I wasn't sure what this meant. Could I talk to Jon anymore? Would it be leading him on to call him or spend time with him? (Hindsight answer: YES.) Would he even want to?
I didn't have to wait long to find out Jon had decided to act like nothing happened. We continued to text and hang out when I was home, and he even came to visit me at school once that semester. I still talked to (not-so) Boyfriend, too. On one of my weekends home, we were out to dinner with a huge group, as usual, and Boyfriend mentioned that he and one of our other friends were looking into spending six months in Tanzania.
Tanzania??? How are we going to work on our roller coaster relationship if you are on the East Coast of Africa??? I felt like throwing up.
Four months later, Boyfriend was gone. And not for six months, but for a year. He left with us on good terms (in that heinous "friend zone") and I told him I'd be praying for him. He promised he'd keep in touch. Jon and I continued to become closer friends that summer. We knew everything about each other, laughed about everything together, and had a tight knit group of mutual friends who we spent every evening with. Then the time came for me to return for my last semester of college. It was the Fall of 2003. I was looking forward to getting out of town, mostly because everything I did, heard, saw, tasted, or smelled reminded me of Boyfriend, no matter how much fun I was having with my friends.
I was only a couple weeks into the semester when I got an e-mail from the Boyfriend. I hadn't heard from him yet, and considering he was in a different country, I had somewhat resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get over it. I was ready to focus, finish school, and hang out with my girlfriends. Then Boyfriend had to jump back in, sending me into a downward spiral of regret mixed with hope. We kept in close touch that semester. At the same time, Jon and I remained friends and visited each other. Then, over Christmas break that year (I was officially done with school), I received an e-mail from Boyfriend telling me that the last time we had hung out before he left, he'd realized that what he had with me was "how it's supposed to be". He then asked if I'd be willing to wait for him to return from Tanzania that summer to see where our relationship might go from there. I was giddy. This is what I had subconsciously (at times, consciously) been waiting for. I could not wait to write him back to tell him exactly how I felt and that I would absolutely wait for him.
Now... I was still spending ludicrous amounts of time with Jon. He was my favorite person to be around, and now that I was home from school, we could actually hang out all week long. And we did. When this development came about between Boyfriend and me, I didn't tell Jon. I didn't think he needed to know... despite his knowing the entire history and knowing me better than anyone. I just failed to mention it.
One night, during one of these months of waiting, Jon and I were on the phone again. This time Jon decided that it would be a good idea to say this: "blah blah blah blah blah I love you blah blah blah blah...." I have no idea what we'd been talking about before he dropped yet another over-the-phone Fat Man on me, but it didn't matter. This time I cried. I was so frustrated with Jon. How many times did I have to explain my feelings before he realized it was never going to happen!? At this point I needed to tell him my plans for when the Boyfriend returned. If I hadn't already crushed his spirit, this surely did. I think it crushed a piece of mine, too.
As the summer neared, I became more excited, but things with Jon became strained. When we were with our friends we hardly said a word to each other, and I found myself making fun of him more than usual, whether he was listening or not. We didn't hit the town alone like we had so often before. We both knew what was coming, and we both knew what we had would not be appropriate anymore.
Jon and I both had joined teams going on missions trips to separate places that June. I would be leaving for Tonga (for a month and a half) a few weeks before he left for the Czech Republic. When I returned, two weeks before he would, the Boyfriend would be back from Tanzania and life would be changed. We said our goodbyes the night before I left, and Jon told me he didn't think we should contact each other while we were gone. It broke my heart. I wasn't going to be able to tell him anything about what I was experiencing, and he didn't want to hear about it. It was his way of distancing himself from me before the three of us would all be in the same place again. I didn't like it. The one and only time I've seen Jon cry is that night, before he left my house.
At one point that summer, the three of us were on three different continents. There were words that couldn't be said, confusion, reunions, heartaches, and forms of love shooting in too many directions. When the time finally came, Boyfriend and I were excited to see each other, but hesitant. He'd been gone for a year, and seen things he could never fully explain to me. I'd been growing closer to one of his former friends for a year, and still wished I could talk to Jon, just once. It didn't take us long to realize we had very much idealized our relationship. How romantic to pine for each other across the world! How amazing our story would be, so many ups and downs, and finally a blessed reunion! But we just weren't clicking. It became achingly clear what had happened when one day I gave Boyfriend a letter I had written explaining my frustrations (we had grown so accustomed to writing that I felt I would do better expressing myself that way). The incriminating lines said this: "I just want to see it on your face. I want you to light up when I walk into the room. Jon smiles like that when he sees me, and he's just my friend."
He studied my face after reading the letter, settled on my eyes and said, "You love him."
I argued with him. I became defensive and supported my logic by reminding him that I waited for him. I had waited for months before he left the country, then I waited a year for his return. If there was any loving going on here, it was my love for him. But something broke free that day. It took this person who I loved with every piece of me, who I would do anything for, to say the words. To allow me to recognize something I'd stubbornly brushed off for years. He wasn't angry. He watched me closely as I explained my feelings, but I could tell that he knew those feelings better than I did myself.
Boyfriend and I weakly kept things going for a couple weeks until he decided to attend a college recommended by the family he'd stayed with in Tanzania. The school was in New York. After he'd been gone three weeks and I hadn't heard much from him, I called him at school and told him I didn't want to do this again. I couldn't keep waiting for him to do his thing, and that it didn't seem like we were supposed to be together. That was a heartbreaking night. I'd carried a love for this guy for five years... these years were made all the more powerful because they were the ages from 17 - 22. We'd dated for most of that time, and we'd made some huge leaps of faith to try to be together. He was my first love. I still felt very much in love with him when I had to tell him it was truly over and say good-bye for the last time.
As much as my heart throbbed, I knew it was the right decision. I knew who I was supposed to be with. The first time I saw Jon after he returned from Europe, he took me aside, away from our other friends and said, "I just want you to know that nothing changed while we were gone. I still feel the same way about you." At the time all I could do was force a lopsided smile.
Several weeks later we found ourselves in Jon's driveway. I'd driven him home from a group outing. That night I was able to look him in the eyes and say, "Jon, I love you."
After nine years of introspection, I now realize that I was the goon in all the chick flicks who is entirely infatuated with the guy who's all wrong for her. I was Andie, in Pretty in Pink, pining over someone else, while the kooky best friend was waiting in the wings: Duckie.
Jon could have given up on me several times. He could have saved himself from my mixed signals and hacksaw-like emotions. He could have moved on and found someone else, someone easier. But I guess when he told me over the phone as I sat hugging my knees against the cinder-block wall in Emerson Hall, "We're supposed to be together," he knew what he was talking about.
We've now been best friends for eight years, together for six, and married for four and a half.
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