8.

October 14, 1994

I don't know if she wants to spend the rest of her life with me, but I'm positive that she's in it for the next few years, at least. She loves me, and I can't ask for more than that at this point. I know for sure where I want to end up with her, I don't think I've ever been more sure about anything, but I'm not ready to propose, mostly because I'm not 100% sure what the answer will be. It was tempting as hell to tell her that I'm not that kind of boy and we should wait for marriage, but one, I was afraid she might take me seriously and really be hurt, and two, she has goddamned long and sharp fingernails and isn't afraid to use them.

I didn't leave this time. I couldn't. I've gotten through every reason I was waiting for, and I didn't think she would have any regrets. And God knows why but she loves me and wanted it to be me. And honestly, I wanted it to be me, too.

I don't know how he could have doubted what my answer would have been, but I wasn't expecting a proposal; I had gotten used to the time he took with everything, and I learned to appreciate it. That's not to say he didn't frustrate the hell out of me because he did. I think he took a borderline perverse delight in kissing me until my knees nearly buckled, and then telling me he had to go back to his own apartment. It hadn't been the soul crunching hurt that it had been before I drunk dialed him right onto my balcony, but I was frequently annoyed with how willing he was to wait. And I wondered most of all exactly what he was waiting for; I loved him, deeply, and he knew that. He loved me, there was no question about it. We had talked about the things we wanted in life and had both hinted that we saw ourselves together a dozen years down the road. He wasn't that guy but by then he should have been sure of how wholly he owned my heart and how deeply I wanted to get into our relationship.

He would have waited for years if I had needed him to. It finally occurred to me that I was so caught up in what I wanted that I didn't think carefully about what he needed. In a lightning bolt thought, I realized he needed me to ask him to not go home, and to say it before he was already halfway out the door. He was doing a very good job at guessing the things I needed, but that was one thing he wasn't going to risk getting wrong. He needed to be sure that if six months from then the relationship exploded in our faces I wouldn't regret being with him, and the only way he was going to be that sure was if I'd made up my mind before he had set one foot into my apartment, before he was tormenting me with a goodnight kiss perfectly intended to make me want more.

Before he had a chance to look at his watch or glance at the door, I asked him to stay; he never said yes or no, but he was still there the next morning, and already complaining that I was way too young for him.