"So, what I'm saying is, I am in love with you."
Pause. No response. I shifted uncomfortably and decided to go on. "I totally and completely love you. Over the past several months, your friendship has come to be everything to me, but I want to be more than just friends, I want us to be everything."
More nothing. He just sat there staring into space. So far, this was not working out the way I'd planned. There were candles lit and jazz great, Chet Baker was crooning a love ballad in the background. Wasn't this the perfect setting to tell my best friend, Jay, how I really felt about him? But, what had I been expecting his response to be? I hadn't thought that far in advance.
I wanted to die. Oh. My. God. Do I keep talking to fill the dead air that was hanging between us, or do I just mimic him and sit there, silently, allowing my words to sink in? Being the nervous talker that I am, I forged ahead. "I don't expect you to say that you love me back, or that you want to be with me in any capacity other than just friends. Friends are great. You can't have enough friends, right? I mean, where would we be without friends? I knew this girl in the fourth grade, Heather—was it Heather?—anyway, she used to eat her boogers, and she never had any friends, and I always felt bad for her but ..." I was babbling on, trying to take myself out the awkward place I had put myself in.
"Sonja," said Jay quietly.
"I wanted to be her friend, but if you hang around with the class booger-eater, how long is it before people just assume that you're a booger eater too, so—"
"Sonja, shut up!" he said louder. I froze. It was his turn. But instead of saying anything, he stood up and he walked right out my front door.
Great. Now I'd done it. I'd spilled my guts to yet another non-committal man and scared the living daylights out of him. Only this time, it was my best friend and I'd probably just pushed him away forever. I slumped over on my couch preparing myself for a spectacular mope-and-sob session when suddenly, he came back.
He'd gone out to the car to get his bags. Was this a good sign? Or had he gone out and called a cab to come and rescue him? I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head, signaling me to be quiet. He stood before me, dropped his bags on the floor, still saying nothing. The suspense was killing me. If I hadn't just told him that I was in love with him, if we were still just the best pals we'd been only a half an hour ago, I probably would have farted or something just to make him howl with laughter. But I'd said it, and now I had to deal with the consequences. I had to prepare myself for the worst: For him to say that he didn't feel the same but that he wanted us to remain friends. Or worse, that he wanted to date my girlfriend, Stacy, whom I'd recently tried to fix him up with, or Mandy, that mousy little surfer girl back in Newport Beach. Yuck! I suddenly felt queasy. Just the thought of him loving someone else was more than I could stand.
He sat down beside me and took my hands in his. "Sonja," he started, looking deep into my eyes. "You're my best friend." Ah, so he was going to let me down easy, I thought, my stomach flippity-flopping.
"I have been there for you through thick and thin. Every time you picked some jerk who wasn't worthy of you, I sat and listened as you cried your eyes out. When you were date raped, I never wanted to hurt another human being like I wanted to hurt that bastard. I still do. I never understood why you were so attracted to such losers, why you couldn't see what an incredible woman you are and just have the patience to wait for the right man to come along."
Super. A re-cap of my failed love life, just what I was in the mood for. Get on with it already.
"You're no picnic, Sonja. You're a lot to handle. You're headstrong, prideful and tough to a fault. You're extremely outgoing, you're a huge flirt, you dress racy and talk even racier. But what I've come to realize is that it's all a facade. Your father damaged your soul, and you've have spent your life seeking out men just like him. Men who want to control you, to change you."
Ah crap, I already have a therapist, I thought. I can't take much more of this.
"But I see through the facade. I see you, Sonja." And with that, he reached into his bag and pulled out a sketch pad and handed it to me. I looked at him, confused. "Open it," he said. I flipped the page. Staring back at me was the most beautiful image I'd ever seen. It was a woman, her black hair unruly, her hand curled under her chin. Her huge, dark eyes were clear and calm, she was completely at peace. And, she was me. Not me the way I see myself, but me through the eyes of an onlooker. I started to tremble, I'd never seen myself looking more beautiful.
"That's the woman I see, Sonja. And that's the woman I am in love with. Have been since the day we met." He stood up slowly and pulled me into his arms. He kissed the tears that were streaming down my cheeks, kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose and finally, finally, his lips met mine. My entire body quivered. It was as though every kiss I'd shared in my entire life was just a practice for this moment.
When our lips parted, he held me closer, and we started slowly swaying to the music. He whispered in my ear, singing along with Chet, "I only know what I know, the passing years will show, you've kept my love so young, so new. And time after time, you'll hear me say that I'm so lucky to be loving you."
And I knew, I was about to be loved the way I had longed to be loved. Forever.
Sonja covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?