Page 35 of Alarm Fatigue

I dare to look him in the eye. “Thank you.” My voice is now a whisper.

“Rachel.”

“Mark.”

“You do not believe I really love you yet, but I hope one day you will know it is true.”

“Will you stop saying it for now though? You are making me so nervous.”

“It is the truth though.”

“If you say so.”

“I know so.”

I scoff at him. “I think this is mostly lust.”

At that he looks hurt, and I am genuinely sorry.

“Mark, I am sorry, I do not want to belittle how you feel. But this is so much for me to accept all at once. This is part of what I am trying to tell you—part of me will always consider myself unworthy of love.”

“Do not misunderstand me.” His voice is low and he leans towards me. “I do lust for you, Rachel. But what I feel for you is more than that. If I have to spend the rest of our lives proving that to you, I will. I will put in the work for you. You, Rachel, are more than worth it.” My goodness. At this point I realize I am holding my breath and let it go again. Before I can respond, he goes on.

“Speaking of work, it was not just Eli that made you a functional person, you know? You are a force, Rachel. While I did not know the details, I did know you have not had it easy, and yet you have clearly overcome so much.”

We eat in silence for a time before I speak again.

“Mark, I need some space, to think about all of this. Maybe this trip to Greece is perfect timing.” Really, I think he needs the space to think about how much work I may be.

“Maybe so. I still wish I was not going next week.”

It is then I tell him about my life before all this dating craziness began. I tell him about channel surfing and watching endless previews, about not being able to commit to a show and why. I tell him about not liking endings and so refusing to watch them. I tell him about the agreement to go on three dates. I tell him about Jacob and about Seth. It is then that I tell him about my epiphany regarding alarm fatigue. He smiles at me when I am done.

“So basically, you were asleep to the alarm bells going off around you until your annoyance with me woke you up?”

I laugh at this. “That is one way to put it.”

“Well I am happy that this has come to be. Even about Seth and Jacob if their parts in all of this are that you see more clearly that you want to be with me.”

I think for a moment about something that was bugging me.

“Mark, why were you so dismissive of me at the coffee shop that first date?”

“I was wondering when you were going to bring that up.” He looks sheepish. “My cousins set the date up and I had no idea who I would be meeting that night. They set up the profile and just told me where to be and to look for a woman in a blue sweater. When I saw that you were my date, I was thrown, to say the least. Honestly, I think I was so used to pushing you away, I did not know another way to be with you. I really just needed time to think. And to forgive myself.”

“Forgive yourself?”

“For wanting to go after my friend’s wife.”

“Ah.” I look carefully at him. “I guess Eli would approve.”

“As much as we can know his thoughts on the matter, I believe that to be true.”

“You needed time to think and now I do as well. You can understand that, can’t you?”

“Yes. But, Rachel?”

“Yes?”

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