(...continued from previous)
The next day, on very little sleep, we headed out to meet Kelly and her roommate. I spearheaded the charge, as the boys were dragging their feet. We met them at the brewpub around noon, and things were going OK. Rider, Kelly, and roommate were speaking in inside jokes in a way that I found a bit irritating and boring, and Sam looked bored to tears, but I was feeling pretty good still.
We hopped to another bar, then to another. The third place was super smoky inside (ugh, indoor smoking!), especially on the second level, so Sam wanted to go outside and get some fresh air, then sit at a table near the entrance. Not wanting him to feel lonely, I joined him, leaving Rider, Kelly, and roommate upstairs. This is where things started to get weird.
Sam wanted to go for some coffee and a walk, so I went upstairs to tell Rider where we were headed. He said OK, and that we'd meet up in a bit. Sam and I went to get the coffee, then walked around the downtown area. He's not much for PDA, but he held my hand for a little while. I kind of wanted to find a bench and make out a bit, but no go. I started to really miss Rider, and time passed, and more time passed, and I hadn't heard from him. After a while, I texted him. His response showed no sign of wanting to meet back up, and I felt a bit sad at that. I pushed the meetup a little bit, and we reconvened.
After we met back up with them, Rider and Kelly were being quite amorous, all leaning close and clutching hands and making eyes. Rider did hold my hand for a little while, too, but seemed to lose interest in it after a time. I felt really strange, like I was in a limbo place where I didn't want to pour too much affection on Sam (since it's not really his thing), but also feeling terribly imbalanced like I was a fifth wheel along on Rider and Kelly's date or something. Not to mention the presence of the roommate, whom I didn't know and therefore made me a bit shy. It seemed to me like it was Rider's job to balance the social situation, since he was the person we all had in common, but he wasn't doing it because he was wrapped up in Kelly.
I put on my brave, cheerful face, not wanting to ruin anyone's good time, and hoping that no one there knew me well enough to see that I wasn't really having one. I started making more frequent trips to the bathroom just to be alone, taking longer and longer times each time.
Eventually, Rider must have seen some look in my eye, because he asked how I was doing, and I admitted to feeling anxious. He asked if it was anything he was doing, and at first I said no, but I just can't make myself lie to him, so I immediately confessed yes. We went away to talk for a little while—not a drama-filled thing like being dragged off by the arm or anything, but a quiet slipping out into a courtyard.
I explained that I felt a weird imbalance, like he was kind of ignoring me in favor of her, and he expressed shock. He said he'd thought that I kind of wanted him to leave me alone, so I could engage more with Sam, but that was totally not the case. He said that he thought that when we went off for our walk, there was an unspoken understanding there that we were each "giving each other space" to be with our other dates. Which wasn't the case at all—I'd only gone on the walk with Sam because I felt bad that the smoke was bothering him and didn't want him to be abandoned. I told Rider that if that had been what I wanted, space, then I'd have been explicit about it.
Rider asked what he could do, and the only thing I could think of at the moment was to balance things out a little bit more. Give me love too! And so he did, but my mood was already off and soured. I still put my best face on, though. As the night wore on, Kelly started flirting with Sam, too. That didn't really upset me, but it did leave me feeling a little adrift, since he'd kind of been the raft of familiarity I'd been clinging to in the sea of weird feelings. I started drinking more heavily to dull the sensation (never a good idea).
Things started to get fuzzy. Food was eaten, shots were taken, everyone was smiling, including me. I wasn't sure if my smile was a Black Hole Sun smile, stretched too taut across my skull and masking a wild-eyed darkness. I remember Sam telling me that I was going to pass out in the car, and my denying it. I don't remember saying our goodbyes, and I did indeed pass out in the car.
I came to when we pulled into the driveway. The hour nap had made me suddenly sober. Rider wanted to play music, so he and I did. Sam wanted to go to bed, so he did. Rider and I wound down our jam session and talked. He wanted to have sex, but I was so emotionally exhausted from the weird day and the series of hangovers and the lack of sleep and (let's face it) a little PMS that when I kissed him, I felt nothing. His lips felt on mine like the soft rubber of an inanimate object. We went to sleep.
I woke only a few hours later, squinched all the way to the far side of the mattress and curled up into a little ball. I lay there for a long time, thinking about things. I want Rider to be free. I want him to do the things that make him happy—the things he wants to do. So why did it bother me that he was paying more attention to Kelly than to me? He sees me all the time, and he was seeing her for only those 12 hours in a month.
Why do I have to feel like things in a moment are "fair" or "balanced"? His affections are not Skittles to be divided by a mother amongst her children, and I am not a five-year-old who should squabble if my sibling gets one more. And after all, things got better, not worse, with our weekly time-sharing, when we decided to say "fuck balance" and just do what comes naturally to us.
I uncurled a bit and went back to sleep, waking again in an hour.
So what was I afraid of? What was I losing over that 12 hours? The comfort of interacting with him, because he was otherwise distracted. The feeling of being important to him, because something right before my face was taking precedence. The security of knowing where I stood in a social situation, because usually I have him to guide me when I am among "his people" and when I do not, it feels like sink or swim.
But why choose to focus on those things that I lose? Why not instead focus on what I gain? A partnership without a need to control. The reflected glow of his happiness when he is taking advantage of every moment as he sees fit. The realization that all balance and all control is illusory anyway, and chasing it leads only to frustration.
I sighed, some of the tension leaving me, and cuddled into Rider, falling back to sleep again for four more hours.
When we woke, I was filled with so much love for him, and I felt so sorry and like such an ass for intruding on his good time with my bad feelings. Granted, it was only when he asked, and I did manage to hide it from everyone else, but I did inject a modicum of stress into his otherwise good night. I don't want to be that: the one who brings the stress. I want to bring peace and happiness and light, all the time. I apologized to him, and he looked at me like I was insane.
He was telling me that I have every right to feel the way that I felt, and that he should have done a better job of keeping things in balance, and that he will make sure he will do so in the future. I argued back that he should do whatever he wants to, and I reiterated my apology. We debated back and forth on whether feelings can be "wrong" and on the concept of balance, with him taking "my" side (that is, the side of the tortured creature I'd been the night before) and my arguing for his freedom. It was almost comical. In the end, we kissed and fucked and felt a million times better.
At one point, Rider told me that Kelly'd said to him that she thought that if her roommate hadn't been there, then "we'd all have been making out." Um, nope. But at least that means that she didn't catch on to my stress. When I told Rider that that's not going to happen, because I'm still not attracted to her, he asked why. I paused, and then explained to him that I thought it would be terribly rude for me to be discussing with him what I found unattractive about her. He said he just wanted to ask "in case it was something that could be remedied." Like, what does that even mean? I'd say something that I thought wasn't hot about her, and he'd suggest to her to change it? SMH, boys sometimes, I swear.
We didn't get out of bed until 4 pm, and thankfully, neither did Sam. I made a good breakfast that we ate around sunset, and we flopped out in front of nature shows and jazz documentaries until it was time to drive home. As Rider was packing his suitcase in the other room, I kissed Sam and told him that I would miss him. He said, "I'll miss you too. I'll miss both of you. You're lucky, because you only have one person to miss—I have two!"
Rider and I had a good drive home. It went quickly, and we shot the shit pretty much the entire time. We came back to my place to keep my cat company, and we had some really great sex. Tonight he's with Claire to make up for not having seen her for about a week. It's odd to miss him so much after having literally more than a week with him. I discussed it with him via IM and he said it's like an addiction: the more of me he sees, the more he wants. I feel the same way, and I suppose that's why people cohabitate.