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It wasn't all bad. In itself, living with him was everything I could have hoped for. Sometimes we fought, but sometimes the fighting was necessary. Sometimes it was all that made me feel alive.
Dante was wonderful. It was never about him.
It was about me and the way I felt about myself. At the two year mark I began to see that if I spent much more time being useless I was certain I'd never shake it, that I'd just become some bitter, pointless thing. Like my grandma.
I couldn't do that, not even for him.
I needed to find my self-worth, and for that, I needed to leave him.
"I feel like I'm stuck here," I told him over a dessert I'd made special just to soften the blow. "Like I'm giving up my life for yours. Like the longer I stay here, the more I'm just going to shrivel up into someone I don't recognize."
He stared at me. "You said you'd wait for me," he said simply. He didn't even sound upset yet. He was still in denial.
"I did, and I'm sorry. I just can't stand it anymore. I can't stand myself. I need to be doing something besides serving drinks to a bunch of entitled pricks day after day."
That riled him. "That was your idea. I never wanted that. Quit! Just fucking quit! It's that simple. There's no reason for you to be working, especially at a job you can't stand."
I'd gotten off topic, I could see. "That's all beside the point. It's this place. It's being put on hold. I just cannot stand it, Dante. I'm starting hate myself, and I need to find a way to change that. Can't you understand?"
His soulful eyes were tormented on mine. "You're leaving me?"
I could barely stand it. I looked away. "I'm not breaking up with yo—"
"Was that a really an option for you?" he asked, incredulous. "You say it like you thought it over, like it could have gone either way?"
"No." I saw the discussion getting away from me. It was going as badly as I'd anticipated. "No. I never thought of that. We'll be together, of course, but long distance. Until you finish here. Then you can come live with me, and in the meantime, I'm not putting my dreams on hold for yours."
It was bad. He didn't take it well. In fact, he refused to talk about it for days, simply telling me it wasn't an option.
Gently but firmly, I replied that it wasn't a question either.
It's an awful thing to realize that even the love of your life can't make you complete, not when you're as fucked up as me, but I was resolute. It would be torture to be away from him for such a long time, but there was no doubt in my mind that we would find our way back to each other. I had absolute faith in that.
A month later I was packing my things, a sullen but resigned Dante hovering over me.
Just setting up the move made me feel a little more hopeful. I'd saved all of my waitressing money—every cent because Dante never let me pay for anything, and put it toward first month's rent on a small studio apartment in an area I couldn't have paid for by myself. Dante put down the last month's rent. Yes, he was helping me. That was the only way he'd let me go without a harder fight. That and weekend visitations whenever he could manage to fly out or fly me back. Money had its perks, that was a fact.
He came to visit exactly one week to the day I flew away. He came with Gram's ring in his hand and a proposal on his lips.
Well, it wasn't so much a proposal as him telling me that of course we were getting married.
I put on the ring and didn't so much as consider turning him down. This had been a long time coming. Some promises are made before you ever say the words.
"Your mom is going to lose her mind," I told him later, after our third round of celebrating.
He stiffened, the chest under my cheek going stiff, and I knew I'd struck a nerve. "I won't be telling her. No reason to."
I couldn't blame him but a part of me wanted to tell her myself just to see the look on her face. That part was quickly overruled by any common sense I might have had. Even I knew better than to tangle with his mother.
For a time living apart didn't seem to so much as put the tiniest crack in our foundation. I missed him, of course I did, but I had a purpose now. I started to land small roles my first week, and just kept at it, feeling certain that it was my destiny.
And when he did visit, or I visited him, the reunions were a powerful, heady thing. We were combustible together on a normal day. Add a little deprivation to that and it reached atomic proportions. Addictive stuff, that.
We lasted over a year like that. I can't sugarcoat it. We had our ups and downs. It was as tumultuous as we were volatile. Two insanely jealous people living apart while engaged did not make for a smooth romance. More often than not when he left me or I him, he had scratches on his back from shoulder to ass.
It wasn't that I thought he'd be unfaithful. It was about ownership, marking my territory.
I trusted him almost blindly, but it took a lot less than the thought of actual infidelity to get me hot with temper. Him talking to other girls, being friends with them, popping up in pictures with them on Facebook, studying with them, you name it, I lost my mind.
