Page 85 of Be Your Anything
It’s been five years since she moved away for her freshman year at college, since we were regular fixtures in each other’s lives. Now, she’s going to be back.
When she told me earlier today, I tried to sound positive about it, but I know I failed.
“You’re…moving back,” I said, confusion thick in my voice and in my heart.
“Well, yeah,” she’d replied. “I was thinking I could move in with you while I look for a job in Hermosa.”
I can think of a million things I would have expected Remmy to say to me other than that.
Things likeI’m leaving the country for a few monthsorI’ve decided to get a full back tattooor evenI’ve decided I want to be a therapist.
The reason those things sound less crazy thanI’m moving home? Because we’ve had those conversations. She has taken off on crazy adventures for months at a time, planned out a full back tattoo—though it ended up being a lot smaller—and changed her degree midway through her program.
Remmy’s always changing her mind, wanting something different, backtracking and starting over, unsure of what she wants to be and where she wants to go.
And I’ve always supported that.
Always encouraged her to go after exactly what she wanted, even if it took her off the beaten path.
So what’s different now?
Maybe it’s because, this time, she’s including me in her plans—plans I didn’t realize she’d started building me into, plans I’m not entirely sure I want.
As I paddle through the waves, I try to think back on any conversation we’ve ever had that consisted of what we wanted from the future, or that would constitute us working out a plan together.
It blows my mind to realize we’ve been together since high school—since we were fifteen and sixteen years old—and we’venevertalked about what’s next.
Sure, there have been hints of the future, discussions about our personal desires, my surfing career, her job interests—but it was never anything concrete, never anything that overlapped and twisted our lives together.
Maybe that’s just the youth of us, the versions of us that are still somewhat stuck in our relationship as young love. Puppy romance. High school sweethearts. We’ve never reallyhadto think about what the future holds for us because we’ve been so busy living lives apart from each other and having no problems.
I should be elated, should be through the roof at the news that my girlfriend is wanting to move back, talk about what’s next, about our lives together.
So then why does it feel like everything is going to start turning upside down?
“I thought you’d be happy,” she said to me, and I could hear the sadness in her voice. “Do you not want me to come home?”
“Remmy, I want you to do what makes you happy,” I replied. “I just assumed you would go wherever your future job took you. I didn’t realize…I mean, I didn’t…”
Whatever right words I hoped to find? They never came to me. I wasn’t able to give her words of reassurance or love, and I felt like a horrible boyfriend.
Because I was.
Because I am.
I care about Remmy. I do. But how do I tell her I’m not ready for her to move in with me? That her being back in town is enough of a change before such a big step?
I don’t want to hurt her by saying I don’t want her to be in my home, but the only thing I can think of when imagining her living with me iswhere will I go when I want my own time?
And what about Lennon? How does she fit into all of this?
As horrible as it sounds, she doesn’t.
I might consider her to be my friend, but I can’t imagine that Remmy would ever be okay with Lennon and me being together, alone, ever again.
And the idea of losing that…of never having that time with her…not being able to kiss and hold and talk to her about anything and everything—it hits me harder than I ever realized it would.
I’m starting to realize that I never really stopped caring about her as far more than a friend. Those feelings may have waned in the face of my relationship with Remmy or dipped during the years she was away at college. But it took almost nothing to stoke the fire again, to bring them back with a raging force.
