Page 97 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“You know what I love about you, Margo? That you didn’t say what you’re really thinking. Because I know what you’re really thinking is,You’re a foolish ninny, of course you’re in love with him.”
Margo laughs and hugs me. I know she thinks I’ve capitulated, but I still feel the waffling in my gut, that wishy-washy low-level nausea of uncertainty. Or maybe I am coming down with something.
“Are you going to tell him?” she says.
“I will when I know for sure. I’ll know when it’s right. Right?”
Margo nods. “When you can’t hold the words back, when they burst from you whether you want to say them or not.”
I laugh. “I’m not sure if it’ll happen like that.” But wouldn’t it be nice if it did, if I could let myself go that much, let my passion truly take over in more than our physical relationship? Let it take over my unreasonably strict sense of the rational.
It only happened that once. I let my passions rule me on New Year’s Eve. A well of hope and despair churns. The unhealthy mix of emotions might make me sick after all.
“Excuse me a minute.” I get up, averting my face behind the curtain of my dark hair. I’m sure I’m pale as I rush toward the bathroom.
After I clean up and return to the couch, I allay Margo’s concerns, telling her there’s a bug going around the office. But she accuses me of being lovesick. She says that’s what happens when you trap your emotions so relentlessly. It catches up to you and the emotions come out in another way.
“Don’t be gross. If it’s not a bug, it’s nerves. I have lots of reasons for nerves.”
“Name them.”
“My promotion. I have a new important job. And I need to tell Lucas that I’ll be moving into my own apartment now that I have money—or at least a salary.”
A sad shadow passes over Margo’s face and I reach for her hand again and squeeze it.
“It won’t be too far from here. We’ll be fine. You—and George—are what I’m certain of in my life and there’s not much else.”
“Not even Lucas?” I’ll give her credit for being relentless.
“I’m certain that we have an irresistible connection. I’m certain that I have strong feelings for him. I’m certain that he’s a strong, intelligent, talented and ambitious hunk of a man. All reasons for my strong feelings. And I’m certain that I have an unholy craving for him, a mind-boggling lust that I can’t seem to quench.” I’m admitting to all this for my own sake more than to answer her question.
“That’s a lot of certainty.” She gives me a teasing eyebrow raise and dimple-ridden smile.
Sometimes I envy people with dimples. Most of the time I’m glad I don’t have such an obvious tell in my expression.
“Then what I want to know is how can I tell if all this passion and caring I’m feeling is more than lust? How do I know when it reaches some critical mass and hits the full blown in-love stage? Will I hear a gong in my head or something?” I smile to make sure she knows I’m kidding about the gong.
She laughs. “I suppose it’s different for everyone, but I think one litmus test is that feeling that you can’t live without him, when that becomes a full-fledged certainty, that you’d rather die—”
“I don’t ever think I’d go all Romeo and Juliet over someone. Not even Lucas.” I think about it as I say it, imagining him leaving for Italy for good without me and I do feel a wrench in my gut, more than I expected, more than is comfortable.But I’m not contemplating suicide.
“Okay, so maybe I’m being melodramatic. But what I mean is that your world ends if you lose that person and it’s like you need to start all over again.”
I know then, it hits me like a sledgehammer, that she’s thinking about her parents and how it was when she lost them. I reach over and give her a hug and I don’t need to tell her why. When I loosen my hold, I see the tear and wipe it with my thumb. She gives me a watery smile.
“You know what I mean,” she says, her voice all crackly.
“I think I do. But that’s a very maudlin way of figuring out if you’re in love with someone.”
“True, but it’s how a lot of people find out. They know it when it’s gone.”
“Let’s figure out a less damaging way, okay?” I can’t believe I’m the one trying to lighten things. It’s usually the other way around. Then it hits me that maybe Margo is pregnant after all and having a hormone attack. But I’m not going to say that to her. It would give her too much hope, most likely false hope.
“The other test is when you want to spend every single minute of your time with him, and I hate to say it, but it’s when you want his hot body next to yours making love 24/7. That’s more than lust.”
“Sounds a lot like obsession to me.”
“Sure, there’s some obsessiveness about being in love because the one you love is the center of your life, that’s who they are. And that’s who you are to them.”
