Controlling My Life

I didn’t know what to do. Normally when things are confusing for me, I go to one of two people - Zack or Jordan - to talk things through. I couldn’t go to either one of them, for obvious reasons. Zack would tell me to give Jordan a chance and Jordan, well he would be all for giving him a chance too.

But I didn’t want to give him a chance, he had plenty of opportunity from the time he realized that he had deeper feelings for me until I started dating Josh to tell me he wanted a chance to see how things would be with us. Maybe then I would’ve given him that chance.

Maybe.

All I knew that night was there was no way I was going to give up what I had with Josh. It didn’t matter that things weren’t perfect between us at the moment. All that mattered to me was that we honestly tried to make things work - despite all the outside opinions that we couldn’t last.
We could and we would.

I went to bed that night determined that no one was going to get between Josh and me.

Dreams started almost the second after I closed my eyes. I dreamt of Josh, being in his arms on a front porch swing, watching Jesse run around with a puppy in the green grass that so badly needed a cut. We seemed happy. I felt love surround me - maybe it was his arms around me but whatever it was, I was happy and content.

“The grass needs to be cut,” I told him. “Soon you won’t be able to see them playing in the yard.”

“Hmmm, I’ll do it tomorrow,” he promised. “Right now, I just want to be with you.” He paused, squeezed me tight as Jesse and the puppy came running up to the porch. “It’s always a perfect day when I have my girls with me.”

I lifted my head off his chest. “Such sweet words,” I laughed. “But honey I know you can be anything but sweet.” I leaned forward and slipped my hands under tiny arms as I lifted Jenna up and plopped her on his lap. “Your daddy is trying to be a ‘gentleman’ again.”

“Daddy,” she giggled as we both looked up at Jordan.

“See? Even Jenna thinks it’s funny.”

“Ha ha,” he brushed my forehead with his lips. “I’ll show you just how gentlemanly I can be later Babe.” He gave me a look that melted my insides. “Much later.”

“Ama! Doggy’s tongue tickles!” I look down to see Doggy - yes, that’s what Jesse called his puppy - licking Jesse’s hand.

“He wants to play Jess,” Josh’s baritone breaks through the giggles his little boy makes as Doggy licks his hand. “Why don’t you take his tug rope and…”

“Ok Daddy!” Jesse slipped off Josh’s lap and onto the porch where Doggy took that chance to leap all over him. Jesse collapsed into a fit of laughter as his daddy wrapped himself around me.

“This is probably the most perfect moment in our lives honey.”

“No, Anna. This moment could be more perfect.” I asked him how. “We could be joined forever. We could…” he unwrapped himself from me and slipped to the floor before me. “Anna I’ve loved you all my life,” Jordan’s green eyes stared deep into my soul. “I denied it for so long, I’ve tried to hide what I truly felt but I can’t any longer. I love you, I need you, I want…” he pulled a dark blue ring box from his pocket and opened it for me. “I want to make you as happy as you’ve made me.”

Jordan smiled up at me, “Please Babe. Marry me?” The same moment, I saw and heard Josh where Jordan was, “I love you Beautiful, please marry me.”

“NO!” I shouted out as I sat upright in bed. “No, no, no, no, no!” My heart was beating frantically, I thought it would just leap from my chest. It freaked me out, to see Josh and Jordan morph from one to the other in my dream. For Jesse and Jenna to be interchangeable like that. It was scary. But that’s how it was, my dream, it was telling me that I was confused and I didn’t know what I was doing. It was telling me that I cared for both of them and I loved both of them.

Just who was the man for me?

That was one thing that the dream wasn’t about to tell me.

Why are you even thinking about this? You know who you want to be with. This dream was only your mind’s way of dealing with all the stress and confusion that they are creating for you. It’s time you stopped being confused and set your foot down.

I rolled over in my bed and stared at the clock on my bedside table. 3:20. Then my gaze shifted to my phone. I picked it up and without thinking about it, I flipped it open and dialled very familiar seven digit number. One that I could dial in my sleep if need be.

It would take four rings before I started to feel a little silly about calling and I little worried that he wasn’t home or that he wasn’t about to answer the phone to talk to me. “Or maybe he’s sleeping, it is -”

“Hello?” His gruff voice came over the phone in the middle of my little freak out.

“I need to come see you, right now. Is that ok?”

It took a moment for him to respond. I don’t believe it was that he was hesitating but just still shaking himself from the deep sleep that I pulled him from. “It’s ok Anna, you know you can come over whenever you like.”

“Good, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

With that I flipped my phone closed and pushed back the covers. It was time to start taking control over what as going on in my personal life.