Page 36 of A Matter of Time
In one way, that had come true with our fantastic sex, but in the deeper, more important way, it hadn’t, and it looked like I would have to accept that it never would. Maybe that explained why her walking out last night hurt so much: it meant I finally had to put that dream to rest, once and for all.
I answered Marley as succinctly as I could. “Well, I appreciate the effort, but it looks like that ship has sailed. It just wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”
“At least now you know,” she replied sympathetically, shuffling her seat a little closer to mine. “And you can finally move on.”
“I have moved on,” I protested. “I’d dated a lot of other women.”
“And how long was your longest relationship?” she pressed.
The question made me wince. She knew how to go for the jugular. “A couple of months, I guess.”
It never seemed to work out. Things were fine as long as we were keeping things light and having a good time. When we tried to move on to the next level, my heart was never quite in it, and the women could tell.
“Because you weren’t completely over Tonia, no matter what you thought,” Marley suggested. “But now, you’ve finally got closure. Now, you know.”
And with that, she leaned over and kissed me.
My mind and body both froze momentarily for just a moment before I placed my hands on her shoulders and pushed her firmly back. “What are you doing?”
We didn’t have that kind of relationship. We never had. I thought of her as a friend, or even a little sister in some ways, but definitely not as someone that I wanted to kiss. Not ever, really, but especially not after the emotional turmoil of the last week and the incredible night I’d just spent with Tonia.
Several different emotions flashed across Marley’s face, everything from hurt to confusion to embarrassment. “But I thought…”
“What did you think?” I honestly had no idea where this was coming from as I pushed my chair back, putting more space between us, and her face fell even further.
She looked away from me, and for a moment, I thought she might refuse to answer, or even run away like Tonia did when things got overwhelming. But after thinking about it for a minute, she turned back to me with a look of determination.
“I thought you just needed to get over her. I’ve watched you struggle to be happy, but I thought you would get there once you just let it go. I never thought it would take so long. And I thought… well, I thought that when you finally did, you’d give us another chance. After all, you chose me over her once before.”
What in the world was she talking about? “I never chose you over Tonia.”
Her look of certainty melded into confusion again. “You took me to prom instead of her.”
She really thought that was a choice? “Because she broke up with me. Because she got suspended and banned from going. Because your mother was dying.”
She winced at the last one, but I didn’t regret saying it. Every word was true, and Marley might be right about one thing: the time had come to lay it all on the table, once and for all.
“But you were going to take me even before she broke up with you,” she reminded me, and once more, I didn’t hold back.
I never intended to tell her I’d lied about that, not after the way everything played out, but somewhere along the way, a wire had gotten crossed. If she had really spent all these years hoping to rekindle something that never existed in the first place, it would be kinder to tell her the truth, even if it hurt in the short term. “Marley, I only said that because you threatened to kill yourself if I didn’t.”
Her face went pale as she blinked at me in disbelief. When she spoke again, the words were hardly a whisper. “I never said that.”
“Not in those words,” I admitted. “But what was I supposed to think? I told you I couldn’t take you, and you started crying and talking about how you wished you were the one dying rather than your mother. That terrified me. I didn’t know what to do. I was just a kid too, and I was only trying to help. So I said I would take you, but it never for a moment meant that I chose you over Tonia.”
Her lower lip began to wobble as she thought it over. “So, you never wanted to go with me? Not even a little bit?”
Taking a deep breath, I tried to tell her the truth as calmly and gently as I could. “Marley, I never thought of you as anything other than a friend, and to be totally honest, I never intended to take you to prom even though I said I would. I planned to tell Tonia everything that morning and ask for her help. I thought you needed a counsellor, not a prom date.”
Even though I tried to soften the blow, the words still hit her hard. It was almost crazy how strong our emotions still were over things that happened years ago; not just Marley’s, but Tonia’s and mine as well. I supposed some things glanced off us, but others sunk beneath the skin, burying in deep, and this was one of those things. It had changed my life and Tonia’s, and now, I began to see just how much it affected Marley too.
I honestly never had any idea she had hopes of us being together, not then, and especially not now.
“So, all this time, you’ve just felt sorry for me.”
Her voice sounded flat and distant, but what she said wasn’t the truth either, and despite everything, I didn’t want her to think it was. “At the time, that accounted for most of it. Since then, over the past six years, I’ve gotten to know you better and Idolike you, as a friend. But only ever as a friend, Marley. What I felt for Tonia was completely different.”
She still looked confused. “Then why did you take me to the prom in the end?”
