And the Truth Comes Out

I've been fretting over something for the past few days, a fact you could probably pull from the sometimes-hurried, infrequent posting. I've come to a decision on the matter. I'm not sure it's the right choice to make. I want your opinions on this. This is one of my big, dark deep secrets that I've told no one- not even Marlie.

It all started in February 2006 when I was looking for a job. I applied at several different places: Staples, the local dollar store, Genuardi's, etc. You name it, I applied there. I also put in an application at a place called Give Me 10. It was a ten-dollar-and-under store that had just opened that month and they were looking for people. I had no experience with any job, ever, but they took me.

It was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life.

Because I'm a hard worker, I don't complain about cleaning, and I do a good, thorough, and thoughtful job of things, I was quickly loved by my managers. Managers came and went, but in the end there were always three: Lucy, the general manager that oversaw everything; Brian, the slacker manager that managed to get things done anyway; and Gregg, the manager who arranged every single shelf and hook in that store. Gregg was also the manager I fell in love with.

So far, you're all like "Well... he may have been your manager, but he was only a few years older than you, right?"

WRONG. Lucy was in her 40's. Adam was 27. Gregg was 34.

I was 17 when I started working there. He was 34. That's a 17 year difference. Twice my age. Maybe that kind of age gap wasn't a problem back in the 1800's or whatever, but I know it's weird today. Only celebrities can get away with that kind of thing. But what was the weirdest part of the whole matter? It didn't seem weird to me.

It's not like he was some kind of lech coming onto me in a gross way. First, we became partners. I was his righthand girl for any project that we had going on in the store. He trusted me, and I liked that feeling. If there was a whole department to redo or restock, he entrusted it to me and knew I would get it done and do a good job on it. If he needed someone to help him clean up the store, he knew I would do it and wouldn't complain.

Then we became friends. We would stand up at the front of the store when it wasn't busy and talk for hours at a time. About anything. About nothing. About everything. I would tell him how my love life sucked and I had no one to take to prom (it was senior year). He would tell me how his wife was giving him a hard time and they kept getting into arguments.

Uh. Did I mention Gregg was married? Yeah. Moving on.

Gregg and I would talk about anything. Johnny Depp movies, Superman comics, horse racing, abortion, the future, where I was going to college, etc. We were just friends, plain and simple. It was so easy to be myself around him because we had the same blatant, sometimes off-color sense of humor. He was funny. He thought I was funny.

Don't make the mistake of thinking he was hot. He really wasn't. He was okay-looking, I guess, but that's not what I was attracted to. I had met a soul like mine. I, of all people, know what that feels like. Marlie is the other half of my soul, but I recognized something in Gregg that goes deeper than looks, age, or even marriage. This man was someone I could love.

When I realized how I was thinking of Gregg, I was more than slightly disturbed with myself. Was I gross? Was I disgusting? Was it wrong to be in love with someone so unlike me, so much further ahead in life than me? Ugh. I didn't tell Marlie. I feel like I can tell her anything, but this was something I felt I should keep to myself.

Even as I was debating my feelings, Gregg's attitude toward me changed a bit. One day, I opened the breakroom fridge to get my lunch out, and I saw there was a 6-pack of blue Powerades. Blue Powerade is my favorite drink in the entire world.

Gregg rounded the corner and saw me trying to determine if they were saved or for the public (aka, me). He grinned. "Go ahead. I got them for you."

"Me?" I was surprised.

He shrugged. "They're your favorite. They were on sale. I saw them and thought of you."

Gradually, in a way that I hardly noticed, we began flirting back and forth. Gregg began joking that we couldn't say anything incriminating until my 18th birthday (which was that April 1rst, it was late March by this time).

For my birthday, Gregg made sure all the managers were available after the store closed at 8. He bought me an all-chocolate cake with some icing on top, like I'd said was my favorite sometime in our conversations. He also got me three DVD's, all with Johnny Depp in them (my favorite actor): Pleasantville, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and Edward Scissorhands. (I would be needing them because I was going to get my wisdom teeth out the next day.)

Everyone sang happy birthday to me, and they all gave me a hug, but I knew the whole thing was prepared by Gregg and Gregg alone. It made me feel unbearably special. The next day, I underwent surgery and had my wisdom teeth out with no problems, but I still had to stay home for a couple days. Gregg texted me and asked "How do you feel?" and that began the texting era of our relationship. It was fun to go back and forth when he was bored at work and I was bored/in pain at home. We continued texting even when we were both back at work.

We continued teasing each other and flirting, really, until one day when our whole team of managers went out to dinner. We were celebrating the fact that I was becoming a manager (thanks in no small part to Gregg's urging). I didn't know where the restaurant was, so Gregg offered to drive me from work and then drive me back to my car afterwards. We all went out to eat and had a good time, joking about things and laughing as Brian flirted with one of the waitresses. Gregg, of course, sat next to me in the booth. I have the feeling that Brian and Lucy knew how Gregg and I felt about each other. It was hard to hide, harder to deny, and impossible to wave off all together.

That night, when Gregg drove me back to my car (by ourselves, it was around 10 PM and the parking lot was deserted except for us), we accidentally kissed. It truly was accidental. We hugged and I got in my car and tried to start the engine, which sucked. Finally, with my door still open, I got the car going and looked up.

"Bye. See you tomorrow."

"Bye, Lys." Gregg leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek, but I'd already turned my head forward to look where I was going. The result was a kiss on the lips, very gentle and extremely quick. We both pulled away, gasping and looking at each other in slight terror. There had been an electric shock like nothing I'd ever felt before. I'd kissed boys before, most recently my former boyfriend of a year and a half, but I'd never gotten that much out of a kiss. Kissing, to me, was not an orgasmic experience.

Obviously, I'd never kissed the right someone.

I was so shocked that I closed the door and left without saying a word. It was so horrible. I gunned it out of that parking lot like I was running from a pack of wolves. I got a text message by my first light.

G: "Sorry. Sorry. I'm so sorry. I tease, but I never meant to do that."
Me: "Me neither. I'm completely sorry. I didn't mean to run off either, I was just so..."
G: "Did you feel that?"
Me: "The kiss?"
G: "There was something in it..."
Me: "Yeah. But I can't. We can't. We can't ever. Sorry."

Even after this, we continued to flirt with each other. It didn't matter what I said, my body would betray me by brushing up against him as I walked by the counter, or my hand would flit to touch his shoulder when I approached. I couldn't help myself.

So when, a few weeks before I was going to leave for school, late in August, he said quietly to me, "I think I'm in love with you.", I wasn't surprised. But I was absolutely freaked out.

Do you see the gradual descent into god-knows-what? I don't know how it could have gone differently. There was just this irresistible, magnetic pull between us. Later, I texted him and confirmed I was in love with him too. This wasn't pure lust. I knew lust. This was something else (with some lust, naturally). Even as I said I loved him, I told him that I could never be with him. That I wasn't willing to throw away my life, to possibly be ostracized by my family and friends (I wasn't worried about Marlie. She would have accepted it... if there had been something). That I was going to go to school in New York, which was about 3 hours from my home town.

We made the most of the last 2 weeks we had. We went out to lunch. We went out to dinner. At one point, when I couldn't have the car and neither of my parents could drive me to work, he went out of his way and picked me up.

The whole time, however, his wife was getting pissed. He told me long ago that she was always the jealous type. She would accuse anyone and everyone he worked with, and usually it was completely unfounded. In this case, okay, she had guessed correctly, but he argued with her. I always felt bad, like I was interrupting something they had, but he assured me that if it wasn't me, she would be jealous of the post office clerk, or the supermarket bagger, or a waitress in a restaurant.

Eventually, I went away to school. Gregg and I made a bet, an unspoken agreement that I'd have to come back in November's break, in December's break, in the following summer. He bet $20 that I'd put on more than the Freshman 15 pounds. I bet it would either be less or that I'd lose weight. It didn't matter to me whether I won/lost. It only mattered that I'd come back and work at Give Me 10 once more.

I didn't talk to Gregg much over the fall. I was busy with my room mates, with crew, with so much new stuff that I could only send the occasional email to him. When I came back in November for break, I was so excited that I could hardly stand it. So was Gregg! I only worked about two days because my break was a week long.

Gregg, however, had some news to drop. In the middle of a fight, his wife had thrown out that she was pregnant. One pregnancy test later, he discovered she was telling the truth. He was going to be a father. He was excited. So was I. You may think that weird, but I was so happy that he was happy. I knew there was no future in our relationship. I was glad he'd finally gotten along better with his wife (sort of) and that he could live happily.

Right before I came home in December, I got the following email:

Hey,

The ultrasound went well. The baby is about the size of a walnut at this point. You could see it moving around...it was really cool! Anyway, Judy has a test on Monday to check for Downs Syndrome and other Chromosomal abnormalities....Hopefully all will go well...I'm really nervous about this one...there's a 1 in 200 chance of miscarriage so you can imagine how I'm feeling.

I have you scheduled to work 3-close on Thurs, Fri, and Saturday when you get home.

Glad to hear that you are having fun at school and that you are getting "action." I'm sure the boys can't keep away!

Good luck with your finals and have a safe trip home.

See you Thursday!

Gregg

Then my dad made me send a reply back asking if I could get out of work on Sunday to go visit my extremely senile grandmother for Christmas. I didn't want to and begged Gregg to tell me I absolutely had to work on Sunday.

Hey,

The test went well. We will have the results in about a week. Judy is a little sore and uncomfortable but otherwise everything is looking good.

You are, in fact, working on Sunday. You are scheduled 12 to close (6:30) and there is nobody to replace you.

And for the record...e-mailing you back is not an inconvienance.

Hope your exams went well. Me and you closing tomorrow...See you then.

Gregg

What I would give to go back to those times...

The day after Christmas, our overhead boss announced that the store would be closing down. We had made it almost a year, but Give Me 10 was dead. I got a call from Lucy that morning telling me the news and asking if I wanted to go out to breakfast with her and Gregg (it was about 9 in the morning). I mumbled yes (having not been awake before) and got myself dressed as quickly as possible. It was a sad little breakfast that involved us all moping. We'd enjoyed our jobs, for chrissakes. How rare is that?

Two days later, I went into the store to pick up my paycheck. Gregg was there, watching some random workmen take down all the shelves, all the displays, everything we'd worked so hard to painstakingly arrange for almost a year. We said goodbye, and he promised he would talk to me when summer came so he could collect on his bet and we could go out of lunch/dinner. We hugged, kissed each other on the cheek, got into our respective cars and left.

I haven't seen or heard from him since. I emailed him a few times, but my email bounced back. He'd changed his email? I didn't dare to text him because it got him in trouble with his wife. Finally, in April, right on my birthday when I thought he would call but didn't, I sent him a text message. It bounced back. He'd changed his cell phone number. And I knew that recently, he'd moved to a larger house (he'd told me about it back in November). So, in full-stalking mode, I looked up where he lived. It was only 35 minutes from me. I got the phone number that went with the address. And I waited... all summer... for him to call.

You can call me obsessive, I don't care. I guess the lack of closure is just killing me. I need to know- how is he? Is he still married? How's the baby? Is it a boy or a girl? Did it live for god's sake? I can't take the suspense. He wasn't just someone I loved, he was my friend for almost a year and I miss him unbearably. In May, when I got out of school, I thought maybe he just didn't know when my classes were over. In June, I thought he'd call. In July, I thought he'd call. In August... I thought he'd call before I go back to school. But here it is, August 28, and nothing.

Tomorrow, I'll have the opportunity to drive to his house without anyone knowing. I hate to sound so stalkerish, but I need there to be an end to this. There has to be an official ending. It's keeping me up at night, and I hate that he can do that even after I haven't talked to him for eight months.

Please give me your full opinion on the matter... and what I should do about it.

Should I...

a. forget about him? It's painful, yes, but I need to put the past behind me. What's done is done. He obviously hasn't contacted me because he doesn't care anymore.

b. drive over to his house? His overly-jealous wife may have prevented him from contacting me and he really misses me too. Maybe I wouldn't get to see him... but I could be within a few feet of where he's been.

c. drive over to his house, ring the doorbell, and see who answers? If it's his wife, I'm in major trouble. If it's him, I'm probably still in major trouble.

d. not drive over to his house but give him a call? I can call from a disposable cell phone so I can't be tracked. If his wife picks up, I hang up and no one knows anything. If he picks up, I say hello.