Everytime we hopped out of the cab, he’d walk next to me, shoulder to shoulder. How did you get so tall?
I held up my foot, It’s the boots I said. He’s pretty short, only about 6’1.
We went to this kitschy little chinese resturant somewhre in New Buffalo and I had walked by him and kicked him in the ass with my foot sideways as I walked by. He started laughing.
The process to load steel takes a long time — we were laying in the back of the cab, spooning in the cab. We held hands and giggled listening to a local talk radio show on AM radio while the trailer rocked from the steel being loaded.
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“Did you ever write down ‘Lisa Dunkelberger’?” he asked me.
Yah, I said. All the time. When I was 17.
We laughed.
“My mother won’t like your tattoos.”
“Has Sarah met your mother.”
No he said and smiled. His mother lives in Guam and has been for years.
“not my problem.” I said and just looked at him.
“What will our kids say?”
“That mom was a cool ass bitch and daddy was a codgy old fuck.”
“You’re probably right.” and we laughed together.
“We are not even dating,” I said, “and you have us picking out china patterns!”
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I had brought my essays with me from Modern Cinema (I picked up my final and got an A on it). I explained the movies we watched and the questions and my answers and he was like “woah there Einstein!” All day he kept calling me Einstein. He loved it. He got all excited when we talked about Ameros Perros, Annie Hall and The Godfather.
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He has a girlfriend.
Sorta.
When he and I split up, he fucked around and met up with a woman 10 years his senior, who he ended up staying with for 7 years. Once that ended, He met up with Sarah, who is 12 years his junior. It’s not my place to say what occurred between them, but I will say that from his perspective, I got angry because of the way she treated him. Even went so far at one point to try and beat the shit out of him (and he stands about 6’1). He kicked her out and assumed she was going to move into her own apartment down the street and she ended up moving to Missouri with her mother. Lots of baggage. They broke up and he’s not happy but they have been talking again and were working on things but — the thing is, she’s in MO — of course things are great but he’s not happy, he doesn’t look happy and he told me more. He said he needed to tie up things with her. He was with her because she was familiar and comforting — despite everything.that had happened. “In short,” I said, “She’s asked you to put your life on hold?” “My life is not on hold.” “Yes it is.” He just looked at me for a long time and didn’t say anything.
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His cell phone is dead and he’s waiting for Nextel to replace it. He won’t have the phone on the road and i know that if the rest of the week is anything like today, I won’t hear from him until tonight. I already made the decision to spend the night, if he asks. No sex. Just sleeping. That will be the true test of intimacy. I just want to be with him.
This weekend, I’m going to my mom’s and he’s going to MO, which was already planned far in advanced. What happens after this weekend will be what will happen.
He told me, quite passionately, that he doesn’t want me out of his life again, no matter what happens after all of this is said and done. I thought about this and today I feel strong enough to handle that. On the other hand, I don’t know if I can handle that. Despite everything that was said and done, I had NO INTENTION of looking him up to shag. Danny was one thing, Miguel was another. I did not expect to still feel what I feel and I did not expect to still find him sexually attractive. That was a bonus. But come what may, this was the right decision. It makes me more free to move on.
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Miguel has nothing to do with the following.
I started making life plans more concrete. I have an appointment with a family realtor next week to buy a house here in GR. That has a been a decision that has been coming down the pipes for months. I’m tired of paying rent and the girls not having a place to call their own. I want a bedroom with red paint and a nifty headboard for my bed. I will still go to school until I graduate from Aquinas in 05. Hopefully with honors. I will still be taking the GRE’s in the spring and applying to grad school next fall. But I started talking to Miguel about my dream to open up my own coffee shop/book store again, one dream I’ve harbored for years and i want to do that too.
The world has suddenly all these possibilities.