Crashing Waves

“Not hungry?” Tom asked as I pushed some arugula across my plate. We were grabbing dinner at a small, tapas restaurant around the corner from my office. The truth was I still had a lot on my mind about Tom.

I was practically a woman obsessed. Every morning, I checked Tom’s online activity. I hated it. I hated that I went from feeling so secure about how things were going to me being intrusive and jealous. I was especially frustrated because once I really reflected on how I felt, I kept coming back to the same conclusion; I had no right to feel hurt, betrayed, or angry, but for some reason, I just felt duped for some reason. I couldn’t really put my finger on it. I also realized that it didn’t really matter to me if he was seeing other girls. I was more hurt that it seemed like he was being extremely active in his search.

So far, I had been quiet and kind of passive aggressive. This was also something I hated. I wanted to be direct, but I was still too confused to even begin to consider how to articulate my thoughts.

“Eh, I had a big lunch,” I claimed as I scooped some arugula, tomato, and goat cheese onto my fork and took a bite.

“Long day at work?” Tom asked.

If the last thing in the world I wanted to address was my current state with Tom, the second to last thing was work. Pete had continued to act weird all week and it caused me distress for two reasons; what was going on with Pete and what was going on with the company?

“Always,” I replied with a smile. “What about you?”

Luckily, Tom took that as an opportunity to vent a little bit about work. As dinner went on, I got a little bit more comfortable chatting and it felt like a normal night again.

Afterwards, we went for a walk and ended up near the beach. It was a nice night so I suggested that we take a seat on a bench overlooking the water.

“This is comfortable,” Tom replied with a sigh as he reached his arm around me.

“Yeah,” I replied as I brushed a piece of hair behind my ear. I quietly took a deep breath. Now was my chance. If I didn’t start a discussion now, I knew I would never bring it up and things would just continue to get worse and worse.

“So, Tom, I wanted to talk to you about something,” I blurted out before I could tell myself not to.

“Oh?” Tom asked. He didn’t sound caught off guard or concerned at all, which made me feel a little better.

“Yeah, nothing serious,” I began. “But I’ve been having a really great time with you and I feel like everything is going well. San Diego was really fun, too.”

“But…” Tom began with a cautious smile. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“Well, I guess I’m just curious,” I said as I could feel my heartbeat increase. “You know, where are things going? Or where you want things to go?”

Tom looked straight towards the water and was quiet for a minute. As he contemplated my question, my mind began to race to all the different responses I imagined he could provide. While he was realistically quiet for five seconds, it felt like an hour. I began to bite my lip right before he began to speak.

“I like you a lot, Caroline,” he finally replied. I didn’t like the start already, but he began to bring his comment around. “I can see a real future with you. You’re sweet. You’re funny. You’re cute.”

Tom took another pause. “I just don’t like to rush into anything. It’s nothing against you personally, but I don’t like to put labels on things until I feel like we’re past the honeymoon phase.”

I nodded. “That makes sense,” I replied. “I guess I just thought things were getting serious. I mean, I know we’ve only been seeing each other a couple months, but I can’t imagine…” I began to trail off. I didn’t know where I was going with the statement. Was Tom saying he didn’t want to be exclusive or he simply didn’t want the ‘boyfriend-girlfriend’ title? And how exactly did I address that without saying, ‘hey, deactivate all those dating apps.’

I finally continued by saying, “I can’t imagine giving so much time to anybody but you right now.”

Tom pulled his arm from around my shoulder, turned his body towards me, and squeezed my hand. “You’re definitely a main priority in my life right now, Caroline,” he began. “I just need a little more time before I can be ready to make any sort of decisions about us. I really, really don’t want to lose you, but…” Tom paused and looked down for a moment. “If that’s not something you are going to be happy with, I don’t want you to be unhappy. I don’t want either of us to feel forced into circumstances that we don’t want.”

I smiled a little even though I could kind of feel my face tensing up. I knew I felt like crying, but I couldn’t tell if I was really disappointed that this conversation didn’t go like the perfect fairy tale I wanted or if I was relieved that Tom wasn’t dumping me over the presentation of these issues.

“I’m happy seeing where things go,” I replied. “Sorry that I’ve been acting so strange.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Tom replied as he pulled me in and kissed my forehead. “I should’ve brought this up sooner. You don’t deserve to be jerked around by any guy.”

I leaned my head on Tom’s shoulder and we watched the waves for a little while longer. One would come up and then crash. Another one came up and another crash would follow. The pattern was exquisitely simple and completely predictable.