“So Katy,” she said slowly, taking another deep drag, “what you’re saying is that you’ve fallen in love with not one man, but two.”
And I nodded hopelessly, tears coursing down my cheeks.
“Ye-yes,” I stammered. “I don’t know how things got so complicated but it’s just so fucked-up and I’m so confused and things shouldn’t be like this and …” My voice trailed off painfully, my chest hurt, like my heart was crumpling and folding in on itself, a hole it its place.
Tina was silent for a moment, looking at me contemplatively.
“Well, at least you love each other,” she said wryly. “Having two men in love with you is better than none.”
There was some truth to that. Trust my mom to be dryly efficient, stripping things down to their bare bones.
“I know, I know, I’m grateful, but love shouldn’t be this hard, right? It should be easy, everything should come easy and this … this is the opposite,” I cried.
But Tina shook her head at that.
“Who said love is easy?” she hacked, voice raspy from the cigarettes.
I paused for a moment.
“Well, I mean … I mean, I guess I thought it would be,” I blubbered. “I mean, I thought love was like soaring through the skies, things would just fall into place.”
And my mom positively snorted then, which became another series of painful coughs.
“Katy, honey, sometimes I don’t think you’re my daughter, we’re so different,” she rasped, bent over double. “Where the fuck are you getting these ideas? Didn’t I raise you in a trailer park? Nothing comes easy for women like us.”
And I colored then. I prided myself on my street smarts, but had I lost my bearings this time?
And my mom confirmed it, nodding vehemently.
“What you’re describing is the process of falling in love,” she said tiredly. “But real love, the real thing isn’t like that. Real love is something worth fighting for, worth struggling for, and you’re acting like it should come to you served on a silver platter.”
I bit my tongue for a moment.
“I guess,” I said dully. “I just didn’t think the struggle would be this hard.”
My mom looked at me and sighed then.
“Any struggle is hard,” she said dryly. “Why do you think it’s called struggle? Why is work called work? Because this shit is hard and you can’t expect things to turn out perfect, easy-peasy, with no blood, sweat and tears.”
I was quiet again.
“But why does it feel that I have no options? Like I’m stuck in a corner?” I asked, my voice breaking.
And my mom snorted again, but her voice was gentler this time.
“Katy, you’re young,” she rasped. “You’re only eighteen, how can you say you have no options? I’m the one with no options, no one wants someone like me with loads of baggage and a history of … well, never mind,” she said.
“What I mean is that the world is your oyster and all you have to do is reach out your hand and take it. There are two men who love you and you love them too. So what do you mean by no options? You’ve got so many options, it’s crazy, you shouldn’t be here mopey and sad. Go on, go live your life,” she commanded.
But I shook my head miserably again.
“That’s the problem exactly,” I wailed. “There are two men. What am I gonna do with two men? What are people going to say when they find out about us?”
My mom closed her eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose as if a migraine were bursting in her brain.
“Girl,” she said wryly, putting her hand over mine and looking at me pointedly. “I’m only gonna say this once, because you know this already. Sure, it matters what people think, but only up to a point. What really, truly matters, is that there are two men who love you, and you love them too. So go and get it! How long do you think they’re going to wait? How long do you think you can dilly-dally, moping like a wet rag, pulling your hair out while they sit and grow restless? You think you’re so special, a unique star, the one and only gift to mankind?”
And Tina touched on my deepest fear, my innermost doubt. Because Brent and Jason were alpha males, I’d seen with my own eyes how women threw themselves at them right and left, shameless and uninhibited. Sure, they’d pledged themselves to me, but since I’d disappeared from their lives, how long did I have, how long before they forgot me and found another woman? Another two women? Three even?
And suddenly, my heart began racing. Because Tina was right. What mattered most was how much I adored these men, and this adoration was returned double, even ten-fold by Jason and Brent. I’d been screwing things up on my own, weaving a web of stories, of what-ifs, of horrors, and the only person that I’d trapped was myself. There were a million outcomes to this story, there were a million possibilities and only time could tell. But in the meantime, there was still us. There was still irretrievably, unconditionally us … I hoped.