Nick and I actually ventured out today… it was just to the car wash… but it was actually a lot of fun. We washed and waxed both of our cars… we were soaked after having fights with the bubble-brushes and spray hoses… we laughed a lot… it was just silly fun.
Sometimes… like earlier this afternoon when he brushed my wet hair out of my eyes and got some bubbles off my nose…. he looks at me and I wonder what it is I see in his eyes. I want to know if he feels what I do… I mean I KNOW there’s something… he wouldn’t have done everything he has to be with me… and then stay with me…. and keep wanting to see me if thee wasn’t something…. but I guess I just want to know how deep it is. I THINK I know what I see… I know what I hope it is…
It’s just the way he looks at me… sometimes I catch him watching me when he thinks I’m not paying attention… and he’ll say little things sometimes… and it makes me think he DOES feel the same. I wish we could just say whatever it is…. but I don’t want to be the first. I know that sounds silly, but I refuse to be one of those girls who says she loves someone, only to find out that the feeling is definitely not mutual yet and the guy goes running off because he’s freaked out. I do NOT want that to happen.
I’ve never been here before… I don’t know what to expect… I don’t know what to hope for… I’m just so unsure of everything… I don’t want to do something that has the potential to screw up something so amazing.
Alright, moving on…
Shaun and I went to Monique’s last night and he got a tattoo. Well, the beginnings of a tattoo. A huge, expensive tattoo. He’s got “COHEN” outlined in giant letters across his shoulders – he’ll get it filled in later. It actually looks really cool… he’s to the right build for it…the broad shoulders and being all buff. I imagine it will look even better when it’s done. He’s already hooked, on the way back from the studio he talked non-stop about all the other tattoos he wants to get now… an armband, the obligatory young-male-in-Tampa calf tattoo, etc. My little brother is such a dork… but I love him.
August 13
Sage confronted me at work today… she said she feels like I’ve fallen off the face of the earth… we never hang out… when we talk at work it’s totally basic, boring stuff… told me she feels like I’m hiding something from her.
God, I didn’t think about this. I adore Sage… she’s an awesome friend – the other girls, too, even… I know they’d make the most amazing circle of friends if I’d just be able to stay close to them. School starts next week for all of us… our schedules are going to get even more crazy… she’s keeping her job, of course, and I decided to stay on for two days a week – Tuesday and Thursday – that seemed random enough it wouldn’t intrude with much of anything.
I’ve never felt so… pulled apart. Even in high school when I had so much going on… it wasn’t a big deal, because my friends were all involved in the same things. We knew the same people, played the same sports, hung out at the same places… And now, when I probably need friends more than I ever have before… I can’t even figure out how to make time for them… or how not to seem like a complete bitch who’s keeping everything from them.
I gotta get going… I’m supposed to meet Nick at the Pier tonight. That seems odd to me… since it’s so public, but that’s where he wanted to meet.. maybe he’s figuring there’s enough going on during the Sunset “festival” thing they have (fun every night occurrence… Sage and I used to slip over sometimes on break when we’d work late… there’s all sorts of vendors around the Pier, plus like jugglers, sometimes a fire-breather, etc… it’s cool) that it won’t be a big deal if we’re out together.
August 14
I just got back from work… I just about cried passing the Pier on the way out of town, just thinking about what happened there last night.
Wow, that sounds like someone died or he told me he never wanted to see me again… not the case, but it did feel just about as bad.
I got out there, stopped at the little booth that smells VERY strongly of fish and paid the 50 cents to go down to the end of the Pier, and moseyed my way out, just kind of taking my time to look around… kids lined up along the wooden rails watching their fishing poles and excited shrieking to their dads every time they thought their lines moved… I couldn’t help but wonder… if in the future… if I had kids (okay, I admit it, I was thinking that if I had kids with him)… if we had kids… if there’d be days like that, just lazy, laidback days fishing off the Pier. When I got down to the end… all the hardcore fisher guys were hanging out… someone was reeling in a blowfish just as I got down there and everyone was getting all worked up over it.. and at the middle of it was, of course, Nick.
He had on one of this silly floppy fisherman’s hats, a t-shirt and cargo pants… so he was covered up enough that if it hadn’t been for that laugh and his smile, I’d have never have known it was him. I watched him talking to the guy who caught it… and the other old guys standing around, telling “one that got away” stories… he looked around after a while and saw me… waved me over, wanted me to see the blowfish. I inched marginally closer… I had no real desire to get a good look at the thing. He took my hand and we went to sit on the benches in the middle of the… what is that thing called? My mind just went totally blank… there’s the Pier… but I associate that more with the actual part you walk on to get out here to the end… then there’s the… the…. I have no idea… it’s a little covered pavilion thing at the end of the Pier. Whatever. It’s got benches you can sit on… and we sat there. (Damn I hope my brain is working better than this when I get back to school!) He gave me a kiss and asked how my day had been… I told him about Sage getting onto me… he said he’d expected that at some point… it was hard to keep secrets… he knew that. I told him I’d worry about that later… I was just glad to be there with him for now. He got sort of an odd expression when I said that, I didn’t know quite how to take it… but it made since later.
He told me, that out there on the Pier, where we were sitting…. People came out to fish for sharks at night. I thought he was kidding, but apparently, he wasn’t. Late at night – like after midnight, apparently, the sharks start swarming under the Pier… I guess looking for leftovers from whatever might have been caught/tossed back and not survived during the day… and crazy people, who want to say they’ve caught a shark go out and try to catch one. I was just freaked out that actual, real sharks came that close to the shore… although, I also learned that bonnet sharks will go swim as far as two or three feet off the shore… so I could be standing in knee-deep water and have sharks milling around me… I thought worrying about remembering to do the “sting-ray shuffle” was enough trouble, but apparently not!
We went back to the edge, I leaned against the banister, he stood behind me, arms around me, chin resting on my shoulder.. and we watched the sunset… it was perfect, beautiful in every way… the sunset wasn’t bad, either. There’s just something about feeling him around me, touching me, holding me… being able to hear him breathing, feeling the breaths he takes…I want to remember every second of that time and be able to keep it clear in my memory, so I can relive it over and over…
He kissed the back of my neck and I about slid through the gaps in the boards on the Pier… it totally made me shudder… and then he turned me around to look at him… and told me he had something to tell me. I got nervous again… all jittery… the one thing I was hoping it would be… it was not… but I had a right to be nervous, I think. He tells me that at the beginning of next month, he’s leaving…somewhat indefinitely… for a few different locations. The “Boys” are going to start recording again… so he’s going into the studio. How long he’s gone kind of depends on how productive they are.
I wasn’t ready for that. Here I was, feeling all mushy and crazy about him, and he tells me he’s leaving. I finally let myself like wanting to be around him every second and he’s got to go somewhere.
When I didn’t say anything for a while, he prompted me to… and I just stammered something ridiculous about at least I’d have school to keep me busy… I couldn’t believe it… I was honestly about to cry. I HATED the idea of him being gone. Not being able to see him. Touch him. Kiss him. What if he left and found someone else he liked better while he was gone?
I’m sure it was obvious how unhappy I was with the situation… he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead, told me he was sorry… he didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to not be able to see me… but it was his job… I had to go back to school.. he had to go back to work. He promised he’d come home any time they had a little break… I know he was trying to make things better, even if his promises weren’t feasible… somehow it made me feel better to know that he was trying to do what he could for me.
I wondered why he chose then… chose that place to tell me. Why in public? Why three weeks before it happened? Although, had he given me less time to adjust to the idea, I’d have probably freaked out more.
I just stayed quiet… I didn’t even want to say anything… I didn’t want to make things worse than they probably already were, looking like a possessive psychopath or something… some crazy girl who didn’t want her boyfriend to go do his job.
He puts his hands on either side of my face, gave me a sweet kiss. Apologized. Asked me to say something. Anything.
I told him I’d miss him. That seemed safe, generic enough.
He smiled… that cute little half-smile… said he’d miss me, too… he’d decided he wanted to tell me here, though, some place he knew I liked (the beach out here) but specifically the Pier, just so I whenever I walked out here or drove by it… I’d think about him… and know that no matter what time of day it was wherever he was, he was thinking about me, too.
He took my hand, we walked back down the Pier to the beach, sat on the swings at the playground… since it was getting dark all the little kids had cleared out… we talked more… about them making a new album.. me going back to school.. and I tried to pretend that I was okay with the idea of being on my own again. It’s not like we’re breaking up, I know that… it’s just… one hell of a separation.
He walked me to my car later, pressed me up against it and kissed me for a long time… god that was nice….
I sniffled all the way home… and then driving by today… he got what he wanted, I thought of him… and wondered if he was thinking of me.