What It's Like to Be Really, Actually in Love

Carter loves me. Two back-to-back texts that stated it. True, he thought I'd just been in a plane crash. But still, the words seemed pretty definitive. And now, back in the car, with Hannah beside me, two hours of driving ahead, there was no reason not to call him.

I tried to sort through my feelings for him.  Just a few weeks ago, I was contemplating love. So why did it seem so scary, so sudden? I think it's because how I feel about him so closely mirrors how I felt about Vic. And Vic and I crashed. Vic and I hurt. Vic and I still have a muddled mess of emotions tied to every interaction. So it scares me a little to care about Carter in that way. Because it means we could crash, I could hurt. I could be signing up for five years of emotional distress after our ending. Because that is what happens, right? Relationships end. And it seems a lot easier to end things before it hurts.

But all that is stupid. We are all running around this giant world trying to find love. Trying to find a soul mate. Trying to find an all-encompassing, scary love just like this one. This one that I am running from. I should be jumping up and down in my Brian Atwoods and speed-dialing Carter's number. Proclaiming my love to him and embracing the fact that — for once — I'm experiencing this love with a nice guy. One who won't bang the maid. One who will answer my calls. One who will put me before business. One who isn't, underneath all of his s#xiness, an a$$hole.

A small bit of happiness bloomed inside of me. A chance that I allowed myself to embrace. The chance that this might be it. That he might be my person. Carter. My building's maintenance guy, a job that I no longer believed was any less honorable than mine. A 6-foot-2 hunk of gorgeous with an insatiable s#xual appetite that competes with Vic's, yet is giving instead of demanding. He wasn't jealous. Wasn't self-serving. He was thoughtful. Sweet. Loving.

I could do this. I could be this girl who made the right decision for once. This girl who ran towards right instead of wrong. I could swallow my fears and take the jump.

I called his number and lifted the phone to my ear.

"Chloe?" His voice tight and low. Worried.

"Hey." I tried to smile, even though he couldn't see me.

"You weren't on the plane?"

"No." I coughed, my throat tight and dry. "I rode with Hannah. Joey's assistant."

"Thank god. Is Nicole OK?"

I nodded, trying to force out words trying to say a simple yes but my throat felt so full and I knew, right then, that I was going to cry. I sobbed into the phone with no clear reason why. He murmured my name and told me it was going to be OK and offered to come to Boston, to stay there or to bring me home or to do whatever I wanted him to do.

He said everything that the perfect boyfriend should.

I didn't say anything that I had planned to.

But still, in that moment, it was exactly the conversation I wanted. It was the verbal hug I needed.

I do love him. I really believe that. I just don't know if I'm ready to admit it to him quite yet.