Shannon returned from her holiday, and I returned to hell.
Despite the interruption for Maddie’s birthday party, I had spent the time thinking about what Shannon had said to me the last time I saw her.
“I’ve been thinking about how you said you loved me when we said goodnight last time, about what that means to me, and how I feel about you, and I really am starting to believe that I love you too,” was where I started.
It was extremely new for me to come out on such a front foot, but I was sure that was how I felt, and I was so proud of how courageous I had been just being able to say those words.
It could easily have been my proudest moment – within seconds my heart and soul was rocked. I nearly fainted as my head was spinning so fast. My blood pressure was probably already low from the intensity of telling her I felt the same way, but what happened in the following few minutes still hurts today.
“I never said that,” came her response.
“What? You hugged me as we said goodbye, and you clearly said that you loved me. Your exact words were ‘I love you’,” I responded.
“I didn’t.”
“But you did!”
Her full stop on the conversation was as brutal a response I’ve ever had from a love interest.
“Well, if I said that, I didn’t mean it.”
And that was the end of the conversation. I couldn’t even speak.
A few hours later – when I was able – I talked to her friend who was with her on the holiday, with whom I was good friends too. In fact, I had known her longer than I had known Shannon, and she was partly the reason for Shannon and I meeting.
She told me that Shannon had been intimate with two men she met on the trip, and that she’d lost all interest in me.
No words, no “sorry this isn’t working out”. Straight into bed with other people, and denying she’d even told me she loved me.
I spoke previously how I felt that Shannon was looking for more intimacy with me, but that I wasn’t ready – yet now I was asking myself had I held back too much? Should I have stepped forward sooner?
It was easy to think that, but it didn’t take me long to decide that if I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready, and I had no regrets – just now I had a great deal of pain.
I know for certain that it was a Monday, because I always had a late class at university on Monday evenings, and I remember having to push through the rest of the day before I could get myself alone and decompress the jumbled mess in my head.
When I eventually got home, I was in no mood to study.
I took a long hot shower to freshen myself up, long enough to run the water cold.
This was supposed to be a day about Shannon and me, yet everything had upended itself and I wasn’t coping.
As I got out of the shower I figured it was time to just go to bed, and start again tomorrow. I could feel myself on the edge.
Maddie hadn’t entered my thoughts all day, yet for some reason, without even thinking about it, instead of going to bed I picked up the phone and called her.
It wasn’t a decision, I just found myself doing it.
I needed her right now more than I had ever needed her before. I needed someone who gave a shit about me.
After that night at her party, I knew just how many people would could ever really count on.
One.