Wondering

Need­less to say, I was dev­as­tated. While Mary had never ver­bally expressed her love for me, that mes­sage had cer­tainly been con­veyed in her phys­i­cal responses to me. As I read ’n’ reread her let­ter, between the lines I spot­ted an imma­ture love, one in which she wanted to enjoy the lux­ury of a roman­tic rela­tion­ship with no strings attached. Well I wasn’t going to stand for it. And I told her as much in a let­ter I fired off.

I couldn’t con­tinue on with the rela­tion­ship as just a friend, unless she was more open to the love that was there. For we were more than good friends, we were also roman­ti­cally involved with each other and had been for some time now, whether she wanted to admit it or not. I wasn’t ask­ing her to marry me when I expressed the love I felt for her, if that’s what was scar­ing her off, for I was no more ready to marry than she was. While I courted her with the idea of mar­riage in the back of my mind, at this point, I knew only that I loved her very much.

Or was I only fool­ing myself? Was I guilty of roman­ti­ciz­ing a friendship—of refus­ing to accept the true nature of the rela­tion­ship? Or was she back­ing off from me again because of the insta­bil­ity I was exhibit­ing, only this time, with the Navy? Nei­ther one of us seemed open to the other’s posi­tion, nei­ther she to courtship, nor I to a mere friend­ship. And yet, because the rela­tion­ship still held up before our eyes some unknown poten­tial, nei­ther one was will­ing to let go. Had we fallen for each other then, before either one of us was ready for love? Is that what she was really try­ing to tell me in her let­ter? While I wouldn’t know for sure until I heard from her again, I couldn’t help wondering.