no problem talking to each other, we liked a lot of the same things and I felt like I could really just be myself around her and not feel judged or like I wasn’t good enough to be in her company. Also, of course, I had no problem at all finding her very attractive. Our personalities were different but similar at the same time. It was great. My doubts about her becoming tired of me slowly began to fade away and I felt a lot better about everything.

It was still weird; I hadn’t even considered marriage to be an option for me again in a very long time. I felt like it was impossible for me to actually be in a committed relationship where I’m not getting hurt. Where everything was 50/50. No, more like 100/100. It was something I desired so bad; I wrote it off believing it to be simply somewhat of a fantasy of mine. Usually a guy’s fantasy consists of two or more beautiful women serving him as he sees fit. Although, I do share very much in the popularity of wanting to find myself in a situation like that, my utmost fancy is to simply be happy with one person for a long, long time. I wonder if Shea could be that person. But with only a week in, I couldn’t tell.

The rest of the day kind of drifted by with me watching a couple of movies and then meeting up with some friends to play basketball. After the game, I returned to my car to find that Shea had left me a message about a half an hour ago. It read:

Hey, what r u doing?

So, I wrote back and told her I just got finished playing basketball and was headed home.

Shea: Oh, nice. Hope u won.

Me: Of course.

Shea: Lol, good…well, I just came from the record store and I uh,…ran into Xander.

I wasn’t really surprised, to be honest. My life had a way of presenting me with a rather big high and then hitting me with something that would bring me crashing back down. Scared to ask, I wrote back:

Really? What happened?

Shea: Well…he kissed me.



To be continued…

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