How We Came To Be

Well, things were a little tense for a couple of weeks. We seemed to drift apart a little and we did spend less time together. The longer this went on, the more I doubted myself for revealing my sexuality. Our conversations were short and often limited to specific topics, which for obvious reasons did not include sex or relationships.

After the first couple of weeks we kind of fell into the "don't ask, don't tell" mindset. We started spending more time together and actually seemed to be getting back to where we were before I opened my mouth. Sandra actually confided in me that she wanted "us" back, but did not want to be in the way of me finding that "special lady" to fill my life with love.

By this time, Halloween was just 2 weeks away, so we started talking about what we wanted to do, parties we had been invited to, costumes we wanted to wear. All of that came crashing down when, Sandra came over one day and said she had a date with someone that had possibilities of evolving into something special. I was crushed! She even brought the guy over and introduced him to me. I was polite, but it took every ounce of civility I had in me to not rip his head off with my bare hands. He was stealing my best friend.

After that Sandra started spending more and more time with him, which meant less and less time with me. It was beginning to look like "crazy cat lady" time for me. First I lose both parents, then it looks like I was going to lose my best friend in the world, and to a guy! (yeah, I know, Drama Queen, but it is my story so deal with it!) I retreated back to my old self. Going nowhere involved with nothing. I really should have seen this coming, after all I knew her feelings and knew she needed more out of life than just a best friend. Hell, I needed more out of life than a best friend, but then I had no one on the horizon.

We were still seeing each other in class and we did still spend some time together in the evening, but it just wasn't the same. I cancelled my Halloween plans to attend any of the parties we had been invited to. I cancelled the order I had placed for my costume. I fixated on my studies. I did decide that I just needed to get away for Halloween weekend, so I booked a room on the beach in Florida.

I told Sandra my plans had changed and where I was going. Sandra looked like I had slapped her in the face! She wanted me and her date to be there. I had to fight back my anger, and somehow managed to do just that. I just looked at her and frankly told her that three is a crowd, especially when one is a lesbian and one is a guy. The math just did not add up.

I had promised to respect her limits, but I had not promised to be her "token". I had to much respect for myself to put myself in that position. I told her to have fun on her dates and I would see her when I got back. When I looked at her, I saw her eyes water as if she wanted to cry. But she had made her decision and I had made mine.

Unknown to me, this decision to go to Florida almost ruined my life. I did not realize it at the time, but I had completely and totally misread the entire situation. I was angry, a guy was stealing my best friend. Sure we were not in an intimate relationship, but I still felt closer to her than I had ever felt to anyone else. I was so wrapped up in my own little pity party that I missed almost all the signs. In my own defense, I was not real versed in relationship issues, so I didn't know that I had missed some key clues that could have led to my happiness. So off to Florida I went. Three days of sun, sand and surf! It was heaven, or at least it would have been if I had someone to share it with.

Of course, now you the reader are wondering what the hell I am talking about missing signs and ruining my life. Especially since it was Sandra that reacted so badly to my coming out to her. Some of you might actually have already guessed where this is going, but for the rest of you, I will elaborate! To do that, let's go back a few weeks, okay, maybe more than a few weeks. Back to that first day of school when we first met.

Living as a single ADULT woman, alone for the first time in her life, Sandra was in a strange town, going to a new school with no friends. Yeah, this was stress like she had never known. Like me, she was as close to a basket case as she could be. And today is the first day of school. So nerves and all, she gathered herself together and headed out into the world and the rest of her life. Once inside the building, she stopped to look at the room roster posted in the hallway. Looking down at her schedule, looking back at the roster as if it were a foreign language, she turned around without looking where she was going. And guess who happened to come through the door at that exact moment, yep, it was me!

So there you have it, she ran over me like a freight train at full speed, and I landed square on my butt and she all but landed squarely on top on me. Now for me, this was a great start to my new life. With me being an in the closet lesbian, having a beautiful girl knock you off your feet and land on you in the process was almost a wet dream come true. Unfortunately for her, it just made her day worse, and she started blubbering and apologizing. Course, that part we have already covered earlier in this little story, but I do so love reminiscing about that little encounter!

But what I didn't know was that over time, Sandra had begun to realize that where she was concerned, there was something more to our relationship. This "something more" was what had caused her negative reaction to my coming out to her. It turns out that while I had kept my secret from Sandra, she also had a secret she was keeping from me. A secret that I would not learn until several months later.

She realized that she would rather spend all of her time with me and really wasn't interested in meeting other people (meaning guys). This was causing her a great deal of confusion, she wasn't sure what it was she was feeling towards me. Was it "sisterly" love or was something much more profound? She couldn't be gay, she loved guys, she wanted babies. She wanted, well hell, we covered that as well. She was straight. At least she kept telling herself that. And telling herself that was basically a "safety blanket" for her. At least it was until I told her I was a Lesbian. That is when the problems really began to surface, at least to Sandra. Not only was she confused about her feelings, but her best friend was now telling her that she was a Lesbian. There was no more "safety blanket' for her to hide under.

She just kept telling herself that she was straight, that she liked a good hard dick and frankly she wasn't a size queen, it just had to be hard and attached to someone she liked more than just a little. As soon as she met Mr. Right, her world would return to normal, and these weird feelings towards me would fade safely into the background. Even though she really hadn't figured out what those feelings were.

Before we went to the club that night, Sandra had her usual conversation with her mother and it ended with the usual husband search question. This was a question that Sandra was really getting tired of having to answer. There had been a lot that had happened to her in the few short weeks she had been going to Fulton Community College. When she first got here, she was still heartbroken over her longtime boyfriend breaking up with her.

Add that to the fact that Sandra had moved several hundred miles from her home and would be on her own for the first time in her life. Well, mostly on her own, her parents were footing the bill. And then there was the weekly call from home. One of them went something like this (the abbreviated version), "Hi Mom," "No, school is great," "Yes, I like all my professors," "No, I haven't met any guys yet," "Love you to," "Bye." If you have a mom, you can fill in the blanks with the other side of the conversation.

As Sandra's confusion grew, she decided that she needed to do something. She needed to find a boyfriend. Someone she could show off to her mother, so the questions would stop and someone that could take her mind off of her feelings for Patricia.

It was almost Halloween and as I had said earlier, she and I were really into planning mode for the upcoming parties and costumes. While sitting in the library, one of her fellow students came up to her and asked if he could sit with her. His name was Jeff, and he was a really nice guy so, of course she made room at the table for him. He was tall and ruggedly handsome while not being an irritating jock type, that was stuck on himself. She actually liked him quite a bit as a person, but that was as far as it had ever gotten.

He fumbled with the words, but finally was able to get himself together and asked her to a Halloween party some of his friends were having. Throwing her plans with me out the window, she readily accepted his invitation.

"Maybe," she thought, this would turn out to be what her mother always wanted for her. "Wait, what?" Why wasn't it something she had always wanted for herself. Remember, she is straight, kids, house, yada, yada, yada.

Well, from there you know what I did. I got pissed, and I don't mean drunk. Cancelled all my plans and decided to leave town! What I didn't know of course, would be how she would respond to this turn of events. (Okay, so now everyone is up to date and hopefully not confused or looking for a story with more sex in it.)

Sandra, unknown to me, was devastated! She realized that she had completely screwed up and thought she was losing me. She had accepted a date with Jeff for Halloween just so she could tell her mother that she had been dating. She realized that she had no feelings for him and that just added to her confusion over her feeling for me.

Halloween weekend arrives, and the world is in turmoil. Sandra has feelings for me but I am completely clueless and Sandra is completely confused. I am alone and on my way to Florida for the weekend. Sandra has a date with Jeff, who she recently realized she doesn't have any feeling for at all. Needless to say, that weekend SUCKED on all fronts, and NOT in a good way!

The weekend was a bust for both of us. I got plenty of sun, drank plenty of alcohol, and even managed to get out and see some of the sights. But like I said earlier, this would have been a much better trip if I had someone to share it with. Sandra and Jeff attended one of the Halloween parties, but things did not go well for Sandra. Jeff got involved in a conversation with a young lady and wound up leaving the party with her, leaving Sandra with no ride home. Sandra thought it was funny, Jeff took a liking to another girl, left with her, and Sandra's only issue was it left her without a ride home!

Monday morning rolled around and it was back to school time. We didn't talk about our weekend, in fact absolutely nothing about the weekend came up in conversation. It was almost like the weekend had vanished into a black hole, never to be seen again. That being said, things did seem to be a little more tense between us for the rest of the week.

We were still spending almost all our time together, but something was seriously out of whack. I could tell that something was going with Sandra, but I had no clue what it was, and she sure as hell wasn't volunteering any information. But Sandra knew exactly what the problem was.

She was in love. She didn't know how or when it happened, she just knew that it did! She also knew that her dreams of her 6'5" handsome husband, 2 kids, 2 cars, house with a wraparound porch had gone up in smoke. Well maybe not the 2 cars and house, but if she was in love with a woman, then there would be no kids and no husband. But again, was that her dream or her mother's dream? Had she ever really wanted a husband? I mean, sure, she knew she wasn't a lesbian, but that didn't mean that she wanted a husband either. But, that can't be right. If she was in love with a woman, she would by default, be a lesbian. Her confusion was becoming unbearable. She needed help. And asking for that help terrified her more than anything in this world. But it had to be done.

Halloween had been over for a week when Sandra told me she was going back home the week of Thanksgiving break. She would be leaving Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving and coming back the Sunday after. She said she was sorry to leave me alone for that week, but she had some serious family issues that had to be dealt with. Of course I volunteered to help anyway I could, but she said she would have to do this by herself.

The rest of the week was uneventful. Things were quiet, and Sandra seemed to be in a much better place, although I could tell she still had a way to go. It was beginning to bother me. We were supposed to be best friends. We were supposed to help each other work things out. It was supposed to be "us".

Then it happened! It was a Saturday morning, obviously no school today, and I realized that it was halfway thru November. Next week Sandra would be going home for Thanksgiving, and would be gone for five days. Other than the fact that I lived in my house and she had a her own apartment, we were never really apart from one another, well except for Halloween. For five days I would be alone and on the holiday no less. I WAS MISERABLE, thinking about that. ALONE!! But wait, why did Sandra going home to see her family bother me so much. It was only five days, and I knew she would be coming back.

As I sat in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee, I began to reflect on the time that had passed since Sandra had knocked me for loop as I entered thru those glass doors that first day. I thought about her almost in tears, how I had hugged her and comforted her that first day. It turned out that Sandra had never been away from home and she was feeling as alone as I actually was! I thought about her face, so very innocent, so beautiful. Her body, while not overly endowed was to me, spectacular. The way she made me laugh. The way she worried over me when I wasn't feeling good. I also realized that she was always taking care of me. Always wanting to know if I needed anything. The way she always had a shoulder for me to lean on if I was having a bad day.

I took another sip of coffee staring off into space. Seeing Sandra in my mind's eye. Another sip of coffee, seeing Sandra, the beautiful woman she is. Another sip of coffee, seeing Sandra, the woman I loved! Wait, what????? Where did that come from? Sandra, the woman I loved? LOVED? The cup shattered to pieces on the floor, as I realized that yes, it was Sandra, the woman I loved. And then there was absolute, completely encompassing PANIC! I could never admit that. I could never tell Sandra that I loved her. She was straight and I remembered how things had been when I came out to her. That had been horrible! Yes we worked it out, but to tell her that I loved her would not only screw up our friendship, but could be the one thing that took her from my life forever. I couldn't face the chance of losing her.

After cleaning up the mess I made by destroying my favorite coffee cup, I decided that I would have to keep this revelation a closely guarded secret. I couldn't lose her, I would suffer in silence. I know, how melodramatic could I possibly be? Right? Suffer in silence? But I did know that this was a topic that I could never open up for discussion with her. This would be the only secret I had kept from her, even though we had agreed to always be open and honest with each other. Her friendship was not worth the risk. I would keep my love for her to myself, so that I could keep her in my life.

That is how it was for the next week and a half. I kept my feelings bottled up inside me. But like I said, it was worth it, actually SHE was worth it. Wednesday afternoon, I took her to the bus station to catch her bus home. If everything went as planned, Sandra would be safe at home by midnight tonight. Surrounded by her family and friends back home. I would be spending Thanksgiving at the house and probably have a Thanksgiving dinner at the diner near the college.

It really isn't as pathetic as it sounds. I did enjoy my dinner and I have been to the diner enough times that the folks working there knew me by name. But I did miss what I called "my only REAL friend," and was looking forward to Sunday afternoon when Sandra would return. We talked every day, and used up a good bit of data as we sent countless texts and selfies to each other. I just kept reminding myself that it would soon be Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon and she would be coming back home. Sunday afternoon and I would once again be with the woman I loved. The woman that could never be told that she was the woman of my dreams. That begs the question, "could I handle being with her, and me not tell her how I feel?"

Sunday morning, I got a really strange text from Sandra. Her text was "Headed to the bus station. Will soon be home, where I belong!" and followed by several little red hearts, which was completely out of character for her. Not sure what to make of that, I replied that I would be waiting for her at the station and have a safe trip. And with that, I was once again sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee day dreaming of Sandra and wondering exactly what it would be like to have her as a girlfriend. I even began to wonder if I should risk our friendship and admit my love for her. Once again, I chickened out and decided to keep my love a closely guarded secret. Little did I know that when the bus driver set those air brakes and Sandra came off the bus that my life would change forever.

I sat there in my car and watched as the bus pulled in and parked. I heard the air brakes set and the door opened. Getting out of the car, I began looking for Sandra. One by one, all the passengers came off the bus, but no sign of Sandra. That was strange, as she had once told me that she always tried to sit in the front of the bus so she could get off quicker and not get stuck behind slow people and kids. The flow of people getting off the bus had slowed to a trickle and no sign of Sandra.

I leaned in the car to grab my phone so I could check my messages to see if she missed the bus. No messages, so I turned to stand up and call her, but never had the chance to enter the first digit of her number. As I stood and turned, I was tackled and for the second time, Sandra had knocked me on my butt. And like last time, there were tears. Unlike last time, Sandra was not in panic mode, well maybe a little but for an entirely different reason. When I landed on my butt, Sandra had gone down with me. Just like that first day of school having a beautiful girl knock you off your feet and land on you in the process was almost a wet dream come true. Combine that with how tightly she was holding on to me, I was having a hard time breathing and figuring out what was going on. We were both on the ground with Sandra more or less laying on me. She was hugging me and the tears turned to full on crying.

She held on tightly as if she were afraid she was going to lose me, and through the tears, she said "Patricia, I love you with all my heart and soul. It might mean losing you but I can't hold it in any longer".

And with that Sandra kissed me. Not a peck on the lips, but a soul searching, we are one, kinda kiss. Talk about the shock of a lifetime! Remember me, Patricia, the never been kissed virgin??? Well, the never been kissed part went completely out the window as I returned the kiss with every bit of passion that I could muster.

Sandra finally let me get off the ground as we continued to kiss each other. It finally dawn on Sandra, that I was as much involved in the kissing as she was. While we were locked together in a passionate kiss, her eyes flew open with a look somewhere between shock and surprise, as she realized that I wasn't upset or trying to push her away. I was as tightly wrapped around her as she was around me.