Things I’ll never say

So.

Melissa left for the airport to go to St. Jean this morning.  Like EARLY this morning.  I had planned on having Adam over to Wii it up last night, since we hadn’t been able to hang out during the week, thanks to him having to unexpectedly move his brother to a new place.  I called up Christina and Ryan as well to see if they wanted to come over in case we ended up going to the bar.  Well, I called Christina actually, having seen Ryan at Sobeys when I picked up some mix and stuff for the evening.  Anyway, it turned out that Christina had been fired that day.  Not good.  And she’d already been drinking a bit when I called, and ended up telling me many times then, and throughout the course of the evening, that she was "SO GLAD!" that I had called when I did cuz she was feeling pretty shitty.  Anyway, she checked with her fiancee and crap, and then called me back and said her and Ryan would come over in a bit.  Adam was already at my house by that point, and I made us margaritas with one of those little frozen juice mix cans, which is apparently only enough for two people anyway.  Christina and Ryan showed up soon after, and stowed their mix/booze in my fridge and we all sat around in my livingroom with my mum for the first while and watched TV with her.  Then she pretty much went downstairs for the rest of the night, which was really nice of her…I feel bad, cuz it’s her house too, but there’s only so much room.  Ahhh…I dunno.

We all just generally had a good time, watched some TV, listened to music…eventually played the Wii, took a LOT of pictures, drank a lot.  A few times we discussed amongst ourselves whether or not we should go to the bar, and I summed it up like this: "Well, we could head over to the meat market that is a lot less clean, and where drinks are too expensive and MAYBE have a good time…or we could stay here and keep doing what we’re doing!" and we all drank to that and stayed at my place.  Twice during the evening, I told people who called that I’d have to get off the phone cuz I didn’t want to be rude to my guests; first when Christina called and Adam was already there, and second when Alex (gay Alex from high school that I haven’t seen much since he moved to the city a couple years ago) called, reminding me he was in town, but that he was going to stay in that night.  That politeness went out the window when I’d had a few and decided it’d be a good idea to call Melissa.  I knew she was leaving the next day, and I couldn’t believe the string of bad luck that had kept us from being able to see each other at all this week.  I called her on Thursday night, and she was in Halifax trying to find a bunch of stuff that she needed for her trip; she apparently had a list from the military and wasn’t having much luck, and kept me on the phone while she shopped because she said she was going crazy and hearing me was calming her down.  She kept saying she was excited about the decision she’d made, but that she wasn’t sure if it was the right one, and that it was definitely going to be different.  I agreed that it was, but everything new can be scary at first, you just need to think about all the experience that’s going to come with it.  We talked for a while, until I eventually told her she wasn’t going to find ANYthing on her list if she kept talking to me   So yeah.  That was Thursday.

Now it was Saturday night and I didn’t see how I could possibly see her unless she came over right then and there.  I told her I was hiding in the kitchen, and that if she came over, I could go meet her outside before she came in so it wouldn’t be everybody seeing her at once.  This was more for me than anything, so I could at least have a few minutes alone with her.  Cuz you see, I’d started to think it’d be a good idea if maybe I just kissed her once when she wasn’t drunk out of her mind, to see what would happen.  And the more I thought about it, and the few drinks I had, had me convinced it was a good move.  So we talked a bit more, and she told me she was nervous because she was leaving in only a few hours.  I told her that settled it, she HAD to come over or we wouldn’t see each other.  So she said she’d leave in ten minutes…and then we kept talking haha.  Christina came and found me though and was like "What is this?? All night you’ve been telling people you can’t talk cuz it’d be rude, and look at you now!" and I was like "It’s Melissa.." and Christina did the whole elementary school "oooooooooooooh!" thing, which was funny and made me roll my eyes at the same time.  I hung up with Melissa and went back into the livingroom to wait.  I watched the boys kill each other on the Wii, and drank a bit more with Christina, pausing briefly to run to my room to find some gum…if I was going to go through with this one-kiss idea, I wasn’t doing it with drunk breath.  I ran to the front door a couple times cuz I thought I’d seen headlights through the window, but there was no one there each time.  10 or 15 minutes went by, and I started thinking maybe she wasn’t coming…Christina had gone out for a smoke a couple minutes previous, and I figured if Melissa was out there, she would’ve come back and let me know.  Then my phone rang.  "Miss Caitlin, I’m in your driveway."

So I slipped on my shoes and made my way over to her as quickly and carefully as I could (sidewalk’s a little icy).  She rolled her window down and I grinned and said hey.  She sort of motioned to the passenger side, so I went around and got in and said "You’re not coming in?" and she was like "Oh, I thought I was stealing you away for a bit?" and I replied "Oh!  Well…yeah…No, I mean, I’d love to, but I’ve got Adam and Ryan and Christina here and I can’t just leave…you know…" and she seemed a little disappointed.  I had passed Ryan and Christina in Christina’s car on the way down the driveway, and given Ryan the finger cuz he did that same elementary school "oooooh!" business at me.  I knew it’d be a matter of minutes before they finished their cigarettes and came to see what was going on.  So we chatted…she told me again how nervous she was, especially now that the time for her to leave was only a few hours away.  I tried to reassure her, all the while wondering if there’d be an opening for me to kiss her, and then having second thoughts about the wisdom of the idea.  We talked about quite a few different things, and she told me that she was so happy to have me in her life.  I told her I felt the same, and that it was weird how much I cared already, having known her such a short time.  Not gonna lie though, there were a few awkward pauses…well, every time we REALLY made eye contact really.  I kept biting my lip and trying my damndest not to make it so obvious how badly I wanted to kiss her, but I think she knew somehow.  I tried to distract myself, and her, and pointed to the stereo screen, asking "Have you got a CD on or something?", because numbers were moving, but I couldn’t hear anything.  She was like "Oh…yeah, it’s that one you made me.  It’s all I listen to, pretty much." and I was like "Wow…I guess I should’ve made you another one for the trip hey?"

Love Song by Pink came on then, and we kinda laughed.  We kept talking, and I only half-remember what it was all about.  I just know I was so conscious of how odd it was…I didn’t think it’d be this hard to say goodbye to her.  Cuz it was like I said, we hadn’t know each other long, and she’d be back in three months.  And she kept saying that it wasn’t really goodbye, and that she didn’t even want to say "So long" because even that sounded too final.  I said, "So it’s more like a…see you later?" and she was like "Yes!  You’ll see me so soon.  And I’ll call you, and talk to you on MSN and all that.  I’m gonna be so lonely!"  It was around now that "Love Song For No One" by John Mayer came on, and we both said "Oh fuck I LOVE this song" at the same time and laughed.  I went on to say that it was one of my favourites off that album as well, and she said it was probably her favourite on the CD I’d made her.  Then we sang "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson together.  I reclined my seat to sorta lay down, and looked over at her.  She looked down at me, and I said "Come join me down here."  So she reclined as well and we sang together.  I stole a couple glances at her during, and she was already looking at me.  I just smiled and kept singing.  Eventually we put our seats back in the upright position, and Christina and Ryan interrupted us momentarily, and I told them I’d be in in a few minutes and that I was sorry I’d left them alone, and suddenly realized that if they were out there, then Adam must be in the house by himself, poor guy.  So they shut the door and scurried off to the house, saying they’d leave us alone.

I think they must’ve thought there was more going on than there really was lol.  Melissa kissed my cheek all of a sudden, and I said I guess I’d better return the "cheek love" (I can be amazingly dorky when I’m nervous), and did so.  I think my nervousness must’ve been starting to show, because Melissa kept reassuring me that this wasn’t over, I’d see her again and all that…and that if I got too emotional, she’d razz me endlessly for it, heh.  We both hit a point like, okay, if we don’t say goodbye now, it’s just going to get harder and harder.  So she pulled me in for a hug, and I told her to hang on a sec, cuz one of my arms was pinned between us in an awkward position.  We pulled away, re-arranged, and pulled back together.  I wrapped my arms around her and she squeezed me tight.  We sat like that for a good 5 minutes.  When we initially moved back in towards each other, Melissa said, "My God you smell delicious!" and I was like "Ahhh thanks?" and she giggled and pulled me in closer.  We were locked in the embrace for so long that I started to feel like Hmm, maybe my arms should be moving around a bit and I shouldn’t sit here like a statue?  So I moved my hands down her back a little and did a comforting rubbing move, and she kind of sighed into my neck.  And then she said "I love you."  "I love you too.." I murmured back.  Then I pulled away, gave her a long look, and said…"Well…safe trip to the airport, alright?  Call me when you get in, if you want." and she nodded.  I got out of the car, gave her a little wave, and walked back up my driveway.

I came back inside, shut the door, kicked off my shoes, took a deep breath, and then went upstairs to greet Christina, Ryan and Adam.  I apologized for taking so long and said "Who wants a drink??"

After I’d gotten everyone situated with new drinks, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Melissa…"I love you." and she sent one back that said "Ditto"…I smiled, shut my phone, and settled in for more drinks and Wii…and eventually a stupid argument between Christina and Ryan, but that’s not really important.

Around 4:30 AM, after Christina and Ryan had left in a cloud of bad feeling, I got another text from Melissa saying "at the airport now".  I told her Adam and I were watching Hot Shots, because that is indeed what we decided to do.  She sent another saying that she was boarding in 25 minutes, and I sent one back saying "Safe flight :)"  A few minutes passed, and then one came in saying "So scared I feel like going AWOL  Will u come rescue me?"  I thought about it for a minute, and said back "I’d love to babe, but I know you can do this and I’ll be here when you come back :)" and she said "You make me smile"

I settled in to watch the rest of Hot Shots with Adam, and he passed out about half an hour from the end, so I pulled the blanket up over him on the couch, turned the lights off and went to bed myself, after it was over.  I had a surprisingly decent sleep, and Gilligan (my cat) came and slept with me for most of the night, which he rarely does because he doesn’t usually sleep through the night, so it means me having to get up to let him out of my room, but I’d left the door open.  Woke up around 2, and Adam and I had bacon, eggs and hash browns with my mum and watched Cop Land on TV.

Any and all notes welcomed here, I’m in an odd mood where I can’t decide if I’m sad or not…

~SS