Homecoming

I pushed down the handle and my apartment door swung open. Still wearing my oversized tortoise-shell sunglasses, I squeezed inside with my bags over my shoulder.

"Hello?"

I knew Scott was waiting for me inside my apartment, so I was stunned when there was no response.

"Hello?"

Seriously, my loft isn't that big. And by "isn't that big" I mean "from the bedroom you can hear the ice maker in the freezer drop ice."

I huffed, "Really?"

My balcony door creaked and I saw Scott flip a cigarette over the side as he walked in, "Hey!" He ran towards me and kissed me while he pulled my bags off my shoulder and set them on the slate tile. My sunglasses fell off my head as I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his waist. This was the greeting I wanted.

After I was already at the beach, I told Scott it was a shame he couldn't come up for a few days. He got so excited over the invite he immediately took two days off of work to drive the 250 miles (400 km) to see me. Only an hour and a half into his ride, his motorcycle broke down and he never made it. We were both so bummed that I cut my vacation short by a day and came home to spend it with him before I had to go back to work.

He kissed me all over my face and neck and embraced me, running his hands all around my back and sides, "I missed you, baby." He had his shit-eating grin, the one that M-Joy described as the "smile that would melt the coldest heart if it wanted to." I climbed off of him and he held my face with both of his hands, "Sarah, I love you."

I gasped. Since the initial and the, uh, recommenced I love you, we hadn't said it again. I was okay with it. I saw it as the release of our feelings--we acknowledged how we felt, but I don't think either one of us was ready to handle it yet.

"That's the first time you've said it."

"It took you going away for a week. I was miserable without you. I would come home from work and just go to bed and sleep because then it would be the next day and I would be one more day closer to seeing you again.

"You want to know something?" he whispered to my face. "You're a milestone for me. I didn't think I could ever feel this way again. I didn't think I could ever even be in this situation again. I hoped and I prayed for you."

I thought back to when I started this blog, after the ending of a poor excuse of a relationship, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed about starting over. Finding someone to date seemed improbable. Finding someone to love me was already impossible. When I envisioned the future, I never saw me sharing it with someone else. I don't know if I ever have. I've always felt different in that respect. Even when I was a preteen, I always felt that love was always going to be outside of my reach. I never thought I would be here, with this man who is nothing like I've ever dated before. I understood how he felt.

Then I thought of all the men I went through to get here and suddenly I was angry. All the shit they put me through and--worse--everything I put up with. Nick rejecting me, Andy admitting to using me, Adam disappearing after I slept with him, Jack being an all around doucheface, Conor's antics, and Christopher, well, just being Christopher. I got so angry that I balled up my fist and pounded on Scott's chest, "You can't fuck around with me. I cannot go through what I've been through again! I will not! I won't! I need a nice guy!"

He grabbed my fist and held it away from both of us. "What's happened in the past, stays in the past. It's not going to be like that anymore," he crooned. "You have to forgive and move on. All we have is the present. And, if we're lucky, the future.

"You perpetually look skeptical. See, you're giving me that sideways glance right now. You have to trust me, Sarah. You have to trust me."

With possession of my own hand again, I smoothed his plain white t-shirt over his chest where I had ineffectually beat on him. "I do," I mumbled, not meeting his stare.

"Now I'm going to look you in the eyes and you're going to look at me back and you're going to tell me you love me."

I lifted my brow and saw his brown eyes looking at me with that same hopeful earnest he did when he said he confessed he did love me. As they always have since the first time we met, his eyes steadied me and my worries drifted away. I do love him and I told him as much. I began to kiss him, "This is me jumping."

"Go ahead, baby. I'm here to catch you."


P.S. I think it's appropriate that He Loves Me Not turns two today.