Day 3

I awake before Nick and I pad through the house, looking for some IB Profin. I wander in the kitchen looking for both the meds and a coffee maker. I find neither. I pad back to the bedroom and sit in the crevice that Nick created by sleeping on his side. He opens his eyes, looks at me, and smiles. Sigh. I love how he gives me the same smile every morning. I asked where the drugs were and head back to the kitchen and take them.

I wander out of the kitchen and stop in my tracks. For the very first time, I see the view the mountain house has to offer. (It was dark and scary when we arrived.) The sun is just peeking over the mountain and it's absolutely gorgeous. I wrap myself in a blanket and go out onto the porch and sit in the swing and just watch the sunrise.

I was out there awhile. Passingly, I glance back into the house and see Nick standing on the other side of the window. It takes a minute to register so early in the morning and I scream at the top of my lungs and almost fall out of the porch swing. So I'm skitish. I did the same thing last night, only we were in the car and I saw a tree branch. But I swear it looked like a person.

We lay on the couch together watching the sun rise and I open my mouth. "What's going to happen when I leave?"

He said the distance was a problem. It's actually the exact reason he and his last ex broke up a couple of months ago. It was understandable and logical and secretly I knew it was coming. He said he wanted to stay in touch and still see each other throughout the year.

Inwardly I cried. I just broke. I'm a rag doll. Guys use me up and then just throw me away when they're done. I don't know what about me makes me this way, but this is my fate. I had a flash of standing up and truly yell at Nick and take my anger of every man leaving me out on him. Then I remembered we were a good 2 1/2 hours from my car. Instead I wiped away a single tear and became completely resigned to my fate as a rag doll. When he changed the subject, I played along.

Then we slept together. I know how crazy it sounds, but after that news I decided Nick was going to be my official rebound from Mark and we're just going to have fun while it lasts, who knows when another guy will be interested in me? If I had waited on that conversation until afterwards, I would have felt even more hurt and used, but at this junction, I knew what I was getting myself into.

And that's basically what we did all day at the mountain house. I'll spare you the details. We were supposed to go snowboarding again, but it was too warm outside and I was too damn sore.

We broke for lunch and went to a local diner, the only place to eat in the mountains. We were sitting there and I realized that we were so far opposites that we didn't have anything to talk about. On the drive up to see Nick, I thought we could offer each other so much. He could get me more active, and I can show him how to relax. He's into outdoor adventures; I'm into urban adventures. He's the ying to my yang. Once we were alone together, however, I realized we had absolutely nothing in common to talk about. I'd bring up a funny commercial and he would tell me that he doesn't own a TV. We just read the jukebox menu and held hands.

So day 3 into the fling and we've already gone stale.

It gets dark and we drive back to his apartment and eat dinner and hang out with his roommate, another great and upstanding guy. Nick eventually disappears into his room and I hang with the roommate until it's bedtime. Nick has to work in the morning and all of a sudden, I felt like I was in the way. It's a school night for him and he's stressed about work and I felt like I shouldn't have even been there. I had a few drinks in me and I tell him this and offer to drive home, even though it's too late at night.

He grabs me and pulls me to him and says he was just thinking about work, and that he'd be stressing even if he didn't take the day off to spend it with me, but he's glad he did. We spent the night in each other's arms and even though it had been months since I've shared a bed with a man, it felt like that's the only way to sleep.

The good-bye the next morning was very simple and low key. He walked me to my truck and he hugged and kissed and promised to do it again "some time."

I didn't think I'd be upset when I got home, but I am. I have liked him in some form or another for years and I finally got my conquest. I'm pissed. I'm pissed we can't be together and have an actual relationship after mutually waiting all these years. I'm pissed we live too far away. I'm pissed we have nothing to talk about. I'm pissed he turned out to be one more person I want, but can't have. Even with all the problems I brought up, I still like him. A lot.

Because, I swear, when it's just him and me and the silence and the darkness- we do just fine.