The Secret Of Us

From:Eira Larson

To:Matthew Noble

Subject:RE: RE: Please Read This Right NOW: I’m Going to be Totally Honest

Date:October 12, 2004

Matt

Thank you for getting back to me. And for being honest.

As I said before, the rational part of my brain knew that this was coming.

It struck me, though, as I read your e-mail, that you seem to be looking for instantaneous lightning bolts.

Sometimes, lightning never comes. Sometimes, it’s a whisper.

I won’t lie and say that I want to take anything that happened on Friday night back.

The heart wants what it wants, and I’ve wanted that for almost two years.

You didn’t do anything wrong, and I don’t think either of us should regret anything. I guess neither of us would have ever known if you hadn’t taken the initiative; there always would have been that little bubble of wondering.

So maybe I should thank you for finally taking the risk.

I don’t want our friendship to be damaged, either, but I also know it will be a little while before the sadness will wear from the memory of Friday night.

Still, I’ll pick up and move on.

I always do, right?

But there’s always sadness that comes along with the loss of hope, the realization that someone you trust with so much of yourself doesn’t love you back.

So this is the part where I tell you there’s nothing to worry about.

I’ll be okay.

We’re okay.

Everything’s fine.

And eventually, maybe it’ll be true.

Eira

Those e-mails should have been the end of things. I should have shown some backbone, some courage, and allowed myself to get angry, rather than letting it so completely shatter me that I was weak enough to let things go on. It would have made more sense, really. But by then, I was past making sense of things. Sensible decisions seemed almost something I was incapable of, when it came to Matt. Or any guy in whom I’d invested my heart, if I was perfectly honest. I created my own problems, but I was too blinded by emotions to see it.

Instead, though, I had allowed our “friendship” to continue. I sucked it up and decided that I was going to be a big girl about the whole situation.

When all was said and done, I was too afraid of losing him. Even though Matt wasn’t mine, I didn’t want to lose the relationship we did have.

And I was just delusional enough that I was still clinging to a tiny shred of hope that maybe he would change his mind. If I proved to him that I was strong, that I was willing to stay, that I was loyal – maybe, just maybe Matt would realize how much he loved and needed me.

To say that out loud to someone would have made me sound pathetic, and I knew it.

But I was still determined, and I was a determined woman in denial.

And a determined woman in denial is hard to derail.

True, he’d told me countless times in the past two years that our relationship would never be more than friendship. Yet he knew how much I loved him, how much I wanted a future with him, and he made sure he maintained a deep friendship that would most assuredly keep me emotionally bound to him.

If that didn’t say he wasn’t completely convinced of his own lack of feelings for me, then what did it say? I had allowed that supposition to completely blind me, to rob me of rationality that would have, in other areas of my life, made me stand up for myself and my own dignity. But I had never been completely confident in myself when it came to my dating relationships, never quite convinced that there was really enough in me to make someone take notice and decide that they wanted a future with me.

It was an emotional flaw I could hardly trace to my parents’ relationship. They were exemplary in the marriage they had created, the way they complemented one another. True, they were hardly perfect, and they were quick to admit that to one another as well as to Claire and me. So they’d never conveyed the expectations of fairy tales or the unattainable hope that love came easy – but they did show what was possible when both hearts were dedicated. They had always shown us that true love could last, but it required mutual respect and honor. And they raised their daughters to know that they were worth being honored and cherished. So why had I never fully been able to embrace that lesson when it came to my own relationships?

It was actually something that both my mother and my sister had addressed with me many times in the past, always raising their concern for my heart and their desire to see me happy in a relationship, without having to compromise myself to someone who couldn’t see me, who couldn’t cherish me.

Little wonder, then, that when I fell for Matt, I fell hard; and that that tendency to let my heart get thrown under the bus repeatedly kept me from observing the signs and actually listening when Matt told me he would never be interested in more than friendship. I was naive enough, insecure enough, to hope for more – all the while allowing my heart to ride a sickening rollercoaster of emotions.

And what about all those long, meaningful looks?

What about the familiarity we’d shared for so long and all of those times we had come so close to kissing?

Two years of the air between us crackling with electricity, of becoming so close people often assumed we were married.

And then, that untaken step had been taken, and he’d kissed me.

We had started the evening much like any other Friday night, draped on his couch, watching a movie. When he came back to reclaim his spot after getting a glass of water, there was a palpable shift in the room. He was focused – tightly wound – and his gaze seemed to sear through me.

He leaned forward, closing the distance between us.

In those seconds, time seemed to grind to a halt, and my mind raced.

I searched his eyes, hoping for some sign of something, wondering if this would be the beginning of the change I’d been waiting so long for.

Wondering if I should stop him from blurring the lines any more than they already were.

Wondering if I had the strength to.

And then silencing all of my logical instincts, laying down my defenses, and giving in to my emotions.

Now I was left with the knowledge that everything had changed for me, while he seemed to want to retreat to what was looking strangely like cool civility. It was heartbreaking, and I had no idea how to proceed, other than to take it on the chin. After all, we were both adults, right? I wasn’t just going to pack up my toys and go home when I didn’t get my way.

I was not going to be the one to hide, and I spent the next five months proving it.

Chapter Six (#ulink_caf63caa-8ff5-573b-a5f6-b28a49f1bfe5)

I grew up in a military community, surrounded by the sight of uniforms and crew cuts and the sound of planes buzzing the skyline. The lifestyle was one I grew accustomed to, the ever-changing sea of people in my life a testament to the fluidity of the military, while I remained static. People were there one day and gone the next – sometimes without warning or explanation, sometimes for short blocks of time, sometimes permanently.