All the Candles that I Need

There comes a time in a relationship where a guy just has to shut his trap - well, times. In fact, it seems like a whole lot of the time...

When I got back, Alex was off the phone with him. If I hadn't made up my mind whether I wanted to fight or to drop it and cave in, the look on her face settled it. For a second, I was sure he'd told her to give me the heave-ho, and she was getting up the nerve to do it. Strangling him was number two on the list of reactions. I went with number one instead.

I pulled her to me, and asked her not to leave me. And that opened the floodgates, pretty much literally. Like I said, what Alex's said, I won't go into, but I was kind of floored that she thought I'd be upset. It also kind of threw me that she cared that much about what I thought, too.
It did seem she misunderstood what I think about what happened bewteen Kate and me. I don't blame Kate at all for her decison, and I don't have a problem with anyone making that choice. I had a problem with MY feelings about it - I still do - and part of that was due to the fact that I wasn't able to convince Kate that I could handle things. That Kate heard me say I never wanted a kid of my own too many times, and beleived what I said, and she couldn't believe that I wasn't taking her seriously when she said the same thing. That no matter what, Kate wouldn't let me in that one last step, and she may have been right not to.

But enough about Kate. There was time to talk about her later. And the Bobby stuff, jeez, that was gonna have to come up, too. I mean, right there, she said it; "And I've only ever told Bobby..." When she finally slowed down, and let me tell her that no, it didn't bother me, why would anything she'd done bother me, and things had settled a bit, I brought that up.

"Alex, listen. I guess it's kind of soon and all, but I don't want to be behind Bobby in everything. Is it always going to be that way?" I guess I sounded about as hurt as I felt, because she started beating about the bush, and I felt like I had to keep going. "I'll work with it, all right? I just...well, this is enough, I suppose."

And that's when she fumfahed her way through the next bombshell. Sure she padded it through with "I think," and maybes and started it over a few times, but she still said it. I gave her the interregator stare and said, "Did you run that past Bobby, too?" before I laughed and added, "I don't care if you did. Hell, call him back and fill him in on the results. Say Mike said "Um, uh, I dunno, I might possibly kind of love you back, sort of." Really, though, you could clean up both statements before you put them on the record."

It got a bit mushy there, so I'm going to stop for the day.

For privacy's sake, I'll skip ahead a bit tomorrow, all right? But I figured some Yeats would work here, from The Land of Heart's Desire:

Him:
Would that the world were mine to give it you
With every quiet hearth and barren waste,
The maddening freedom of its woods and tides,
And the bewildering lights upon its hills.
Her:
Then I would take and break it in my hands
To see you smile watching it crumble away.
Him:
Then I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.
And crowd the enraptured quiet of the sky
With candles burning to your lonely face.
Her:
Your looks are all the candles that I need.