(Then) Liv: Hey, Jealousy

Just a head's up.  I'm currently on an awesome girls' weekend trip with a couple of my most awesome friends.  If I get some time to write, I'll get the next post up on Sunday, but it's more likely that it will come sometime (probably evening) on Monday.  Enjoy your weekend, everyone!
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I was awfully glad I'd taken Lynn's advice to "do something crazy."  John and I were out celebrating our one year dating anniversary.  We'd had our ups and downs, but things were definitely more up than down.  Right now, they were especially up, because John had planned a really amazing night out for us for our anniversary.

I was taking a drink of wine when I heard a sort of familiar voice say my name.  I looked up and almost choked when I saw Colin standing in front of our table.  "Colin," I said, once I'd recovered.  "Wow, hi."  I hadn't seen Colin in well over two years.  I looked at John.  "Do you guys know each other?"  John shrugged.  I quickly introduced them, and Colin stuck out his hand.  John waited just a bit too long to shake it.

"Yeah, I think we met once or twice," Colin said.

John made a face that I think was supposed to be confused, but I knew it wasn't genuine.  "Hmmm, I don't remember," he said.  "Sorry."  I gave him a weird look and he shrugged.

I turned back to Colin.  "How are you?  What have you been up to?"

He replied, telling me about his job and some traveling he'd done.  He was starting to ask the same question to me when John interrupted and said pointedly, "We're actually here for our anniversary dinner."

"Oh!" Colin said.  "Well, I'll leave you to it."  He looked at me and said, "My number is the same, we should catch up some time."  Then he turned to John, smiled, and said, "Good to see you again."

When he was gone, I looked at John.  I was ready to ask him what that was all about when John said, "You're not actually going to call him, are you?"

I blinked in surprise.  "Um, I mean, I haven't really had a chance to put any thought into it.  Probably not, he's not really someone I want to be friends with at this point.  It was just good to see him.  And what was up with that?  You have definitely met him."

"I know," he replied.  "I don't want you to call him."  There was an edge to his voice that I didn't recognize.

I was shocked.  He'd never acted like this about other guys before.  I had a couple fairly close male friends in our social circle, and he didn't have any issues with that.  "I already said I probably wasn't going to," I pointed out.  "I am really confused why you're acting like this."

He narrowed his eyes.  "I'm acting like this because your ex just rolled up to our table and interrupted out anniversary dinner to get all friendly with you, and you sat here and flirted right back with him."

I huffed out a frustrated breath.  "First of all, if that's flirting, then I also flirted with the waitress, the host, and the person I talked to at the cable company today about my shitty internet.  And he's hardly my ex.  We hung out for a month.  I wouldn't even say we were dating."

"You slept with him."

I had to make a conscious effort to keep my jaw from dropping open.  I couldn't believe him.  "Once," I sputtered, fighting to keep my voice at an appropriate volume for the nice restaurant.  "And sleeping with someone doesn't make them an ex.  I can't even believe we're having this conversation, especially when we're supposed to be celebrating our anniversary."  I dropped my fork onto the table and let my gaze slide to the side.  I sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm down a little before I lost it in the middle of the restaurant.

"You're right," he said, and his voice had returned to normal.  No more strange, hard edge to it.  I looked up and he was smiling at me.  "I'm sorry, Livy, I shouldn't have said anything.  I'm being a little ridiculous.  Let's forget about it and enjoy the rest of our dinner, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," I replied.  I agreed because I didn't want to drag it out or argue right now, but I was completely confused.  He smiled at me, a brilliant smile, and returned to his dinner.  Not knowing what else to do, I picked up my fork and kept eating.

A couple minutes later, John said, "You're awfully quiet."

"Oh," I replied.  "Well, I'm just...eating."  He raised his eyebrows and looked at me skeptically, then launched into a story about something that happened at work earlier in the week.  I continued to eat my dinner quietly.

As we were walking out, he put an arm around my shoulders and gently said, "Hey, you're not still upset from earlier, are you?  I'm really sorry, I don't know what I was thinking."

"Um..." I said, not sure how to answer.  I wasn't upset, but I was a little confused.

"You're not really going to stay mad about that after I apologized, are you?  Come on baby, it's our anniversary."  He pulled me closer and kissed the side of my head.  "I love you, Livy."

"I love you too," I replied, finally relaxing against him.  I decided to just let it go.  It's not like it was a regular thing, and he'd apologized, so it didn't matter.

And it didn't happen again.  At least, it didn't happen again for a few weeks.  We were out with our friends one night and Paul had pulled me to the side to ask me a question about my job, because he had a friend that had just graduated and was looking for similar work.  It was loud and crowded in the bar we were in, so we were standing close and I had my hand resting on his arm as he leaned towards me so I could hear him.

I was concentrating on what Paul was trying to say, so I jumped a little when I felt someone take my arm by the wrist.  I looked up to see John lifting my hand off Paul's arm and sliding it around his own waist.  "Telling secrets?" he asked, feigning casual curiosity.

"No, just asking Liv a couple questions about her job.  It's easier to hear over here," Paul explained, raising his voice to be heard.

"Hmmm," John replied, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that heard him.

Paul nodded to me.  "Thanks for the info, is it okay if I give her your number?" he half-yelled.  I nodded and we made our way back over to the rest of the group.

I could feel John watching me on several occasions through the rest of the evening.  A few times he inserted himself into conversations I was having, effectively ending them.  The more he did it, the more I tried to ignore him.  The more I ignored him, the more he did it.  Finally, I just told him I was ready to go.

"So what was that?" John asked once, we were walking towards his apartment.

"Good question," I replied, looking at him pointedly.

He snorted.  "Don't look at me, sweetheart.  You were the one in there talking to the entire bar."

"I didn't realize you'd placed restrictions on who I could talk to," I muttered, crossing my arms petulantly.

"I don't care who you talk to, but have a little respect for me.  You sneaking off to have a private conversation is embarrassing."

I clenched my fists and then spread my fingers as wide as they'd go while I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with damp night air.  "I'm sorry you were embarrassed.  We took 4 steps to the side so he could ask me a couple questions without screaming at me.  Questions about my job, because he has a friend looking for one.  It wasn't a big deal."

"It looked bad, Olivia," he said.  I rolled my eyes.  I picked up the pace so I was walking slightly ahead of him.  "Oh, that's mature," I heard him mutter under his breath.

When we got to the corner where we'd need to turn left to go to my apartment, or right to go to his, I stopped.  "I want to go home," I said.

John gave me a weird look.  "We're working on it," he said.

"No," I replied, shaking my head.  "Home.  To my apartment."

"We can spend the night at your place, that's fine," he said, shrugging.

"No," I repeated, trying hard to control my voice.  "I want to go home to my apartment, and I want you to go home to yours.  I'm frustrated and angry and I think I'd like to just go home."

"Seriously?  You're going to throw a tantrum because I called you out for flirting with everyone?"

I gaped at him.  "Actually, me going home by myself is me trying to avoid throwing a tantrum.  I'm not even going to touch the rest of what you said."

"You didn't have a problem touching Paul," John shot back.

"Nothing about anything that I did tonight is different than the way I usually act!" I exploded.  We were about to fight this out, right here on the street corner.  "Every single person I spoke to tonight, with the exception of the bartender and the girl that ran into me, was our friend.  All people I've spoken to before.  All people I've touched before.  Why is it suddenly not okay?"

"It was never okay, Olivia," he responded coolly.  His voice was completely calm now and if he wanted to make me look like a crazy person, he was succeeding.  He held up both his hands and said, "Look, I don't want to have a screaming match on the corner.  Let's just go home, together, and not worry about it."

"No, John," I replied, and I had regained control of my volume.  "I just want to go home.  Please.  We can talk about it more in the morning.  I just need to cool off."

"There's nothing to talk about.  You just need to stop flirting with everyone and it'll be fine."

"I wasn't flirting with anyone!" I yelped.  "I don't flirt!  Flirting is not a thing that I do, ever!  You should know that as well as anyone."

"Okay, okay," he conceded.  "Calm down, Liv.  Just forget I said anything.  Please at least let me walk you home."

"If you want," I replied.  I spun on my heel and went to the left, striding as quickly down the sidewalk as my short legs would take me.  He caught up to me easily and kept pace next to me, walking silently.  Thank god for small miracles.

When we got to my apartment building, I turned and said goodnight to him.  "Come on, I walked all the way here, just let me spend the night.  I'll even sleep on the couch if you want to keep being pissed."

"No, John," I repeated, for what felt like the 15th time.  "Please let me have some space tonight."  I had gotten my explosiveness out of the way and I was calm now.

"So you're going to make me walk all the way back to my apartment?  Liv, it's after midnight."  The guilt trip was starting.

"You chose to walk with me," I replied calmly.  "I would like to spend the night alone.  Please go home."

He stared me down, contemplating his next move.  He looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but instead he pasted a smile on his face and said, "If that's what you want, then I'll respect that.  Goodnight, Livy."  He was the only person in the world that I let call me Livy, and normally it was cute when he said it, but right now it was like nails on a chalkboard.

"Goodnight," I replied.  Then I turned and let myself into my building.

I sighed in relief as I walked up the stairs.  I was so confused by his sudden jealousy.  Or apparently not sudden.  Flirting has never been something I did.  All through college, Lynn and Amy mocked me relentlessly because I sucked at talking to guys.  I still do.  I was now second guessing how it looked tonight though.  I did have my hand on his arm, but only because that's a natural place for it to go when you're standing close and talking in someone's ear.  It's not like we were feeling each other up.

John and I had never fought fair, either.  He was passive-aggressive, and I was quick to snap and yell.  The passive-aggressiveness set me off so easily.  Sometimes it seemed almost like he enjoyed pushing my buttons.  The way he'd smirk right before something slipped out of his mouth made it seem like a calculated move.  He never wanted to give me space when I asked for it, either.  He'd rather fight all night than just let me cool off.  The longer it dragged out, the angrier I'd get, which led to more and more yelling from me and more and more passive-aggressive snipes from him.  At least our fights were rare, which made them more bearable.

The next morning when I woke up, I had a text from him.  "I'm sorry about last night.  Let me take you out to breakfast?"

Breakfast, my weakness.  I thought about it while I showered, then responded that that was fine.  He picked me up an hour later and took me to my favorite breakfast spot.  Once we were settled at our table, him with a bloody Mary and me with a mimosa, he said, "I'm really sorry, baby.  I was an asshole last night.  You weren't flirting, I was just being really jealous.  I just love you so much and I hate thinking about you with someone else.  Seeing you talk to other guys, even if it's just about your job, makes me think about you with someone else."

I nodded, processing what he said.  I considered asking him why this has come out of nowhere, but decided it probably wouldn't be productive.  The last thing I wanted was to spend this entire day fighting.  "Thank you for apologizing.  I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"Thank you," he replied.  "I love you."

"I love you too."

With impeccable timing, our server arrived with our food.  I eyed up my eggs, french toast, potatoes, and sausage, trying to decide what to go for first.  I wrinkled my nose when I got a whiff of John's bacon.  I finally settled on the eggs because they'd be gross if they got cold.

"What should we do today?" John asked, after we were a few bites into our breakfast.  "We can do whatever you want."

We spent the rest of breakfast tossing around ideas of things to do, and I was relieved we were done fighting, even though I was still a little confused about why we'd fought in the first place.