A couple long weeks with my thoughts

Over the next couple weeks, I had plenty of time to think about it. Charley wasn’t put off by the deadline, resolving to watch two Tarantino movies a week until I left. Obviously, that meant I was seeing her at least twice a week – and up till the end of August, it usually ended up being closer to four or five times.

Everything was still changing. We were hanging out more and more, and despite the movie thing, it didn’t even feel like we’d made a conscious decision to do so. It was just … a mutual understanding of wanting to spend more time together.

And of course, hanging out wasn’t the only thing that was different. The non-PG stuff was too. I kept thinking back to the first couple of times we had sex, how it was just this frantic, hot mess as we both tried to discharge the overflowing horniness and attraction to each other. Now … it was an entirely new thing. More tender, more intimate, slower … and yet a million times more intense.

There’s a term for it – not that I like it very much. Making love?

Blergh, even thinking the words made me cringe. But honestly … I couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. It simply wasn’t just sex anymore.

Returning to Charley’s feelings – the more time we spent together, the more I just couldn’t help but start to believe that she felt the same way I did. How enthusiastic she always was for me to come over to hers, the look in her eyes after I kissed her, the way she’d hold me in her bed whenever we deemed it was safe for me to stay the night – perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around how it could be anything else. I mean, even just thinking about the extent of our relationship as a whole; I didn’t exactly have a plethora of past relationships to look to for reference, but … this was essentially what it was to be with someone for real, right? I thought so, at least.

There was just one thing missing: actually saying the words.

I love you.

So simple, right? There was just that small nagging issue that we were legally related.

For all the time that I spent riding the high of what our relationship had become, I spent equally as much time obsessing over all the ways it could fall apart.

We’d slip up, and Mum and Dad would find out; horrified, they’d **** us apart and our whole thing would have been for nothing; Charley would move back to America or something, and I’d never see her again; I’d spend the rest of my life back to trying and failing to get over her. I’d let myself spiral down rabbit holes like that on several occasions.

But then again, I considered the alternative too. Charley had stated at the beginning that this would come to an end, and our relationship would go back to normal. But … surely that was impossible now, right? Things had changed so drastically. You don’t just turn feelings like these off like a light switch.

No, there was no way to go back. At least, not for me.

Before I knew it, September was here, and my feelings weren’t even close to being in order. Within the month, I’d be flying to Japan; and as Charley sat next to me on the couch, I knew I couldn’t let things just roll along unresolved. If something real was going to happen between us, I wanted to have some time to consolidate it. Not just cowardly ask her right before I left so I had an escape.

It had to be today. I had to take the plunge.