To Quench Our Love

Table of Contents

Part 1:

**Chapter 1: The Lonely Silence of Holidays (6,342 words)

**Chapter 2: Just That But Also Something More (1,638 words)

**Chapter 3: Whence Rivers Come, There They Return (11,301 words)

Part 2:

**Chapter 4: They were Yung and Easily Freudened (4,231 words)

**Chapter 5: The Love in Your Heart (9,463 words)

**Chapter 6: Nothing More, Nothing Less (9,601 words)

Part 3:

**Chapter 7: Title TBD (~4,010 words)

**Chapter 8: Title TBD (~6,973 words)

**Chapter 9: Title TBD (in progress)

**Chapter 10: Rivers Cannot Sweep Us Away (planned as final chapter)

Chapter 4: They were Yung and Easily Freudened

I had watched other relationships fall apart before. Before Polly, I had always either been desperately trying to save the relationship or trying to push things to their inevitable conclusion. When they did fail, I was always one or more of annoyed, bitter, or angry. Like I didn't want to be the bad guy, but I had lost the platform to show that I was the good guy and she was the bad guy.

But with Polly, I hardly noticed we were going down the path to breaking up. I suppose I did, in those two weeks where she hardly responded to me. But my focus really was on trying to make things easiest for her. In the past, I would have been searching for validation, trying to make sure we were staying together.

And once we broke up, all I felt was loss. A profound emptiness in all my thoughts and movements. There was no anger or annoyance. As the months plodded by, part of me thought that maybe I should be frustrated, frustrated that she would have the audacity to tell me she loved me and break up with me in the next sentence. But I wasn't. I was only worried about her.

I didn't hear from her at all. I didn't reach out either. When I thought about whether I should, my brain went to war, part reasoning that she would be happy to hear from me, and part reasoning that she did need the space and needed to focus on healing her way. But I avoided those thoughts because the war in my brain was too stress-inducing. There was no way to know the right answer: with the way Polly had shut down after her dad died, there was no guarantee she would be open about how she felt to get my call. So most of the time, I just lived in emptiness.

Nikki, my one friend at work noticed quickly. "Something happened with your girlfriend," she observed a few days after the breakup.

"Her dad had a second heart attack and passed away," I told her. "She moved home."

"That sounds awful."

"It was."

"So are you doing long distance?" she asked.

"No. She said she couldn't handle a relationship."

"I'm so sorry."

"I am too."

"I should get back." I could tell she didn't know if we were there yet to talk about the breakup. Even if we were, I wasn't.

"No problem."

My communication with Nikki was noticeably dampened after that exchange, perhaps because of my return to a detached demeanor or perhaps because a single man is less approachable than a taken one. But as time passed, I loosened up a bit and Nikki started to press our friendship more. I had read somewhere that young men are popular at the office because they remind the older men of themselves and make the older women feel young. I could feel the latter was true for Nikki. And she especially liked having someone to gossip with that had no other friends at the office. I returned that exchange of social capital by using my invisibility to my advantage, occasionally getting a little tidbit that Nikki would enjoy.

But I never talked to Nikki about Polly again. I wanted to talk to someone, but there was no one. Nikki would have made the most sense, but I felt that such a discussion was too deep. Besides, any time I played out a conversation about Polly in my mind, I came off like a whiner and wimp. I was a grown man, no one could understand why I wouldn't just call her. Still, I didn't, except for an agonizing happy birthday text in April, which she said "Thank you" to the following day. I finally visited my parents in May of that year, and still didn't reach out to Polly. I endlessly fantasized about running into her as I was out and about around town, but I didn't say anything. Looking back, I think I should have. But at the time, calling her just seemed wrong.

The holiday season rolled around, money was good but I had lost the motivation to spruce up my house. Nikki invited me to their Thanksgiving dinner, but I declined and said maybe next time. She told me next time wouldn't be for three years because she rotated Thanksgiving with her sisters, but I still declined. She still pressed and I still said no, somehow managing to ward her off without mentioning the real reason: I couldn't bear the thought of Thanksgiving without Polly.

I felt like a dork, but I made myself yams, cranberry sauce, and my best imitation of Polly's stuffing on Thanksgiving. A terrible imitation, really, I could have done better just using a box. The whole thing was stupid, I told myself, when I could just call her. That day of all days was the day to call her. While I was basically having a meal in her honor. But we'd been silent for almost a year, such a call would be too weird.

After that day, the questions about calling Polly were gone. I still loved her, no question, but there was no back and forth. I accepted - or convinced myself - that respecting Polly's wishes for the healing process was the greatest love that I could show. And apparently, Nikki could again read the change in me, even if I rarely actively thought about Polly anymore. She found me in private just before Christmas and started the conversation bluntly. "I think you should come to Christmas at my house and meet my niece," she said.

"You don't rotate Christmas with your sisters?" I asked in reply.

"No, we do local Christmases for our kids. But Heather's grown and lives here so she comes to our house."

"Is this what the Thanksgiving invite was really about?"

She bobbed her head and said, "Yes, but that was too soon. You're ready now."

I laughed. "How can you know that?"

"You seem at peace. In the past year, you could be funny or energetic, but there was a darkness around you. You're not happy like when you had a girlfriend, but the darkness has been gone."

"Should I be disturbed that you're noticing all this?"

"I just have a good sense for people. So does Heather. But she's single and a lot better looking than me. So I'll see you Saturday?"

"Fine. But I'm going because we're friends, not to put the moves on your niece."

"You'll change your mind about that," she joked.

But she was right. Heather was a bombshell. Comparing her and Polly, they were like characters in a movie, where one's supposed to be the hot cheerleader and the other's the humble girl-next-door, but they cast some incredibly attractive actress for the girl-next-door and just do her up more plainly. Heather was the popular type and Polly was the average type, and while Polly was far more attractive than Heather (at least to me), Heather was nothing to sneeze at. Nonetheless, I didn't really put the moves on her. Nikki and I mostly talked about work, while Heather mostly entertained her cousins. Nikki's husband chimed into our conversation. Most of my interaction with Heather came when I told Nikki that I thought one of our accountants wasn't going to hack it. Nikki said she knew her to complain a lot, and I said she had become terrible at her job, with every little task seeming to put her on the verge of a breakdown. "You want to work with us?" Nikki called over to Heather.

"Y'all hiring?" she responded.

"Not yet," I said, "but I think Jaime is racing to find a new job before they can her."

"Who's Jaime?" Heather asked.

"Accountant," Nikki answered, flaring her eyes.

"Well yeah, it'd be great to work a real accounting job."

"What do you do now?" I asked.

"I keep books for some dentist's tiny office, the accounting work is so basic that I'm basically just a receptionist."

"Well I'll let you know if I hear anything," Nikki offered.

I thought about Heather's description of her own job. I don't think Polly would have said "just a receptionist" about anyone's job, even her own. She worked with a lot of low-income kids and always pointed out that whatever the shortcomings of an individual, their role and our words affected the people around them and around us, so everyone needed to be held in high regard to help encourage the younger generation to find ways to rise up. Then I blocked the thought. Comparing women I meet to Polly was fruitless, even if Heather and I didn't seem on the path to any form of continued acquaintance.

Until that accountant did quit. Nikki called her niece and a month later, I met Heather for a second time. She and her aunt were apparently quite friendly, so while Heather was attractive and amiable, she stuck to Nikki and by extension, she and I started to become friendly. We even started having lunch together when Nikki couldn't join. The friendship was more to pass the time than anything, we didn't have deep conversations and mostly talked about work. But she was nice and she was pretty, so eventually I said to her at a lunch Nikki couldn't make, "You know your aunt wanted to set us up?"

"Wanted?" Heather replied. "No, that didn't end. I can't see my cousins without hearing about you first."

"You see them a lot?"

"Here and there. I'm their babysitter but they don't go out much, so I stop by every two or three weeks."

"So it's not too annoying then."

"Oh you don't know my family," she said. "We're all up in each other's business, there could be worse things."

"Like secretly hating each other but too lazy to do anything about it?"

"That seems oddly specific."

"Go figure."

"I think she does it because she has a crush on you though."

"That's ridiculous," I said.

"Not really. I mean, I'm not saying to start hitting on her, she still loves my uncle, but like, it's kind of the only explanation."

"She does seem to observe me carefully. She figured out when I got a girlfriend, when we broke up, and when I got over her."

"Let me guess, good sense for people?"

"Exactly."

"We all have that. The women in our family."

"Then why be nosy?"

"What else is there to do?"

I shrugged and took a few bites of my lunch. Then Heather spoke up again. "But she's probably right, I just hate being set up."

"Why's that?"

Now was Heather's turn to shrug and eat. I stared out of the side of my eye until she broke. "My first boyfriend after high school was a setup," she said. "And it felt like my friend was more invested in the relationship than either of us were."

"Awkward," I said, an apt word for both that situation and our own.

"Really. I almost broke up with him just for that. But I stuck it out until I realized he was going nowhere in life."

I decided to put it out there. "So you won't go out with me because you don't want to be set up again?" I didn't like her per se, but it seemed safe enough to try.

"I didn't say I wouldn't go out with you."

"Then are you free Friday night? I won't tell Nikki."

She laughed. "I am, Romeo. But apparently she'll know soon enough so no fighting in the streets."

So we went out. And we went out again. The relationship was very by-the-book. We would do a date on the weekends and talk a bit during the week. I went slow. I may have gone slow because we didn't seem to have very much in common, or maybe because I still wasn't over Polly. She was the closest thing to a swimsuit model that I've ever dated (even though I found Polly more attractive), yet the urge to push the physical aspects of the relationship weren't there. But she seemed to like me and she seemed like someone I could be with long-term. She was attractive, smart, friendly, and despite not having a 4-year degree yet, she was driven. Her mom had had her very young, so 4-year college wasn't initially in the cards for her, but she had transfer applications out at UCSD, USD, and San Diego State. She'd be starting college at age twenty-four, but she figured she had to bite the bullet and make the investment before her career went too long.

Eventually, though, she called me out on my slowness. While leaving a restaurant after a date, she asked me, "Why don't you ever invite me back to your place?"

"You've been to my house," I stated. She had, but I knew what she meant. And she knew I knew what she meant.

"That's not what I mean."

I sighed. "I don't know, really. It's not my first rodeo, and I'm enjoying our time together, I don't really know."

"My aunt thinks you might not be over your ex."

"So she knows about us now?" The muscles in my cheeks flinched ever so slightly, but I held fast and prevented a visible reaction. Gun to my head, I didn't think I would ever get over Polly, but I believed I could make a place for someone else.

"No, but she's mentioned it."

"I don't think it has anything to do with my ex." I had never called Polly "my ex" before. The words felt wrong, but anything else would indicate too much intimacy, and Heather might notice. "I think sometimes it's just hard for me to transition. Friends with your aunt, coworkers, then friends with you, it's just weird."

"I guess." She looked around then continued. "It's kind of nice, honestly. Not many men talk to me with intentions beyond inviting me in. And those who are interested don't usually have a house, a good job, and a degree." Then she looked straight at me. "But it's also pretty weird."

"It's not going to be Charlotte's first marriage, if that's what you're thinking."

"You watch that show?"

"No, but I told you, it's not my first rodeo."

"Well then, if you won't invite me to your place, why don't you come back to mine?"

"I think we'll be more comfortable without roommates at mine."

She laughed and touched my hand. We went back to my place. She was a bit lazy in bed, but I figured with her looks she was used to guys just wanting to pound it out. She almost seemed uninterested as we made out, and the only sign that she wanted to go further was when she moved my hand to her breast. Until that moment she had kissed back but the rest of her body mostly laid on my bed like a sandbag. She seemed to respond better to the more intimate touching, but when I tried to go down on her, she stopped me because "that's weird." She told me she was ready, that I should "just go for it," but as I touched her with my fingers to find the destination, I could tell she was not ready. So I fingered her for a bit. She responded well, and orgasmed far more quickly than I expected. Then I prepared to "go for it," but she breathlessly put her hand on my chest and told me that that was so good that she needed a minute. Then she said she was probably too sensitive down there to continue but she wanted to finish me. That really wasn't necessary, but it seemed weird to say no, so she started giving me a dry hand job. She realized that wasn't working, so she got some vaseline from her purse, which was a little better, but I was so worked up from trying to please her that I really couldn't get into what we were now doing. Eventually I had to think about things outside of our current situation, and when one of the times Polly and I had sex crossed my mind, I finally got going. I tried to block the image, but after so much effort, the thought brought the release that signaled we were done. I felt a touch guilty thinking about my previous partner in my very first time with this one, but that wasn't the first time I had thought about a different situation to finish off the current one. But usually the thoughts were ambiguous and without feeling, this time I had thought back to something passionate. No matter, thoughts were just thoughts.

We took that step I think in March 2011. Maybe April. We became official in April, a few days after Heather and I managed to have intercourse for the first time. Prior attempts, like the first one, had been stifled by Heather feeling overstimulated from me trying to make sure she was enjoying. The problem was Heather didn't seem to enjoy things as much once we had intercourse. Sometimes entry would be painful for her, which she variously thought was the lubricant or latex of our protection, but unlubricated and non-latex varieties didn't seem to fare better.

I clearly remember when we became official because a few days later, before we even got to tell Nikki, I got called to boyfriend duty. Heather called me after work and shouted into the phone, "I got rejected from UCSD!"

"Heather, I'm sorry," I commiserated.

"Fuck, this sucks, what am I going to do?"

"Well you still have two other schools."

"I already got in to SDSU, but who the fuck wants to go there?"

"Lots of people." I realized quickly that I should have kept that one to myself. But why apply if you don't want to go?

"Yeah lots of losers. I pretty much have a job that San Diego State people get. And USD is taking their sweet time."

"I mean, it's frustrating, but you don't need them to accomplish all your goals."

"No one's going to care if I went to a state school. They're going to want to see UC."

"I don't think that's necessarily true, and you're still waiting on USD."

"No, if I didn't get in to UCSD, why would USD want me? Fuck, I can't believe I'm going to a state school."

And so went the conversation for two hours. Yes, two hours, I checked my phone afterward. I tried to listen and understand and commiserate, which seemed to lead to more anger, twice directed at me (once for having gone to college right after high school, and once for having a conventional family). I tried telling her that they couldn't see how great she was and that their acceptance wasn't what defined her, which was apparently "stupid" and not the way society works. And against my better judgement, a few times I tried giving advice, which was about as well-received as one would expect. A few times Heather tried to hang up under the guise that she shouldn't be wasting my time or that she must be boring me, but I, in my mind, had learned from that mistake with my last relationship and told her that I didn't want to hang up unless she did. She finally did own up to wanting to go when she had talked herself dry, but she really didn't seem to feel any better. She seemed have more despair, not less, and I had wasted an evening.

Heather seemed to recover from the college situation and we didn't say anything about it for a few days. Our focus as a couple turned to telling Nikki, so Heather casually scheduled a Friday lunch out for the three of us. Heather started the announcement with, "So, Aunt Nikki, I probably should have told you this sooner, but I had my reasons, but," a pause, perhaps for drama or perhaps to prepare herself, "Jack and I have been dating for a few weeks and you're the first person to know we're officially together.'

"You're kidding!" Nikki said with her eyes flared.

"No," I said as Heather shook her head.

"I had no idea! I mean, I knew something was up with you because you weren't coming over as much, but Jack, how'd you hide it?"

"I mean, I know you and I had to respect her wishes," I lied. I really hadn't made a conscious effort to act a particular way.

"Why the secrecy, though?" Nikki asked while looking at Heather.

"Remember that guy I dated, Danny? It was before I moved here."

"No not really."

"Oh. Well he and I were set up by a friend, and she was constantly up in our business. So I liked Jack but I was afraid I'd get all paranoid if I told you too soon."

"Well I promise to stay out of your business. I'm just so happy for you guys!"

And she did stay out of our business, mostly. Nikki was present at fewer and fewer of our lunches, but Heather and I did start going Nikki's house here and there. We didn't change all that much except the frequency of time spent together, I suppose we were just feeling each other out to make sure the relationship was right for us. Heather did seem to check most of the boxes for what I wanted in a future wife: smart, kind, driven, and aware of her own shortcomings. We didn't share many interests, but we had enough fun together and the lack of common interest didn't seem to bother either of us.