Talking About The Boys

“I need some advice,” I said out of the blue. The movie we were watching was over and we were barely listening to the upcoming movies so I figured it would be a good time to get the girls opinion on what I should do; this trip was, after all, about me reconnecting with them.

“What’s going on Aunt Anna?” Cassie sat up on her bed.

“Is it about boys?” Natalie giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Actually,” I glanced from Nat to Lindsay and finally to Cassie. “It is about boys. I don’t know what to do.” With all three of them waiting to hear what I was about to tell them, I wondered if I should. Was this something they needed to be in on? Would either one of us benefit from them knowing?

“Aunt Anna?”

“Ok,” I jumped into a sitting position as I motioned the three of them closer. I waited until Cass and Linds joined Nat and me on our bed. When they were all seated comfortably around me, I took a breath and smiled. “So as you all know, Josh and I broke up last week -”

“We know,” Lindsay cut in. “It sucks, I liked Josh, he was cool. Remember when he invited me to go to the park with you guys and Jess? I had the best time ever. And when he played video games with Cass and me?” She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “None of your other boyfriends cared about us.”

“Lindsay, I’m sorry. I know you really liked Josh but things just weren’t working out for us.”

“But you love him,” she whined. “I know you did, you were over the moon when you heard from him and then, when he came over?” She sighed, “You love him Aunt Anna, I know you do.”

“What about Uncle Jordan?” Natalie peered up at me. “Daddy says Uncle Jordan is your soul mate.” She frowned, “What’s a soul mate Aunt Anna?”

“No!” Lindsay protested. “Sure Uncle Jordan is nice and all but he’s your best friend, not your boyfriend!”

“Oh get real Lindsay!” Cassie rolled her eyes. “Jordan is perfect. Aunt Anna would be lucky to be his girlfriend and I know he loves her completely.” She sat back, crossed her arms and stared down her nose at her sister. “Friends make the best lovers.”

“Lovers?” Natalie looked at me questioningly. “What’s that Aunt Anna? And what is a soul mate?”

“Nat a soul mate is someone who is your equal in every way; the person you were meant to spend the rest of your life with. Your mom is your dad’s soul mate like Aunt Susan is Uncle Chad’s soul mate.”

“Oh,” she nodded and then started to giggle. “Are you going to marry Uncle Jordan? Are you going to have babies Aunt Anna?”

“God you are so dumb Nat.”

“Cassandra Christensen! You apologize to your sister right now!” I gave Cass a dirty look. “We don’t call each other dumb, that’s not how we handle things.”

“Sorry,” Cass mumbled.

“It’s ok,” Natalie told her before turning to me. “I like Uncle Jordan.”

Smiling, I told her I did too. “But Natalie it’s not that easy, there are so many things that get in the way.”

“Like what?” She asked so innocently and it seemed that the other girls wanted to know as well.

“Well…” I groaned. “Life gets complicated when you get older. Tings you wish to happen seem to be the one thing you can’t achieve. I really liked Josh, I wanted to be with him forever but we fought a lot and things weren’t the same after the kiss with Uncle Jordan.”

“But you liked kissing Jordan, right?”

I glanced at Cass. “Well…I didn’t hate it.” Shaking my head, I told them it didn’t matter, it was wrong. “I shouldn’t have let Jordan come between us like that.”

“The why did you?”

“I don’t know,” I quickly replied but the girls didn’t believe that, they wanted the real reason. “Well, ok. It’s like this. I like Josh, I mean, really, really like Josh. Damn it girls, I wanted to marry him and he was the main priority in my life but it was way too fast. Way too fast. I think I knew that deep down but nothing seemed to change that. I lost myself in the relationship and it wasn’t the way I wanted to be. It seemed I couldn’t be me and be with Josh.”

“But with Jordan you could be yourself?”

“Yeah, I could. He’s known me all my life, he knows who I am and he likes me the way I am.”

“So?” Cassie grinned as she raised her brow with cheerful expectation. “Are you going to date Jordan?”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “Oh he wants to take the next step in our relationship and be more than friends, and I want too see what’s there too.”

“But?” Lindsay now looked hopeful.

“Well I don’t know if I did the right thing with Josh. Maybe we were just going too fast, maybe we need to slow down or take a break.” Cassie groaned. “It’s not easy Cassie! I still have feelings for Josh and I can’t stop those feelings. I wish I could, it wouldn’t hurt so much that we aren’t together.”

“You don’t seem like you are hurting Aunt Anna.”

“Lindsay, I wish that were true. Sure, I’m not acting like I did the first time we broke up, that’s because this time, we both decided that it would be best that we break up. Neither one of us did anything wrong, it’s just…not our time, I guess.”

The girls sat there for a while, just taking in what I said. Cassie was the first to talk. “So umm…” she frowned. “It’s like when I broke up with Ben? It didn’t break me but yet I didn’t forget about him? I still loved him.”

“Yes!” Lindsay shouted suddenly, we all looked at her, worried that she was losing it. “What? If Cassie and Ben can get back together, that means that you and Josh can!” She grinned like she won the lottery. “So what will it take for you to date Josh again? See other men? Date Uncle Jordan and get over that?”

“Lindsay!”

“Aunt Anna isn’t going to use Jordan like that Lindsay,” Cassie said in disgust. “They are best friends, that’s an important bond.”

“I didn’t say use Cassie, I said date him and get over it. Aunt Anna loves Josh and he’s the one for her - her soul mate.”

“Daddy says Uncle Jordan is and Mommy agrees.”

“Argh!” Lindsay threw up her arms in frustration.

A mini fight broke out between the girls about who exactly is my soul mate. I listened for a while, they raised some valid points but it wasn’t anything that I didn’t think of before. It was getting me nowhere and that wasn’t even the point of what I started to tell them in the first place. “Girls! Please! Stop, this wasn’t supposed to be about Josh and Jordan. I wanted to talk to you about Scott.”

“Scott?” All three of them looked at me in utter confusion but only Natalie thought to ask who Scott was.

“He’s the front desk guy,” I informed them and went on to tell them about the little exchange downstairs. “So he wants me to meet him in the lounge after 11 but I don’t know if I want to go; this trip was about hanging out with you three not picking up strange men in hotels.”

The girls asked me to give them a minute before they huddled together and talked about the situation. In the end they came back to me and three of them were in agreement - they all thought I should take him up on that offer.

“It’s not like you have to date him Aunt Anna,” Cassie told me. “Go, have a drink, play some pool and then come back to hang with us. It’s not like we’ll be doing anything, anyway, we’ll just be sleeping. I can watch both of these two.”

It seemed that I was going to be meeting up with Scott. I was excited, all my thoughts were focused on what I would say to him and how serious I would get with him while I showered and dressed.

But in the end, it was all for nought. Just as I was about to leave, Natalie, who was sleeping soundly in our bed, woke up screaming and crying. She had a really bad nightmare that involved her parents. She was crying so badly, I couldn’t make out what she was saying but I did understand her, “I want my daddy!”

At 11:30, I was calling my brother so that Natalie could see that her Mommy and Daddy were ok. By the time we all had a turn speaking to them, it was after midnight and Natalie didn’t want me to leave.