Those Three Words
It had been a long, rich 40 years since I had first met Lee in my high school biology class. He sat in front of me, and by the time we dissected frogs in the middle of the year, I had memorized the exact texture and shade of his hair, the contours of his cheek bones and the nape of his short chubby neck, but I don't even think he knew my name. To him, I was just the girl behind him who liked to stare at the back of his head. Mister Gleason, our bored looking teacher, had made us pair up with the person in front of us, and I was lucky enough to be paired with Lee instead of the prissy blonde girl who smirked at me whenever I turned around in my seat. The frogs were awaiting us in jars and as Lee picked a slimy specimen out of the jar he said three words to me that will always stick out in my memory, "Scalpel or scissors?".
I had been so busy thinking about what to say so I didn't embarrass myself in front of him when the reality of the task at hand hit me, "Wait- we have to dissect frogs?" Smooth, I thought, with mixed horror and embarrassment.
"Yeah! Are you as excited as I am?" Lee replied with glee. I couldn't even speak, my throat started to tighten and my stomach squeezed and pulsed with disgust. I could taste the stomach bile in my throat as I watched my classmates using pins to stab the frogs hearts, looking like an olive on a toothpick in a martini glass. Lee looked at me with fear as he saw my body stiffen, freezing in shock, and the paleness creep up on my clammy cheeks. The last thing I heard before I fainted was Mister Gleason calling out to Lee to, "take that girl to the bathroom before she vomits, young man."
I woke up on the hard, cold bathroom floor. I opened my eyes to see that Lee had brought us into a tiny stall and my head was cradled in his lap. He was sitting cross-legged and looked out of breath and worried, but sighed in relief when I opened my eyes. I saw the slanted hand writing on the stall door and scrawled obscenities. We were definitely in the girl's bathroom.
"Did-did you carry me here?" Lee's face flushed with pride and said with a guilty smile, "Yep, all that gymnastics pays off, huh?".
I smiled back at his dreamy face; it was hard not to, but then I gasped when my stomach buckled and I threw up in the toilet. I was horrified, not only did I throw up in front of a guy, but the guy. Lee made a sweet gesture of pulling my hair back with one hand and rubbing my back hesitantly with the other.
"Are you okay?" He asked as soon as I had thrown up my breakfast. I replied, "Yes...Well in the physical sense. I'm just so embarrassed. You shouldn't have seen that." I covered my face with my hands, which were covered in specks of vomit, because I didn't want him to see the tears in my eyes or my quivering lip. He peeled my slimy hands off of my face, and when he saw the tears, instead of running away like I thought most high school boys would do, he stared into my bloodshot eyes and stroked my cheek with his powerful finger, pulling a strand of hair behind my ear in the most gentle way. He grabbed my balled up fists in his strong hands, not minding the throw up on them and told me, "You don't ever have to be embarrassed in front of me. There's nothing you could do to make me disinterested in you."
Throughout high school Lee and I had remained friends, dating on and off, occasionally going to dances. Into our twenties we went to college in the same area and got together for drinks and such every now and then. In our 30's he watched in delight as my stomach grew with my first child and I cried in happiness for him at his wedding with his girlfriend of three years. In our 40's we became closer as our children became friends, but it was now in our late 50's with our children all grown up where we were most affectionate.
Throughout all these years there was always something blocking our relationship: me. In my youth I had gone through many foster homes and as a teen I had finally found an adopted family. They were fine and gave me food, water, shelter and required conversation, but did not treat me with enough love for a child who had fought through hard times. Lee was the only one who I had ever talked to about my childhood and I was the only one he could confide with about his wife's passing away last October. My hard youth was the reason our relationship never went any where; I was afraid to say the three words Lee liked to say most. Every time we parted, even if it was only a day until we saw each other again, he always told me, "I love you." with a sweet kiss on the cheek. He always waited for my response, hoping that over the years it would change, but I always replied with, "I like you, Lee." or a changed topic. We had fought over this so many times, and I always stood grounded and apologized with promises to change, which I would never stay true to, while he either screamed or sobbed at me, not knowing the reason I couldn't tell him that I loved him. My argument was always, "Why would I need to say it when I can show it?". But that was not the reason for my lacking of the words he wanted so bad; it was because I was insecure and afraid that as soon as I would say, "I love you." he would leave me the way my foster parents had left me over the years.
It was my 58th birthday, but it was just another birthday that my husband, Mark, had forgotten about. I sighed, trying to hold back tears when I awoke to find an empty bed beside me. This was nothing new because Mark was always busy with 'the boys', playing poker and betting on race horses at the track at all hours of the day, but sometimes I held my expectations too high. I got out of bed, still wearing my pajamas that Lee had given me for Christmas this year. As I poured some coffee, I thought to myself, Why didn't I ever have an intimate relationship with Lee? He would have been perfect for me, he would never forget my birthday. Just then, a loud knock from the door broke my train of thought. I could already see through the window next to the door that it was Lee, and my face broke into the first huge grin in weeks. He had a smile just as wide as mine when he saw me, which made my heart pound like the silly teenager I had been when I first met him. I opened the door and he dropped the flowers he had been holding for me onto the floor as he grabbed me into a huge bear hug. While he gripped me tightly in his arms, I did something I had never tried to do to Lee, or any other man besides my husband before. I pulled his mouth up to mine, and my lips touched his tightly, with a youthful passion I hadn't felt for many years. We broke slowly apart, and I smiled at him and looked into his bright blue eyes with tiny crinkles lining them. He looked pretty much ecstatic and brought me up to him once more for a long kiss, with a little tongue. I didn't feel one bit of guilt about Mark finding out, and just kissed him back, laughing in a way I hadn't laughed since late nights with Lee having drinks in my apartment during college. He grabbed my hand, the same way he did in the bathroom so many years ago when I was so ashamed of my tears, and gingerly eased me out of the kiss as he dragged me, still giggling, up onto the hill by the garden Lee and I had worked on in summers previous. We sat down on the plush, green grass and he took a tiny, antique box out of his pocket and set it into my hands. "Happy birthday!" he said excitedly and watched my eyes grow huge in surprise when I opened the box and found a silver ring, with a big cut of turquoise encrusted on it.
"It used to be my grandmas, she told me to give it to someone who I really love." Lee said, watching me admire the slightly tarnished, yet exquisite ring, nestled in the old box. I frowned for a minute and asked him, "Does that mean that this belong to your wife before she...you know...passed away?" He shook his head with an identical frown to match mine, "No. I have only really loved one person my whole life." A thoughtful pause settled between both of us as we laid side-by-side watching the sunrise in the morning sky surrounded by puffy white clouds. I realized that throughout my life, there had been only one person who was always there for me, the only one who would listen through my problems, whether about my marital issues or my dissecting disasters and there was only one person who I -- "I love you, Lee." I quietly murmured. His arm tightened around my shoulder as he looked at me in shock.
"Wha-what did you say?" Lee asked me, a smile begging to form on his beautiful, large lips. I was shaking so hard, trying to find the strength in me to say the words again, knowing if I couldn't repeat myself, Lee's heart would be wounded by me yet again and the smile that had been forming on his face would melt off and leave a trace of the usual disappointment.
"I love you." I finally stated, warmth flooding through me from my inner core to the tips of my toes. Lee responded by kissing me full-on, his hands holding my head in his hands and pressing my lips to his face, and every worry I had ever had, left me in that moment.
I had been so busy thinking about what to say so I didn't embarrass myself in front of him when the reality of the task at hand hit me, "Wait- we have to dissect frogs?" Smooth, I thought, with mixed horror and embarrassment.
"Yeah! Are you as excited as I am?" Lee replied with glee. I couldn't even speak, my throat started to tighten and my stomach squeezed and pulsed with disgust. I could taste the stomach bile in my throat as I watched my classmates using pins to stab the frogs hearts, looking like an olive on a toothpick in a martini glass. Lee looked at me with fear as he saw my body stiffen, freezing in shock, and the paleness creep up on my clammy cheeks. The last thing I heard before I fainted was Mister Gleason calling out to Lee to, "take that girl to the bathroom before she vomits, young man."
I woke up on the hard, cold bathroom floor. I opened my eyes to see that Lee had brought us into a tiny stall and my head was cradled in his lap. He was sitting cross-legged and looked out of breath and worried, but sighed in relief when I opened my eyes. I saw the slanted hand writing on the stall door and scrawled obscenities. We were definitely in the girl's bathroom.
"Did-did you carry me here?" Lee's face flushed with pride and said with a guilty smile, "Yep, all that gymnastics pays off, huh?".
I smiled back at his dreamy face; it was hard not to, but then I gasped when my stomach buckled and I threw up in the toilet. I was horrified, not only did I throw up in front of a guy, but the guy. Lee made a sweet gesture of pulling my hair back with one hand and rubbing my back hesitantly with the other.
"Are you okay?" He asked as soon as I had thrown up my breakfast. I replied, "Yes...Well in the physical sense. I'm just so embarrassed. You shouldn't have seen that." I covered my face with my hands, which were covered in specks of vomit, because I didn't want him to see the tears in my eyes or my quivering lip. He peeled my slimy hands off of my face, and when he saw the tears, instead of running away like I thought most high school boys would do, he stared into my bloodshot eyes and stroked my cheek with his powerful finger, pulling a strand of hair behind my ear in the most gentle way. He grabbed my balled up fists in his strong hands, not minding the throw up on them and told me, "You don't ever have to be embarrassed in front of me. There's nothing you could do to make me disinterested in you."
Throughout high school Lee and I had remained friends, dating on and off, occasionally going to dances. Into our twenties we went to college in the same area and got together for drinks and such every now and then. In our 30's he watched in delight as my stomach grew with my first child and I cried in happiness for him at his wedding with his girlfriend of three years. In our 40's we became closer as our children became friends, but it was now in our late 50's with our children all grown up where we were most affectionate.
Throughout all these years there was always something blocking our relationship: me. In my youth I had gone through many foster homes and as a teen I had finally found an adopted family. They were fine and gave me food, water, shelter and required conversation, but did not treat me with enough love for a child who had fought through hard times. Lee was the only one who I had ever talked to about my childhood and I was the only one he could confide with about his wife's passing away last October. My hard youth was the reason our relationship never went any where; I was afraid to say the three words Lee liked to say most. Every time we parted, even if it was only a day until we saw each other again, he always told me, "I love you." with a sweet kiss on the cheek. He always waited for my response, hoping that over the years it would change, but I always replied with, "I like you, Lee." or a changed topic. We had fought over this so many times, and I always stood grounded and apologized with promises to change, which I would never stay true to, while he either screamed or sobbed at me, not knowing the reason I couldn't tell him that I loved him. My argument was always, "Why would I need to say it when I can show it?". But that was not the reason for my lacking of the words he wanted so bad; it was because I was insecure and afraid that as soon as I would say, "I love you." he would leave me the way my foster parents had left me over the years.
It was my 58th birthday, but it was just another birthday that my husband, Mark, had forgotten about. I sighed, trying to hold back tears when I awoke to find an empty bed beside me. This was nothing new because Mark was always busy with 'the boys', playing poker and betting on race horses at the track at all hours of the day, but sometimes I held my expectations too high. I got out of bed, still wearing my pajamas that Lee had given me for Christmas this year. As I poured some coffee, I thought to myself, Why didn't I ever have an intimate relationship with Lee? He would have been perfect for me, he would never forget my birthday. Just then, a loud knock from the door broke my train of thought. I could already see through the window next to the door that it was Lee, and my face broke into the first huge grin in weeks. He had a smile just as wide as mine when he saw me, which made my heart pound like the silly teenager I had been when I first met him. I opened the door and he dropped the flowers he had been holding for me onto the floor as he grabbed me into a huge bear hug. While he gripped me tightly in his arms, I did something I had never tried to do to Lee, or any other man besides my husband before. I pulled his mouth up to mine, and my lips touched his tightly, with a youthful passion I hadn't felt for many years. We broke slowly apart, and I smiled at him and looked into his bright blue eyes with tiny crinkles lining them. He looked pretty much ecstatic and brought me up to him once more for a long kiss, with a little tongue. I didn't feel one bit of guilt about Mark finding out, and just kissed him back, laughing in a way I hadn't laughed since late nights with Lee having drinks in my apartment during college. He grabbed my hand, the same way he did in the bathroom so many years ago when I was so ashamed of my tears, and gingerly eased me out of the kiss as he dragged me, still giggling, up onto the hill by the garden Lee and I had worked on in summers previous. We sat down on the plush, green grass and he took a tiny, antique box out of his pocket and set it into my hands. "Happy birthday!" he said excitedly and watched my eyes grow huge in surprise when I opened the box and found a silver ring, with a big cut of turquoise encrusted on it.
"It used to be my grandmas, she told me to give it to someone who I really love." Lee said, watching me admire the slightly tarnished, yet exquisite ring, nestled in the old box. I frowned for a minute and asked him, "Does that mean that this belong to your wife before she...you know...passed away?" He shook his head with an identical frown to match mine, "No. I have only really loved one person my whole life." A thoughtful pause settled between both of us as we laid side-by-side watching the sunrise in the morning sky surrounded by puffy white clouds. I realized that throughout my life, there had been only one person who was always there for me, the only one who would listen through my problems, whether about my marital issues or my dissecting disasters and there was only one person who I -- "I love you, Lee." I quietly murmured. His arm tightened around my shoulder as he looked at me in shock.
"Wha-what did you say?" Lee asked me, a smile begging to form on his beautiful, large lips. I was shaking so hard, trying to find the strength in me to say the words again, knowing if I couldn't repeat myself, Lee's heart would be wounded by me yet again and the smile that had been forming on his face would melt off and leave a trace of the usual disappointment.
"I love you." I finally stated, warmth flooding through me from my inner core to the tips of my toes. Lee responded by kissing me full-on, his hands holding my head in his hands and pressing my lips to his face, and every worry I had ever had, left me in that moment.