The week following my conversation with Danny, I was a
wreck.
And he bombarded me daily with a slew of Facebook messages
that only worsened my condition.
Eventually, I told him I didn’t know how to respond, and
that I was really overwhelmed, so he backed off (but not before he sent several
paragraphs explaining he didn’t mind waiting for me to come around, in that
same attitude of unnerving, quiet confidence he had been using these past few
days).
~
Guilt ravaged me. I didn’t want to hurt Danny, but this
could only end in his heartbreak.
I knew what it was like to be in his position. As I’ve
mentioned before, unrequited love had been my area of expertise for years now.
And it’s painful. People make light of it, and tell you to
suck it up and move on, and think things like, How deeply can you possibly love someone who doesn’t love you? (or
at least, I imagine they do)—but the feeling it creates of being unwanted, undesirable,
not good enough—well, I’ll just say,
that feeling is at the root of many of the insecurities I continue to live
with.
I used to think, if I can just love this person enough, if I just keep being good to
them regardless of how they treat me, one day they’ll love me back.
But they never did. And my heart bled.
~
I didn’t want to do that to Danny. He had a gentle heart.
And he truly believed he was hearing from God. How would he react when he
discovered he was wrong? What if he didn’t recover?
~
I used to hate those movies in which the female protagonist
had a male best friend who obviously adored her and was clearly the greatest
guy on the planet (albeit slightly on the socially-awkward end of the scale),
but she still chose to be with the dude that treated her like dirt.
~
In college, while in the midst of one of my one-sided love
messes, I remember thinking of Danny. I remember thinking how much easier my
life could have been, if I could’ve loved him.
And for the first time, I felt a spark of sympathy for those
girls in the movies, who couldn’t love the guys they should.
~
Now, years later, that spark reignited. And I hated myself
for it.
Still, I could not make myself love him.
~
The other emotion that turned somersaults in my stomach was
anger. It was irrational, I was keenly aware, but it was my only defense
against the guilt.
How could Danny do this to me? I knew what it was like to
have feelings for someone who didn’t return them—I had shed my fair share of
bitter tears, I had spent my fair share of sleepless nights, desiring a future
that I knew could never be (yes, my thought patterns really are this
overdramatic when I let my emotions hold sway). But eventually, I had let those
feelings go; I had moved on. Why hadn’t he?
~
And, of course, he had approached me at a time when I was
finally secure in my singleness, trying to step in when it was just me and God
taking on the world together, stirring up trouble when I had finally abandoned
my pity party and started to open my eyes to the others around me in need.
Why did he have to cause all this turmoil? If he really loved me, why couldn’t he just
let me be?
~
The final emotion that tore at my gut’s deepest pit was
fear. Because, in spite of my adamant denials and stubborn refusals, there
lingered a tiny seed of doubt that had sprouted into a small shoot of terror
that whispered—
What if Danny is
right?
~
That night, Danny had said that he didn’t mind loving me
before I loved him, because God had loved him before he loved God.
He never intended for me to take the analogy further, of
course, but it came as the natural progression of my English-major thought-process.
If Danny was God in this scenario, then I was Israel. The
harlot. Refusing, running, ignoring. Rejecting, over and over—yet, he wouldn’t
let go. After seven years, during which time any sane man would have given up
and retreated with whatever was left of his broken pride, Danny was pursuing me
once again. In spite of all my denials, he still thought I was worth the risk.
This wasn’t the love story I wanted. To have refused him,
ignored him. When he had only ever been sweet and good and gentle. What kind of
person would that make me? If this was indeed to be my story, if there was even
the most miniscule chance (there wasn’t, there couldn’t be)—how could I even
hold my head up when I told it?
If this was to be my story (it wasn’t, it couldn’t be),
surely it would reveal me to be little more than a stubborn, selfish jerk.
~
Not that it mattered. This wasn’t my love story.
Because Danny wasn’t
right. He couldn’t be.
~
(Yet, that whisper, striking fear—)
But what if he is?
No comments:
Post a Comment