Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Finals ended, and I headed home for the Christmas break. I knew I would miss Jeff while I was home, but my brother had just come home from a mission and I was anxious to see him again. Besides, my family was coming back up to Utah to ski the week after Christmas so I would be able to spend New Years with Jeff and his family.

While I was home the week of Christmas I did a lot of thinking. My parents tried to give me advice, but they had never met Jeff so I had a hard time listening to any of it. I finally decided that I hadn't been giving our relationship a fair chance. As long as I continued writing to the missionary, I wasn't 100% committed to Jeff. I determined I would stop writing to him... soon. I didn't want to Dear John him over Christmas, but I would definitely do it in the next few weeks. I consoled myself by saying it wasn't necessarily a permanent cut off--if things didn't work out with Jeff I would begin writing again--but for now, I needed to eliminate that distraction.

Christmas came and went, and my family made the 10-hour drive to a rental cabin near the ski resorts in Utah. I had them drop me off at my apartment on the way up so I could pick up my snowboard and car. I didn't see any reason why I needed to rush up to meet them, so I called Jeff and let him know I was back. Then I waited impatiently for him to come over. I turned on the TV, but nothing grabbed my attention so I turned it back off. I rummaged through the cupboards to see if there was anything worth eating, but nothing looked appetizing so I sat back down on the couch. I hadn't realized until then how anxious I was to see Jeff again. It had only been a week, but I'd really missed him. When a knock came at the door, I practically ran across the room to open it. I swung open the door and there he stood: tall and confident, with a tiny smirk on his face. I jumped into his arms, hugging him long and tight before I even said a word.

"Wow," he smiled. "Hello to you, too."
"Hi," I backed away sheepishly.
"How was your drive?" he asked.
"Long. How was your Christmas?"

Before long we were in our usual spots on the sofa: my head on his shoulder, his arm around my back. We talked about our holidays and families and when we'd exhausted those topics, we filled the silence with kissing and hugging. I purposely lost track of time, not wanting to know how late it was and whether my family was wondering where I was. I didn't want the night to end, but we were running out of things to talk about. I wanted to tell Jeff about the decision I made to stop writing to the missionary, but I knew he didn't like it when I talked about the "competition." I wanted him to say something that would indicate he, also, was willing to take the next step in our relationship, but I didn't know what that was. After several minutes of silence, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind:

"Do you love me?"

Immediately I regretted it.

Why would I ask him that? You don't ASK somebody if they love you, you WAIT until they say it on their own. What if he says no? What if he asks if I love him? Do I? Maybe... I don't know! It's too soon to know these things! Why hasn't he said anything yet?

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I shouldn't have asked that. Please pretend I didn't say anything."
"Carly," he stopped me. "I love you so much it scares me."

His words sent my body temperature soaring. I could feel my cheeks flush, not with embarrassment, but rather with a warm glow that permeated my entire being. He loved me! I tried not to move, not to ruin the moment, but I felt like skipping and jumping and running and cartwheeling all at the same time. I relished the feeling, trying to ignore the inevitable response his words necessitated.

I was feeling slightly guilty for tricking him into telling me he loved me instead of letting him tell me on his time line. If I then didn't tell him I loved him back it would be a pretty mean trick. But this was one area where I didn't want to exaggerate the truth. I knew I cared for him more deeply than I could say, but love? It was a strong word.

For two very long minutes I searched deep inside of myself, trying to see if I could reciprocate Jeff's love. I thought about how hard it was to be apart from him. I thought about the times we'd laughed together, and all the times he'd been there while I cried. I thought about the conversations we'd had about our hopes, our plans, our passions. I thought about what it felt like to kiss him. And as I thought, my mouth opened and...

"I love you, too."

There! I'd said it. And I really meant it, too. Right then, right there, I loved him and now he knew it, too. We cuddled for a while longer before reluctantly leaving the sofa. As we said our goodbyes, we repeated the "I love you"s again, and it felt comfortable. It felt right. I fell asleep that night to the sound of Jeff's voice repeating the phrase over and over again in my head.

. . .

I spent New Years' Eve with Jeff's family and he spent New Years' Day with mine. I turned 20 on New Years' Day that year, so Jeff met my family for the first time at the restaurant I had chosen for my birthday dinner. The restaurant served Asian cuisine and my family had eaten there once before several years earlier. I had liked it then, so it seemed a good choice for that night. What I didn't know is that the ownership had changed and they now specialized in sushi. To my family this was no big deal; they all liked sushi. But I wasn't about to touch anything raw and Jeff was feeling nauseous just being there.

They sat us at a table on the floor. Jeff awkwardly tried to fit his 6'3" frame under the small table while the rest of my relatively short family sat with ease. I opened the menu, looking for anything that was cooked. My dad started rattling off sushi orders and before I knew it the table was covered in sake, hamachi, and maguro. Poor Jeff. He wanted so badly to make a good impression, so he quietly ate every piece of fish and seafood that was set before him without complaint. He was concentrating so hard on keeping the food down that he hardly said a word the whole night.

After he left that night, I asked my parents what they thought. "Well," my mom said. "If you decide to marry him, then we will learn to love him." I was stunned. I wasn't asking her to love him right then, I just wanted to know if they liked him. Granted, it wasn't really fair of me to ask them to form an opinion based on such an uncharacteristic depiction, but I'd hoped for a little more than "we will learn to love him." I sulked in my room that night, wondering if it was wrong to marry him just to make her eat her words.

*Note: Mom, I love you. We all know this is water under the bridge now and have had many good laughs over it so please just understand this is part of the story and has to be told.