Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [12]
We talked for a while, laughing and picking the leaves off his socks, and something clicked between us. All of a sudden, Steve Chapman didn’t seem so hillbilly anymore.
One night, a bunch of us were having chicken fights in the dorm. Steve and I liked each other, but we hadn’t gone on our first official date – which would be to a gourmet meal at Red Lobster – yet. That would come later.
At any rate, I was up on Steve’s shoulders, and we were trying to beat all the other chicken fighters, and I was laughing so hard that I knew I was going to pee my pants. I always did growing up when I laughed too hard. My poor bladder couldn’t take much more; it was going to give way.
“Put me down!” I yelled at Steve. “Please!”
“Not yet!” he yelled. “We’re winning!”
“You’ve got to put me down!” I yelled. “If you don’t, you’re gonna be sorry. I’m telling you the truth, I have a weak bladder, and I am going to wet my pants!”
“No!” Steve yelled, laughing. “You won’t wet your pants while you’re on my shoulders.”
At that I laughed more, and you can guess what happened next.
He put me down. Quickly.
We had both started our school year determined to focus on our studies and stay unencumbered by major dating relationships. So we spent the first several weeks of our friendship regularly reminding each other, “I really like you, but I don’t want to get serious.”
But we were spending every moment we could in each other’s presence . . . studying, talking, sharing meals, and walking to every class together. Within six weeks we were declaring our love and were thinking about spending the rest of our lives together.
We had bared much of our souls to each other, but I still had not told him about the pain and shame I had carried around since high school. I wanted to be completely honest with Steve, but I’d shoved all that to another part of my brain and locked the door.
Then, on a Friday before our school’s homecoming, Steve and I spent a fall afternoon together at a park, lying on a blanket, looking up at the sky, talking about anything and everything. It was a beautiful day for talking . . . and kissing . . . and eventually we found ourselves with our feelings and hormones in overdrive. While we didn’t have sex, we had gotten carried away physically, and Steve was upset with himself when we pulled into the parking place at his dorm that night.
“We need to talk about something,” he said. “I’ve made a commitment to save myself for the girl I’m going to marry, and today I know I let things go too far. I’m sorry and I really want us to set some boundaries so that we honor each other. Do you feel the same?”
I couldn’t look at him. I turned away and stared out the window, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“I do feel the same way,” I said. “Now.”
“What do you mean, ‘now’?” he asked.
“I wanted to save myself for marriage, but some things happened during high school and it hasn’t exactly worked out that way,” I said.
These were devastating words for Steve to hear. He got really upset, and it killed me to be with this person I loved and wanted to marry, and feeling like I might lose him because of the harm I’d experienced in the past.
“I’m sorry, but I just don’t know what to do with all of this,” he said. “I need to go somewhere alone and try to figure some things out.”
There was nothing I could say. I slowly got out of Steve’s white Cutlass, and I had barely shut the door when the car reversed, pulled out of the parking lot, and drove away. I watched the taillights get smaller and smaller in the distance.
I decided I needed to go find Herbie.
Steve’s older brother Herbie was and still is one of the sweetest, funniest people I know. I knew that Herbie would help me. I couldn’t stand the fact that I had hurt Steve, and in a very untypical way, given my family’s usual way of dealing with things – stuff it down and wait until morning – I felt like I had to try to talk