Every Word Was A Piece Of My Heart
Part 1 - I Love You
Karen H.

It’s hard to escape your thoughts, especially when what you’re thinking about is right in front of your eyes. The movies finished and she’s done something that she hasn’t done in a while. She’s fallen asleep on my bed.

I just lie there beside her...looking at her for a while. Wondering why it is I can’t stop thinking about her? Knowing that I was never really focusing on the movie. Just on her.

Why can’t I just tell her what I want to tell her?

This shouldn’t make sense to me, I’m just out of one relationship and wanting into another. But it all makes perfect sense.

I get up and switch off the TV, pick up a blanket and then I just lie beside her...watching her sleep, all the while thinking of what she means to me.

It’s not the first time that I’ve done this.

I’ve done some uncharacteristic things these past few months. Shutting her out, pushing her away, throwing Jen in her face...blaming her for dad’s death.

I can’t decide on whether to tell her what I’ve been thinking about. Her, us.

I want to tell her...to say those three words.

I love you.

I’ve hurt her too much already...we’ve hurt each other too much.

But things just seem so right between us these day...it’s almost like we’ve found the relationship that we used to have. As friends.

I want more.

Could she ever possibly want that too? An ‘us’.

Do I even have the right to want to be with her?

I place the blanket over her, brush a strand of hair off of her face. She wriggles her nose a little and turns on her side with a small smile on her face as she sleeps.

I watch her for a few moments longer before reaching over and turning out the light.

As we pull up outside Joey’s dorm I’m suddenly aware of how much I don’t want her to go. I just want to sit with her...even in silence.

As I switch of the engine I feel her eyes on me, so I turn to look at her.

"What?" I ask.

She shakes her head and bites her bottom lip before saying, "Dawson, is something wrong?"

Where do I start. I look away from her as I reply. "No, nothing’s wrong."

"You know that if anything was wrong that you could tell me?"

I just nod my head as I look back at her.

"It’s just that you didn’t say much on the drive up here." She says knitting her eyebrows together.

"I was just thinking..." Should I really tell her?

"About Jen?"

"No...about Dad. It’s hard to drive down that stretch of road...where the accident happened...well without thinking about him." Why can’t I just tell her?

She just nods her head, not quite sure of what to say to me.

"It ‘will’ eventually get better Dawson. I can’t tell you when that will happen or that you’ll feel nothing...but it will happen." She tells me placing one hand gently on my knee. I give her a weak smile as she continues.

"What happened...Mitch dying. It happened at the worst possible moment for you. You had a decision to make and he didn’t like the path that you wanted to take. I know that you think that you’ve moved on from it...but you haven’t. You waken during the night thinking that it was a nightmare. Or that maybe it was just your imagination playing with you. Someone might say something that reminds you of him...or you’ll see something that reminds you of him, and it can seem as though your world is crashing down around you again. You manage to push it to the back of your mind...you might even succeed in telling yourself that it’s just because you still miss him. But that’s not what it is. It’s because you still haven’t gotten used to it. Eventually, once you come to terms with it and someone says something to remind you of him...it’ll be different. You’ll smile. Maybe it won’t be visible to everyone but you’ll know that deep down in here..." She says placing one of her hands over my heart. "...you’re smiling, because you have so many happy memories with him. And nothing...not even his dying can take that away from you."

I know that she’s right about this...she must be, she’s survived this.

"It’s been a while since we’ve really talked like this, hasn’t it?" I say as I take the hand that was resting over my heart in mine.

"Yeah. Well we’ve both had a lot of things going on lately."

I want to tell her that dad isn’t all that I was thinking about on our drive here. I was thinking about her...again. One question constantly going though my mind.

What if I never get the chance to tell her how I feel about her? It’s then that I make the decision...I ‘have’ to tell her.

"Do you have to go in just yet?" I ask her gesturing towards her building.

"Yeah...I have a few things that I have to do."

"Oh...well maybe we could do something together tomorrow." I say to her, a note of disappointment creeping into my voice.

A note that she picked up on. "What I have to do should only take me a few hours...we could do something later!" She says smiling.

"I’d like that." I let go of her hand. "What time will I come meet you at?"

"Um, around sevenish...we could go for some coffee."

"Okay. I’ll see you later Joey."

She opens the door and climbs out of the car. "See you later Dawson." She calls before closing the door.

"I love you." I whisper to the empty car. I feel a lot better because I know that before the night is over, I’m going to tell her.