Summer Swing Read online

  But maybe that’s what made him easier to talk to. I felt more comfortable divulging things about myself when I didn’t have to do it face-to-face. I guess that confidence kind of takes over your insecurities when you don’t feel so pressured to act just right. I had less to worry about while I folded laundry during our phone conversations, or did research online for my job. I wondered if that’s why so many people did online dating and stuff.

  But as the weekend drew closer, I became more nervous for Saturday. It really bugged me because talking to him on the phone hadn’t made me feel uncomfortable at all, and now that I was going to see him in person, I was feeling really anxious.

  Dawn occasionally mentioned Gage. She knew we were going out on Saturday evening, and she was even more excited for us than I imagined. Of course I played it down. Sometimes she just went overboard with guys and dating, and it was especially hard to hear her embarrassing comments when I was the one directly involved.

  However, there was one bit of information that I’d kept from her, so when I got home from taking my last final on Friday afternoon, and Dawn was over at the house to pounce all over me, she hit me with, “You little wretch! You didn’t tell me you’ve been talking to Gage every day this week!”

  She was standing in my parents’ kitchen with her mouth gaping open with disbelief. It was kind of funny, so I couldn’t help it when I smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” she almost squealed. “You’ve been…phone dating him all this time and didn’t even say anything?”

  “Phone dating?”

  “Ellie, why did I have to hear this from Wyatt?”

  “Because you make a big deal out of everything. We’ve been talking. So what? Should I have broadcasted it on the air?”

  “No, but you could have told your sister.” Her dramatic flair had disappeared and she actually looked hurt.

  I sighed and said, “Well I’m sorry, but I just didn’t feel like it I guess. It’s actually been really nice just…talking to him all week. I know a lot about him, he knows a lot about me, there’s been no outside influences to interfere,” I emphasized, to be sure she got my drift. “It’s just Gage, me and…whatever it is we’re talking about.”

  I grabbed a beverage from the refrigerator because I was thirsty, but also because I didn’t want to see Dawn’s reaction. My back was to her deliberately as I poured juice into a glass, but I could still feel her disappointment boring into me.

  “So that’s what I am? –Interference?” she finally asked. “I’m sorry I care about your love life, Ellie. Is it so bad that I want you to be happy? Why can’t I be excited for you?”

  This was the part of Dawn that I really loved and really disliked at the same time. She was such a passionate person, and she really did want everyone to be happy, but sometimes she just didn’t get it.

  “Dawn, I’m glad you care. But sometimes you’re…”

  “I’m what?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

  I sighed. “You’re too optimistic. You’re sometimes in a dream world. You’d encourage me to jump off a cliff if there was a cute guy at the bottom.”

  She gasped. “I would not! Now you’re being ridiculous, Ellie. All I wanted was for you to meet Gage and to like him. How is that being in a dream world? Maybe you’re the one in the dream world, little sister. Why don’t you admit to yourself that guys freak you out? You are so scared of having a meaningful relationship with someone that you purposely find ways to make sure it doesn’t work.”

  “Oh gosh, now you’re just saying things.”

  “No, I am not. Maybe I just try to be positive for you because you’re so set against being happy with anyone. I don’t know if it’s because you’re shooting for some prestigious broadcasting career and don’t want to be tied down to anyone, or if it’s because you’re just a pessimistic person, but you have commitment issues, my dear. And I’m not the only one that sees it—”

  “Oh sure, add that in there to make it more credible. And who are these ‘experts’ we’re dealing with? –Mom and Dad? Pssh, they don’t even count. They come with their own set of relationship blueprints. And Wyatt? I surely hope he’s not pointing a finger because he’s got some nerve. But maybe you’re right. If I can see right through Wyatt, then maybe I really do have commitment issues. Isn’t that where the saying ‘takes one to know one’ comes into play? Wyatt is probably—”

  “Tim,” she interrupted angrily. “Tim is who I was talking about, Ellie. You know, the guy you strung along for four months and then just dropped like a—”

  “Don’t even pretend like you know what you’re talking about, Dawn,” I said, feeling the anger begin to rise. “Tim was not the right guy for me and I knew it from the start. I went out with him because he was a friend of yours. I did you a favor because you asked me to. Yeah, he was a fun guy, and yeah of course he was really cute, but I wasn’t that into him.”

  She chuckled bitterly. “Ellie, why do you do this? Why do you always use the ‘he wasn’t the right guy for me’ excuse? And you can honestly tell me that you dated him for four months because of me? That’s not true and you know it! I saw the two of you together so don’t tell me you weren’t attracted to him. Stop blaming other people for your failed relationships.”

  “Being attracted to someone isn’t always the same as how you feel about them! Yeah, Tim was a good-looking guy, said all the right things, and worked wonders to impress me. But he only had one thing on his mind, and I was too stupid to understand it at the time!”

  Dawn was about to put a box of crackers away when she stopped mid-air. She lowered it and looked at me carefully, and as my heart quickened its beat, I knew I’d said too much.

  “Ellie…” she said quietly. “I hope you just mean in general. You just mean he had high hopes, right? Like most guys? You don’t mean that…that he took advantage of you, right? I mean if you guys went that far and it was mutual then, pssh, it’s none of my business, but if- if he pressured you, Ellie, or…” She sat down on a stool next to me. “He didn’t force himself on you, did he?”

  “No, it wasn’t- it wasn’t like that,” I finally mumbled. I let out a deep breath of air and slightly shook my head. “I was just dumb, I guess. I let him talk me into something I wasn’t ready for. And he was so…insensitive about the whole thing. I don’t feel like talking about it though, so please don’t mention Tim again. I know you didn’t know, but now that you do, please don’t joke about me missing him, okay?”

  “Yeah, all right. I’m sorry.”

  I nodded.

  “Ellie, I’m sorry we were fighting. I really am. I don’t like fighting with you.”

  “Good, because I don’t like fighting with you either.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out, giving me a hug in the process. I was glad that we’d resolved our conflict, which was usually the case, but I was also disappointed at the same time. My big mouth had wanted to get into it about Wyatt, and I was leaning more towards the “just do it and apologize later” method.

  “So what are you doing tonight?” Dawn asked me.

  “Nothing,” I replied, taking the box of crackers from her.

  “It’s Friday night.”

  “So,” I mumbled with a few Cheez-its in my mouth.

  “So? Come on, Ellie, let’s go do something together. Something fun, or something we haven’t done for a while.”

  “Wyatt doesn’t have a big, romantic getaway planned for you this weekend?”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes at my sarcasm. “I wish. Actually he’s out of town with one of his friends. They went up to Seattle for the weekend.”

  “Mariners game?”

  “Yep. So what do you say? Let’s go out to dinner first, and then we can decide something from there.” She took the box of crackers from me and returned them to the cupboard. “I want Italian; you can pick which place.”

  I was pretty nervous when Saturday morning rolled around. I’d hardly slept the night before either, spendin
g most of the time lying there in bed, fretting over meeting Gage for the first time. Luckily I had work to keep me occupied, although there were a few lulls in my day that were filled with thoughts of him. I wasn’t quite sure why I was so stressed out about it—it wasn’t like I was about to meet my husband for our arranged marriage or anything—but I think it all came down to my fear of being disappointed. Or maybe it was my fear of being disappointing to him.

  Well, however I looked at it, I knew why I was spending more time than usual at my cubicle when my work hours were up. I was literally delaying meeting up with him.

  “What’s got you in a daze?” Miranda asked, breaking my thoughts. She sat at the corner of my desk and eyed me carefully.

  Miranda. Hmm, maybe I could get some free advice from our resident dating expert. She was almost ten years older than me, so surely her experience could help me out. And I didn’t really know her that well, which made it even better.

  “Oh, I was just thinking about…a friend of mine, and the guy she’s going to meet up with for the first time.”

  “Ooh, online dating?” she asked eagerly.

  “No, uh, they have mutual friends that wanted them to meet, but for now they’ve just been talking on the phone and stuff.”

  “Do they know what the other one looks like, or is that the problem?”

  “Yeah, they’ve seen pictures of each other.”

  “And?”

  “They’re mutually attracted.”

  “So what’s the problem? The pressure of meeting someone for the first time?”

  “Yeah. My, uh, friend is pretty nervous.”

  “How come? Just anxiety, or like a full out fear that it’s not going to work out? Or that it will work out,” she added with a smile.

  “Uh, I don’t really know,” I admitted honestly. “I think she just feels pressured in general. She’s kind of…complex when it comes to guys.”

  “Complex. A word like ‘complicated,’ meaning ‘full of excuses,’ ” she chuckled.

  “Well, I mean yeah, I’d say she’s a bit complicated. But I think the excuses are real, though. Doesn’t everyone have issues with relationships?”

  “No, not everyone. There are a lot of people that make relationships the main focus in their lives. Some people always have to have a companion, and it’s just another necessary part of life, like eating or sleeping.”

  Wow, that could be Dawn.

  “The rest of us can browse the ‘Top 10 Fears in Relationships’ and pick a handful.” She paused for a few seconds and then asked, “So what’s your friend’s fear in this particular situation?”

  “Um, what’s on that list again?”

  Miranda smiled. “Oh, let’s see… Fear of change or uncertainty, fear of losing freedom, fear of conflict or relationship problems, fear of rejection, fear of dependency, fear of not being enough, fear of losing who you are, fear of giving up too much… Hmm, what am I missing? Oh yeah, fear of heartache and fear of disappointment. So? Do any of those pin down your friend’s anxiety?”

  With a smile I replied, “Uh yeah, probably a few of them. Maybe fear of uncertainty, rejection, and uh, not being good enough I think.”

  She nodded. “Pretty standard.”

  “Oh so there’s nothing wrong with her?”

  She laughed again. “No, not at all. Those fears are instilled in all of us. Here’s what I would tell her—if you’d like to pass this along. First of all, no one can predict the future. Even if we have our lives all planned out in our heads, it’s not going to work out exactly how we’ve designed. Relationships are not houses, and the blueprints are a whole different ballgame. There are too many variables that have to be factored in, and we don’t even know what those variables are half the time. But that’s how we learn and grow, and when we make the adjustments that are necessary to nurture our relationships, then we’ll learn and grow even more.

  “Second of all, nobody likes to be rejected, no matter how big or small that rejection is. Some of us handle it differently than others, but to be rejected by another person is the hardest of all. You can either suck it up and realize that maybe there are other things meant to be in your life instead, or you can wallow in your self pity and pick apart each one of your flaws to make it even worse. To me the choice is easy, but it’s sometimes hard to do. Now the unfortunate part of those that fear rejection is that they tend to be pleasers. Is your friend a pleaser?”

  “Uh…”

  “Does she put aside her own wants and needs just to make others happy?”

  My heart volunteered its agreement with a strong thud. “Um, yeah, definitely.”

  “It’s important to be selfless and giving of ourselves, but not when it takes away from our own happiness. If we do things for other people and it causes us to feel resentful about it, then maybe we need to re-evaluate what we’re giving of ourselves.

  “The third one… What was it? Oh, fear of not being good enough. It’s kind of similar to fear of rejection only we feel like we’re trying to play ‘catch up’ instead. When we feel insecure about who we are or what we might possibly have to offer someone, we tend to do things because we feel we owe that to the other person; we feel like we’re not good enough the way we are, so we expect all of these unrealistic things of ourselves. And when we don’t turn out to be that person we’ve been shooting for, the negative effects can be pretty devastating. You feel like a failure sometimes, or other times, when the relationship ends, people feel angry that they spent so much time and effort trying to be someone that they weren’t. It’s a no-win situation when we try to be someone we’re not. It’s never worth it.”

  I quietly took in the advice, even agreeing that it one hundred percent made sense.

  “So do you think that would help her?” Miranda asked.

  “What? Oh, definitely. Thank you. I should have written all of it down, though.”

  With a smile she said, “No need. Hang on a minute.”

  While she left for her desk, I tried to figure out how I might go about meeting Gage for the first time and not totally screw it up. It was possible that we wouldn’t even get through our first date before we realized we couldn’t stand being around one another, and if that was the case, then I would accept that first. I could handle the rejection if I had to. After all, if it wasn’t meant to be, then it wasn’t meant to be.

  Second, I decided to focus on just being myself. It was the easiest role to play, so why change it? It wasn’t in my nature to be somebody I wasn’t, so I didn’t worry about that, but it was in my nature to be a pleaser. My efforts to be agreeable sometimes left a mark, and I knew I should probably keep that in check a little better. So far Gage was used to hearing my likes and dislikes over the phone, so I had a jumpstart on that right away. Perhaps if I had met him any other way he might have been introduced to the super compliant Ellie, but now that I’d already voiced some of my opinions, I could just continue on with that same routine.

  “Here you go,” Miranda smiled, handing me a few sheets of paper. “That’s the entire article.”

  “Oh, thank you. Uh, I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

  I gathered up my things to head out and heard, “Good luck with your date, Ellie.”

  “Thanks,” I replied automatically. I caught myself as soon as I’d said it, and looked at Miranda smiling at me.

  “Just be yourself, sweetie,” she told me, squeezing my shoulder on her way by. “There’s no reason to change who you are for any guy.”

  Gage actually called me on my way home. I knew I was already a half an hour behind schedule, so I felt really guilty about that. However, it was Gage that was delaying our date when he said, “I, uh, kind of need to get a few stitches,” he told me.

  “What?”

  “Well normally I’d just let it heal however, but it won’t stop bleeding and I think I can see the bone.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed. “Yes, you definitely need stitches. Look, I’m on my way home from work but I’
ll stop by and take you, okay? You shouldn’t drive if you’re bleeding to death.”

  He chuckled. “Nah, I think I’ll live, but you don’t mind coming to get me? I’m sorry it’s not the greatest way to introduce myself but—”

  “Well, I don’t think you have a choice, Gage. I’ll be there in about five minutes if you can wait that long.”

  “Sweet, I’ll call off the ambulance.”

  I laughed. “Okay, see you in a bit.”

  When I got to Wyatt’s house I was really nervous, but not for the same reasons I was before. Just thinking about stitches and blood—and bone? —made me feel queasy. I hoped he was joking.

  I’d barely gotten out of the car when Gage came out the front door. He had his right hand holding a pile of gauze over his left forearm. But forget that… When he smiled at me I almost lost my wits. He was really good-looking, even better in person, and with a baseball hat on, there was something about him that drew me in instantly.

  His smile.

  “Hey, Ellie,” he greeted cheerfully. He came right to where I was standing, and I was pretty sure he was going to hug me but didn’t know what to do to hold the gauze on his arm. “Uh, put your hand here for a second so I can give you a hug.”

  “No way,” I practically scoffed.

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “No way to the hug, or no way to touching my gaping wound?”

  I kind of smiled. “Uh, no way to touching your gaping wound.”

  “But it’s all covered,” he said confidently. “I put fresh gauze on top, just to be presentable for you. Do you wanna see it—?”

  I couldn’t help it when I recoiled, and he lightly chuckled.

  “Okay, no worries.”

  “I’m sorry, but why do you think I’m the only one in my family that’s not in a medical profession? I’m a big pansy.”