(Now) Brody: I Told You So

I slaved away so you guys could have two posts this weekend.  Actually, I'm procrastinating, and this is an excellent way to do it!  If you didn't see that I posted yesterday, you should go read that post first.  I hope you enjoy this peek into Brody's thoughts!
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As much as I wished she wouldn't have done it, I get why Liv let Lauren move in.  Despite my anti-roommate protests, I would have done the same for Alex or Kevin or Christian in a heartbeat.  And I was still trying to wrap my head around Lauren and Alex dating, so I knew that Lauren moving in with him would be a questionable choice at best.  But when my stubborn-as-hell girlfriend found out she had gotten more than she bargained for, I wasn't shocked.

To be honest, it had its benefits.  I got to spend even more time with her, which was good.  I just took on a couple new high-profile clients and I was putting in extra hours again to make sure everything went perfectly.  It was worth it for my company's reputation to continue to get better and better, but it meant seeing less of Liv.  For her part, she was being surprisingly understanding about it.  I think knowing that I wouldn't unexpectedly have to travel helped a lot.  Plus, while I was spending more time at the office, my phone was ringing less after-hours, which meant fewer interruptions into the time I did get to spend with her.

We were also spending more time at my house.  While Liv's house is convenient and close to things to do, restaurants, and work, I loved my house.  I bought it for a reason.  It was sort of an impulse buy.  It was only the third house I looked at, and I put in an offer before I even left the showing.  When I walked in, it felt like mine, and it had everything on my "must-have" list, and almost everything from my "would be nice" list.  Turns out that there were already a couple offers on it, but I was bound and determined so I made an offer over listing price right there on the spot.  Two weeks later we closed and it was officially mine.  Luckily, the inspection had come back positively too; I would have been pissed if I'd had to walk away because of expansive soil damage or something.

It was a no-brainer for me to give Liv a key to my house.  I anticipated some frustration with her new roommate and it seemed like a logical next step.  Plus, I did have her key.  I was a little surprised that she had decided to use it already, but after seeing the mess that Lauren was capable of, it made sense.  But the first couple times she elected to spend a night at my house instead of hers, I had to fight an immature urge to say "I told you so."

The day that she started to just wander around my kitchen like it was hers, taking things out to make something to eat, was the day I started imagining what it would be like if it was hers.  Actually...ours.  Of course I had thought about living with Liv before...hell, I had thought about marrying Liv, having kids with Liv, being old with Liv.  But that was all sort of "what if?" fantasy.  As I stood in the doorway of my kitchen, watching her pull seemingly random things out to put together into a meal for us, I could actually imagine living with her.  Here.

It worried me that she was seemingly so against Lauren living with Alex.  I had no idea where she stood on someday moving in with me.  As far as I knew, she hadn't really thought about it.  I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  I wanted to marry her.  I may not have a lot of actual relationship experience but I know what I want, and just like my house, Liv has everything on my "must-have" list, and most of the things on my "would be nice" list. 

We had planned for Liv to spend the weekend at my house, and when I came home on Friday to Liv and dinner, I was sold on wanting to live with her.  Look, I'm not a 1950s jackass that expects dinner on the table when I get home, but I dare anyone to deny that coming home to a beautiful woman and an amazing dinner already prepared is one of the best ways to end a long week.

I figured it was as good a time as any to broach the subject.  She was irritated with Lauren and clearly making herself at home here, so why not?  I intended for it to come out a little more experimentally and a little less "hey, why don't you move in here next week?", but I was nervous and it came out less as a suggestion of something to explore, and more as a suggestion for an immediate solution to her problem.  And when she said it wasn't a good idea, I thought it would help to provide reasons that it was, which just made it seem even pushier. To top it all off, it all came out very matter-of-fact, which is not the best way to invite someone you love to live with you, I quickly discovered.

Of course, once we got into the conversation, the way she just balked and shut it down completely pissed me off a little.  It wasn't even a conversation.  It was me putting myself out there and her shutting it down, over and over.  And then I made the mistake of bringing up John.  That wasn't fair, but I was committed to this angle now, so I couldn't just drop it.  If I had just let it go...

But I didn't.  I don't know why.  Maybe I was hoping that if I pushed hard enough she'd show some real feelings.  Some plans or hopes for the future.  Brilliant plan, huh?  It clearly worked out well.  And I was truly surprised when she suddenly declared she needed to leave.  There was nothing about that idea that I liked.  For one thing, it was nearly midnight and the roads were bound to be even worse than they had been when I got home at 8.  For another, driving while upset is a terrible plan.  But what scared me the most was a weird feeling that if I let her walk out the door right now, this wasn't going to be okay.  For some reason, I just felt like this would resolve better if she stayed here and we talked about it in the morning.  There was something so final about her leaving without this resolved, especially since I had no idea what was going on in her head.

But everything I said just made me her angrier and I finally gave up.   I had no idea what to do to make it better at this point.  I just wish she would have let me drive her.  I tried to not let myself worry for at least 20 minutes, because that's the amount of time it takes to get to her house from mine with good road conditions.  I stared at the clock after that.  Knowing that it had taken me nearly 40 minutes to get home from work, I knew that would be a reasonable estimate for her too.  Probably a little more, because my vehicle handled the snow better than hers.

Every minute past 40 made me more and more anxious.  I started thinking about my sister's accident, and cursing myself for letting her go.  I should have made her stay.  She would have been absolutely livid, but at least I'd know she was safe.  By time time 50 minutes had passed, I started to feel sick.  I tried to reason with myself that it made sense for it to take her longer because more snow had fallen.  I told myself that she grew up driving in snow and was a smart, good driver.  But I couldn't push from my mind the pictures of the scene of my sister's accident that had been so carelessly published in the local paper.

At the 57 minute mark, I was putting on my boots.  I had all but convinced myself she was stuck in a ditch or dead in a fatal accident, and I was going to go find out.  My phone vibrated as I grabbed my coat off the back of a chair, and I looked at it, not sure whether to feel panicky or hopeful.  I sighed in relief when I saw it was her and that she was home.  I felt like an idiot for letting myself get all worked up about it, and I just sat for several minutes trying to slow my heartbeat before I pulled off my boots and headed upstairs to try to get some sleep.

I tossed and turned restlessly for over an hour before I finally fell into a light sleep riddled with dreams of mangled cars and flashing lights and dead bodies.  I woke up pretty early, feeling like I got hit by a truck.  I checked my phone optimistically, hoping a text from Liv would be waiting.  Nothing.  I decided I wasn't going to be the first to flinch here, and hauled myself to the shower.

I headed into the office because I had plenty to do and needed to keep my brain occupied.  I was glad to see that the plows had been out overnight and the roads were much better.  I let myself into the office and turned on my computer, dreading the large amounts of emails I probably had.  The one line I had drawn for myself was that I wouldn't check work emails when I wasn't at work, or working from home.  I didn't get them on my phone.  I didn't check them while I was laying in bed or sitting in front of the TV.  If there was an emergency, I would get a phone call.  Anything that could wait long enough to be communicated in email form could wait until I was actually working.  Of course, that meant that I collected huge amounts of emails over the weekends and even overnight sometimes.

At first, the longer I went without hearing from Liv, the more irritated I got.  But as lunchtime drew nearer, I realized that I had approached last night's conversation all wrong, especially since I had no idea how Liv felt about potentially someday living with me.  I knew I needed to give her the space she'd asked for to process last night, but I wanted her to know that I was willing to have a conversation when she was, so I sent her a text just asking her to call when she was ready.  To my surprise, she called me back within 15 minutes.  We made plans for her to meet me here.

I was surprised by her appearance when I met her near the reception desk and led her back to my office.  She wasn't wearing any makeup, which was rare for her, and she looked pale and drawn.  I figured she had slept probably about as well as I had.

I made sure to apologize right away, wanting this conversation to get off on the best foot possible.  The last thing I wanted was for us to argue again, and I knew that if neither of us had slept, it would be easy to slip down that path.  I knew she was upset, but when she started to sob, I was confused.  I had no idea what to say because I didn't know what was wrong.  And I was frustrated, because I just wanted her to tell me what was going on.

When she confessed to the accident, several feelings pulled at me.  Anger that she had been stubborn enough to leave last night and that I had been too weak to stop her, frustration that she couldn't just tell me what she was feeling last night, fear at the memories of my sister's accident that still hadn't sunk back into the depths of my subconscious, relief that she was okay, and a weird, bitter vindication that I had been right to be worried.  I hadn't been ridiculous in my anxiety last night.  I had been right.  I almost laughed then, until the reality hit me that she had gotten really lucky.  All these feelings fought within me while I squeezed my eyes shut, deciding what I wanted to say.  I went with the safe choice and hugged her while saying, "I'm glad you're okay."

We worked out plans for the weekend, and I got Liv a blanket and pillow so she could nap while I finished stuff up.  I tried to wake her after about an hour, but she just groaned and turned her head.  I let her sleep while I did some more work.  I still had no idea where she was on moving in--except that she was definitely not considering it for now, which was fine.  I would be perfectly okay with her moving in tomorrow, but I had no desire to push her into something she wasn't ready for.   I was curious if she had any sort of timeline in mind, but I knew I had to let this blow over before I tried to bring it up again.  Either way, I was ready for a serious conversation about the future.  I just hoped that she would be able to have that conversation at some point soon.