Rookie in Love [SYTYCW 2013]

Rookie in Love

Chapter Three

            It has been four days since I have seen Jackson, not that I am counting.  Ok, I’m counting.  Every day.  Every hour.  Every minute.  I feel like a junkie looking for my next fix.  I know I can’t have him since we are both in relationships with other people, but that doesn’t stop my body from wanting to be near him.  I am trying so hard to focus on the task at hand, which is getting ready to leave my apartment on time, but I can’t seem to keep my thoughts straight as I rush around my room. 

Greg is taking me out to dinner tonight so I am putting on my conservative dress and barely there heels.  My hair is twisted up in a bun and just to complete the whole proper lady look I am wearing a string of pearls.  If he had any bad boy in him he would find out that under the proper lady dress I am anything but a proper lady.  I may be inexperienced in many things, but I do have quite the habit of buying sexy panties and bras.  I guess it is the one area of my life where I am not under my family’s scrutiny.  I learned very young that the males in my life would not dare step into a store selling lingerie with me so that is where I experience my freedom. 

When I look at the power I give my family in deciding so many aspects of my future, Greg becomes another item on that list.  He is an amazing guy with such a bright future it is almost impossible to find a reason to fight my family on this choice for me.  At times I don’t know if it is my feelings for Greg or my distain for being controlled that causes the wall that has been put up between us.  In the last year we have spent so much time together playing the role of courting young adults on the verge of being betrothed that I can’t help but to acknowledge that love has grown between us.  Love, which I had thought was caring and nurturing of a friendship, until I stumbled upon Jackson.

Greg respects me and knows me, has cared for me when I was sick and is truly invested in my future.  We have long discussions about everything from politics to sitcoms and I had always thought that was enough. Passion was something you read about, something chased by reckless youths, not something that you find on a late night between two strangers.  Greg and I are best friends but there is a wall between us when it comes to physical connection and now that I have felt that spark of desire with Jackson, I can’t help but to see how my relationship with Greg is just a friendship.

Spraying on a touch of perfume, I stand back to look in the mirror.  I wonder what Jackson would think if he saw me like this.  I don’t even look my age, more like a thirty-year-old mom who spends her days working in a church office.  I am beige and taupe and multiple shades of neutral.  I hear the knock at the door and then Abby’s voice as she invites Greg in to wait for me.  She always tells him I’m in my room down the hall if he would like to go find me, and he always declines and waits for me in the shared living room. 

I grab my small clutch and take one last look in the mirror before making my way down the hall.  When Abby sees me she scrunches up her nose in a look that says, “yuck,” before sitting down on the couch and grabbing the remote.  Greg is a gentleman as always and stands as I enter the room.  He is not quite as tall as Jackson but he is in great shape.  His blonde hair is kept short for business and he is wearing a sleek button up shirt and a pair of slacks.  His green eyes meet mine as I walk towards him.  He is genuinely happy, a smile lighting up his face when he takes in what I look like.  I will never understand how any man could be so excited about their girlfriend being so G-rated.  To him, I fit so perfectly into his happy-ever-after.   It breaks my heart to know that becoming his happy-ever-after will end any chances of mine coming true. 

The conversation at dinner is all business as Greg talks about his experience at my dad’s office.  He is working so hard to make a name for himself and to make me proud to be with him.  I know my father loves him and that part of our relationship feels right to me.  He is talking about his three-year plan again and each time he starts talking about marriage, kids and buying a house I start to feel dizzy and sick.  I take long breaths through my nose and tell myself to relax, that I still have a few months of my own life before we start our life together.  With the building anxiety I also feel guilt.  Greg is an amazing guy who deserves to have a woman who is madly in love with him and would live to make him happy.   As time passes I wonder more and more if I will ever be that woman.