My Own Love Triangles: Part Two

Last week, I talked about a love triangle I had when I was fifteen. I promised another one, so here it is! Don't worry, it has a happy ending unlike the last one.

I moved just before my senior year of high school. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about it or not. On one hand, I was kind of tired of my school where I’d spent four years already. On the other, I didn’t want to go to a school where everyone had already made their friends.

I met Jacob at church. (No, it’s not his real name.) He was the funny guy. He was the first guy who was younger than me that I dated, but the age difference was only about six months. We started going out a few months after I moved. It was a pretty innocent relationship without too many strings attached. We mostly saw each other at church: youth group, Sunday services, nights we all went out. We would occasionally talk on the phone or over AIM or myspace. It wasn’t very deep, though. I was “in love” with him, but I’ve been in love with someone for the last ten years of my life. I’d gush about him to friends I left behind, squeal over notes or letters he sent me, etc.

After a while, I started to realize I couldn’t commit to Jacob for a long period of time. I enjoyed being with him, but I saw we were on different levels, going two different directions in our lives.

For some reason, I held on. We only saw each other two or three times a week, and we hardly even kissed, so I thought, ‘Why not?’

Well, then Chris came into the picture. He was invited by my dad to play drums at the church. At first, I didn’t notice him too much. He was a nice guy, and that was cool. He started coordinating youth group nights. He was only twenty-one, but most of the youth group was younger, anyway. He was four years older than me, so there was definitely a barrier between us since I wasn’t eighteen yet. I considered him purely a friend for a couple months.

We hung out more and more over the spring. We painted the gym stage in the church. We did car washes to raise money for my trip to Hawaii. We found out we had a lot of the same interests in music.

All along, me and Jacob held onto our relationship which hardly existed anymore. I would go through ups and downs: sometimes I’d have the time of my life with him, other times he would aggravate me to no end. Sometimes I’d really consider our relationship serious, other times I’d completely lose respect for him when he’d fight with my younger brother.

We did have a nice night at my senior prom. It was only a couple blocks from our church, and I remember complaining about my heels. Jacob picked me up and carried me the rest of the way. We were laughing so hard by the time we got to the church parking lot.

Summer came, and me and my friends and family hung out with Chris a lot. He took us on swimming trips. He played guitar for us. He seemed genuinely interested in learning about the Bible and our religion, like I was. My dad really liked him and would invite him over for dinner to our house.

I went to South Africa and Zambia for a few weeks the summer after I graduated, and I remember writing about Chris on the plane ride home. I didn’t know what was ahead of us, what the summer held. I was moving to Hawaii that fall for a year-long mission trip. I knew I’d have to break up with Jacob before that. I couldn’t try something long-distance with him when I didn’t even want to do a regular relationship.

I finally broke it off with Jacob towards the end of the summer. I said I didn’t want to go to Hawaii with the baggage of a romantic relationship, and it seemed like we were growing apart, anyway. He seemed to take it okay, but I got a call from Chris a little while later. He told me Jacob had just called him and confessed to cheating on me with his ex-girlfriend. She was a girl I kind of envied. I couldn’t believe it; I actually started crying.

My mom came into the room, and I told her what Chris had said. The first thing she said? “Oh, whatever!” She didn’t believe it for a second. She knew Jacob’s ex-girlfriend was completely finished with him. I snapped out of it and believed her. Neither Jacob nor his ex-girlfriend would do something like that.

Hardly a week before I was due to leave for Hawaii, Chris asked if I wanted to get something to eat. We went to Denny’s. We went for a walk in the park by my house and talked. I remember sitting in the swings, and he was kind of rambling, but I had fun. I remember coming home and thinking, ‘Wow. . .what just happened?’

Shortly after that, Jacob gave me a letter confessing his cheating. At that point, I didn’t believe it at all. I kind of brushed it off. I’d accepted that we were on different levels, and I was content with just being friends. I was disappointed that he had to drag it out and make it weird. He even changed the girl that he had cheated on me with. Sadly, we weren’t on extremely friendly terms when I went to Hawaii. Today, we are, but we’ve never talked about his strange confession.

Me and Chris, on the other hand, were friends when I left for Hawaii. I spent nearly every night of my last week in Oregon with him. When I went to Hawaii, we talked on the phone all the time. I fell for him, and I fell hard. After that, he never had any competition. Our four year wedding anniversary is in May.