Emotions can be so difficult to untangle. I am worried that I may not be able to do so for Freya before she makes a decision she will regret.
Freya got a call from Ryan yesterday. He is passing through Boston over the weekend and wanted to get coffee with her to catch up. Freya was surprised by how happy she was to hear his voice, and she agreed immediately. It was only after they had arranged a time to meet that Freya realized that it might make her late for a date with Elliott.
She did not let it worry her. She told Elliott that she would be meeting a friend, not concerned by the information that she was leaving out. I wasn’t either. That was my mistake.
Today, when Freya breezed into the restaurant where she and Elliott were having dinner, she was only fifteen minutes late, and Elliott didn’t say a word about her absence. She kissed his cheek, and they chatted for a while. He did not blink at the information that her friend was a man, and I thought all would be well. But later, after they had ordered, Elliott asked how she knew Ryan.
“We went to college together,” Freya said. In her chest was a small twinge of guilt, and I looked curiously at her. This was now her third opportunity to tell the truth about her past relationship with Ryan, and she had not only avoided it, she had done so intentionally. This worried me—why did she want to lie to him?
“So you had a lot to catch up on, then,” Elliott said with a smile.
Freya hesitated, the guilt growing stronger. I leaned in close and murmured, “You are far too brave not to be honest with him.”
She stiffened her spine and looked Elliott in the eye. “Actually, we used to date.”
Elliott’s smile disappeared, and he let go of Freya’s hand. “Oh. You didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” Freya said with a shrug. “I know you trust me.”
Her carelessness made Elliott angry, and I wondered if I had made a mistake in emphasizing bravery over humility. “I do trust you, but I still think it was something that I deserved to know.” He took a sip of his drink. “How long ago?”
“About two years.”
“How long were you together?”
“What is this, an interrogation?” Freya asked, beginning to get irritated herself.
“Gently,” I said to her. “He is right—he deserves to know.”
Again she shrugged. “We were together for about six months, all right? I got the sense that he was starting to get kind of serious, and I wasn’t, so I broke it off. He was cool, and we’re still friends.”
As she said it, however, she remembered how nice it had been to be with Ryan, how sweet and comfortable, and I began to wish that I had gone with her to meet him. I hadn’t expected that she would feel this way—she has not often thought of Ryan since their relationship ended and she moved on. But his reappearance in her life seems to have reawakened some of the feelings she once had for him.
Unfortunately, Elliott saw some of this in her face. “So it was good to see him again?”
Freya heard the underlying question and met it with impatience rather than comfort. “Please, Ell, he’s just a friend. Don’t get all possessive on me.”
Elliott backed off, but there was a cold knot in his stomach for the rest of the evening, and when Freya invited him to have dessert at her house, he made an excuse and left her with a light kiss. Freya, knowing that something was wrong, lingered at the restaurant, frowning at the table and trying to think.
I stayed with her, watching the course of her thoughts. She was comparing Elliott and Ryan, but she wasn’t sure how the two came out. Elliott was present, vivid, and she knew that a great deal of the feeling for Ryan was simply nostalgia.
“But not all of it,” I told her. I had seen the warmth of nostalgia in Gabrielle only days ago, and this was more.
“Do you want to be with Ryan again?” I asked her.
She sat up and shook her head. Ryan was in the past for her, she was almost certain—almost. But seeing him had made her realize the imperfections of her relationship with Elliott.
Which is only to be expected. They have been together for a few months now, and so it is only natural that some of the novelty has worn off. Now is the time to consider what the future of the relationship will be.
“Do you love Elliott?”
Freya’s eyes narrowed. She was not ready to think of even the implication of that word.
“Do you want to stay with him?”
Her response to this was less clear. She drew back from the thought of ending the relationship—it is light and easy and comfortable. But then, she did not quite like the way Elliott had acted tonight.
“You should have told him the truth right away,” I said, trying to be stern. It was difficult when she looked so low.
She acknowledged that with a rueful smile, and she decided then that she would apologize to Elliott and sit him down to talk about this. But none of that could undo what she was thinking.
I leaned closer to her. “What is missing in this relationship that you had with Ryan?”
Freya had to think about this for several moments. Finally she thought of something—there was a history between herself and Ryan that she did not have with Elliott. They had been friends before they had been lovers, and that gave them a level of understanding. In a very real way, Elliott is still a stranger to her.
“Becoming less so every day.”
But that was the question, I realized as Freya drummed her fingers on the table. Did she want to stay and put more energy into the relationship to reach that level of understanding, or was it not worth the effort?
“You left Ryan because he did not hold your heart,” I reminded her. “Perhaps that very strangeness of Elliott will draw you in and catch your heart.”
Shaking her head, Freya dropped some extra cash on the table for sitting so long and left the restaurant.
She is unconvinced, but I hope that I can get her to realize that she cannot give up just yet. As nice as a comfortable love may seem to her, I do not think that it will ever hold her for long. My fire woman needs sparks in her relationships, newness and rarity and perhaps a bit of uncertainty. I think that there is potential for that with Elliott. Now if I can just convince her!