(Journal)

Work
Tuesday December 11, 2007
8:40 a.m.

1. So this Matt thing has got me pretty twisted.

On Friday afternoon, I messaged April asking what her plans were that night. She said that Matt was coming over to return some books, pick up some cd’s, and to give her a birthday present. She didn’t really want to see him, but did want her books back. I called her as soon as I left the dojo to let her know that I was on my way. She sounded off from the very beginning, sounded uncomfortable.
“Hey, just wanted to let you know that I’m on my way. [...] How’d things go with Matt?”
“Um, ok.”
“Is he still there?”
“No, he actually didn’t stay for very long.”
“Oh, ok. Because I wouldn’t have tried to talk to you about him if he was standing right there.”
“Yeah, no he’s gone. He gave me Tori Amos tickets.” Stomach drops a little, heart starts to flutter.
“Uh, ok… Uh, would you like to talk about it? Do you want to wait until I’m there?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”

It was the longest yet quickest ride there. I only stopped three times they entire way and got there in 45 minutes from Venice. Here’s the general order of my thoughts:
That bastard. Jealousy.
She felt close enough to me to start talking about it over the phone. She was so uncomfortable that she needed to share it with me right away. This is a good indication of our closeness.
That bastard.
She’s had every opportunity to do whatever she wants and chose to remain alone. Every time she’s mentioned him, she expressed her complete lack of attraction. I really have nothing to worry about.
But it’s impossible to know exactly what’s gone on before, not only between them but at other times in her life. All I’ve got is the trust that she’s built up. It’s not inconsiderable, but it’s still young.
She herself has been cheated on. She would never do that.
That bastard. I can’t believe the position he’s put her in.

I picked her up from her place, and we went to Applebee’s. This wasn’t exactly the second lunarversary dinner conversation that I was thinking of. She brought it up fairly early in the evening after we got there.
‘Take whoever you want’ was written on the envelop, but he complicated matters by offering that he was free. He bumbled a bit, and repeated this several times. His brother was standing right there. They’d had a conversation back in September in which Tori Amos was mentioned, and he asked her to keep December 16th open. She always knew that he had gotten these tickets, but thought that she had kept her boundaries firm and well-communicated. Regardless, he had still come over to her place last month saying that he was changing his life around, making improvements, and obviously making yet another bid for her affection. She told him then that she had a boyfriend and that it would never be between them. He seemed to take it well, and she thought that that was that. But clearly not, because he still offered himself as her date to this concert.
April and I talked it through from numerous angles. Seems to me that he’s a passive co-dependent trying to not be so passive. She’s an amazing person that he wants in his life. It reminded me strongly of me and Vanessa, except that the feeling is not mutual. But despite the fact that she really doesn’t want anything to do with him, she doesn’t want to hurt him. And this is commendable, and one of the great things about her; her compassion. I maintained that she needed to break it off completely with him, preferably the next day. She needed to exchange the stuff, and give back the gifts, and then completely break it off. By the end of the conversation, I felt that we had really talked it through; I was fine with it because I thought that I knew what her true feelings were about this. I stayed out there until 2:30, which was really dangerous. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel multiple times.
Saturday, my call woke her up. She came right out to my place, we talked, we fooled around, we got a call from Mom at 5:05 asking if we could come right over to make it to an early dinner reservation. The dinner itself wasn’t that bad, though I thought that some of their behavior was a bit insulting. I made a blunder by not dressing well enough and not introducing my mom as Mrs. Hicks. She was really miffed by that, even left me a voice mail Sunday morning about it. My dad used his kind voice when talking to her, and Bri even did the ‘pinch the cheeks’ gesture when talking about how cute April was.
Right as we got back to my place, I brought Matt back up, figuring that she had called him that morning. She hadn’t, and we had another very long conversation about the situation. I maintain my stances and opinions, though did give in on the idea of keeping the gifts if he absolutely refused to accept them back. It seemed like a needless, mean thing to refuse them entirely. If she keeps it, then she’ll take Tina. She said it would be complicated for her if she took me, and I get that.
We worked out the process for all possibilities of him refusing to talk to her, refusing to take back the gifts, all of it. She said that she would e-mail him on Sunday to meet Monday. If he wouldn’t/couldn’t meet her on Monday then she’d try Wednesday, and if not then that she (or even I, maybe) would take the gifts to his work on Thursday. I haven’t talked to her since Sunday night. Even though I left before midnight, I really doubt that she e-mailed him that night. And I intentionally did not call her last night to find out if she saw him. I don’t want to be any more overbearing about this than I already have been.
But I thought about it all yesterday afternoon, evening and night. It put me in a rather sour mood, and I’m still there. The processing I’m doing right now is helping, but it doesn’t remove the root of the discomfort. She was uneasy about breaking it off with him. I trust that it was entirely and completely a desire to not cause pain in another person, but it’s too much like breaking up with a boyfriend for my comfort, especially as we’ve been together for two months now.
From what I know of Matt, he seems to be a genuinely nice guy. So was I. But that didn’t stop me from being manipulative. I am not at all comfortable with him being in April’s life in any way. This is a matter of her well-being as well as jealousy.

Toward the end of the conversation on Saturday night, she mentioned something about being used to tainted gifts, which brought up the strongest reactions in me that I’ve had in a good long while. It took me a couple of minutes, literally, to compose myself well enough to tell her that she doesn’t deserve to be hurt anymore, doesn’t deserve tainted gifts. I haven’t felt that vehement about something in a long time, and I felt that way because it’s so close to my own pain.

She’s coming over tonight. I am going to try to refrain from bringing it up. I do want to talk to her about it, but not until after it’s all done. I really hope that he accepts the gifts back, but expect that he won’t.