Our Story, cont. (part II)

part II, the confession*


I planned it all within an inch of it's life. One of my great unfounded fears at the time was having someone tell me they liked me, or ask me out, if I didn't return the feeling. As if the whole world was dying to ask me out. Right. Reasonable or not, this was a fear I had. Watching Steve Urkel ask out Laura a million times and her look of misery might be to blame. Anyway, for this reason if I suspected someone unsavory liked me in middle school I would become very cold and mean to them, so they would get the message before any awkward conversation had to take place. I thought this was an act of mercy.


Also for this reason, I planned my own confession within an inch of it's life. I had to, for his sake. I had to reduce the awkward quotient on the receiving end, so that I could convince myself that it wasn't cruel to tell him that I liked him.


(Writing down this logic makes it seem even crazier, in retrospect. But here on Post-Graduate Pie we (I) go for honesty, so embarrassing truths about my crazy brain it is.)


At the time, I sort of marveled at myself as I put the plans into motion. You see, Natalie of yore was not very brave. And when it came to boys, her plan of attack was generally to be as cute and likable as possible and see what happened. This, so far, had not worked out well for her. She had to decide to be brave. Because  the status quo was no longer acceptable, given the person in question. 


We were friends, that was the trouble. So the crush was not sustainable after a while. I just had to know the score, because being friends and liking your friend and not knowing how they feel about you is just not something you can keep up long term. I had to know. I also was pretty sure we would be great together, so I wanted to make it happen. I am smart sometimes.


So this was the plan: I had to tell him, and then get out of dodge. To allow him time to formulate a response. 


We went to dinner at the DUC (our cafeteria place). We went to see a screening of The Constant Gardener that was playing on campus. He walked me back to my dorm. My heart was pounding, and I wanted to not do it. I wanted a reason to not do it, but I didn't have one. And I had planned it all out, so I just had to. So I said, wait, um, I, have to tell you something. And then I said a lot of words, really quickly. He hugged me. I went inside in a daze. A proud, somewhat relieved, terrified daze.


That was Wednesday. On Thursday, I wasn't on the internet at all. I had earlier in the week announced that I wasn't going to be on the internet at all on Thursday in an effort to detach myself from my growing addiction to my computer.  This was 5% of the reason, but 95% was that we used to chat online all the time (on AIM, so quaint!). And I couldn't have that  be an option. So no internet it was.


And then comes Friday, the day I was set to leave on a 3 day ski trip. Friday is when he makes me hate him with the fire of the sun.


to be continued. 

*part II here comes chronologically after part I, but that might not always be the case in this series, especially since a lot of time elapsed between part I and part II, so I'll probably go back to that time at some point.