Well, here we go...
With perfect timing we had gone to Norfolk during the coldest damn time I could remember in ages... Norfolk gets the cold weather coming in directly from the North Sea. Ok, it is hardly Norway cold, but damn well cold enough and my Grandmother's is as well insulated and heated as youyr average ice cube! So as it was I didn't use my old bed there; there was a double bed in the same room, and there is no more pleasurable way to keep warm that I know of than snuggling up to the one you love at night- and in bed that you will not fall out of if you try to move!
My entire idea behind the time in Norfolk- spending quality time together in a completely uncomplicated environment- worked absolutely perfectly. We talked and joked and laughed and snuggled; we drove around the Norfolk coast and kissed in the car, and in the evening we went fossiling on the beach, which was mainly an excuse to go around smashing up rocks with geological hammers. We slept well and peacefully (with the heater I had brought with me going at full blast); we cooked together, talked with my Grandmother and played card games, and we felt fantastic. All the tensions and stresses of the days before faded away; I wish we could have stayed but time was short. We drove home in satisfied silence; I slept most of the way.
All too soon our six days together had ended, but where my New Year's Plan had been a disaster, my Norfolk plan had been a stunning success; our best time together since... well, perhaps EVER. We remained in close contact; she was due to come again in a fortnight. We planned to go to Norfolk again in the summer, which seemed an age away.
The pleasurable buzz the two of us had is discussed in this rather nice thread here, where we also discuss the holiday in Norfolk a lot- this is recommended reading for anyone who wants to see how we were at the height of our relationship:
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/f11/t2486.html
But still, nothing was really CHANGING. I was still not getting my life together. Elle was still unhappy at uni. Her family still did not know who I was, Elle was never going to love me, and we were never going to have a proper relationship. This had been so for so long now that I was absolutely certain of it, and was utterly clueless that anything had changed. Eleanor's stone cold certainty of how things were is revealed on the second page of this thread:
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/f11/t2519.html
Now, to explain what happened next, I obscurely have to switch to Scoundrel's perspective, ten years ago. Bear with me here, guys!
http://www.killermovies.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6721&perpage=15&pagenumber=56
Kiwi_Leia, real name Leanne. She talks very briefly there of her short relationship with Scoundrel whilst they were both on holiday in the States back in '94. The two of them hit it off rather well. However, when the year after Leanne came on holiday with her folks to England, and took the opportunity to see Ben again, the 'spark' was no longer there. A somewhat disappointed Leanne returned to New Zealand and went on with her life.
Sadly, life and time were not kind to Leanne who was left in the intervening years with a child by a man who left her to bring up the child herself. Leanne still sought the company of a man and decided that the pnly person who ever showed her any real affection was Scoundrel. However, she did not have any contact addresses for him at all. Instead, she started to send ICQ messages to every single ICQ contact she could find with a registered Chelmsford address. I do NOT have such an address, but a friend of mine does and she got into contact with him. This friend had heard me talk about Ben a few times, and put Leanne onto me! This was only a couple of months after I had gone on-line, not long after I had first had contact with Elle. I, surprised, passed Ben's contact details onto her. Ben, going through a messy break-up with a girl at the time, was not particularly happy to talk to leanne again, and soon enough she decided that this was not a great idea, and went back to looking for men closer to home, but she and I became friends.
During that mad summer I seemed to have lost contact with Leanne but in the happier months between then and the end of the year we had started to talk again, and we had actually started to get on rather well. VERY well, in fact. I actually had no hesitation in flirting with another girl despite things with Elle. The terms of my relationship with Elle were very clear. She was actively HOPING to meet a guy at uni and had told me many times about how things between us must stop when she did. Much as I hated to confront it, I did have to think of a time in the future when perhaps I would not have her comfort any more. Now, of course, nothing was ever going to happen with Leanne- she lived on the other side of the world and how the hell could I help support a child? But I had a great deal of fun flirting with her.
Leanne in fact phoned me the day before Eleanor visited me again that January in 2002- they seem to get VERY cheap international calls in New Zealand! We spoke and flirted for quite a while, and then I had another good weekend with Elle, complete with snuggles, hugs, "I love you/I know," and the odd bit of tension.
Shortly afterwards, Leanne joined the boards as Kiwi_Leia. And because we were getting on well, she was quite flirty with me in the threads (sadly, I cannot find the actual threads). Amused, I texted a message to Elle about how Leanne was intriguing others by being flirting towards me on the board. Elle was busy with work and I did not expect a reply- but I got one almost at once.
"Leanne making moves on you? How?"
Surprised, I texted Elle back saying how Leanne had made an off-hand comment about making a move on me 'while she still could', Leanne being confident that Elle and myself would get it together ONE day, despite my assurances otherwise.
"While she still could? What does that mean?"
And when I answered a question she had asked before before I answered tha tone, she was still replying almost at once.
"Why won't you tell me what she meant?"
I explained... and asked her if things were ok.
"Sorry! Just wanted to know! Wish i could get to the board and pretend to threaten her for trying to steal my man!"
I laughed, and said she was just being flirty.
"Why don't you ask her what she means by that or atleast he she is joking or why she said it!"
I could not understand why Elle seemed to be so suddenly concerned by all this.
"She's only joking though right? I mean she's just messing about right?"
So I had to admit that, like, no, we had been getting on quite well for a little while now.
"I don't get it! What's she playing at? I mean has she ever said anything to you before about liking you in that way?"
So I tried to explain that she was just being friendly.
"Mike i wouldn't exactly call that being friendly! I had no idea she was interested in you in that way!"
And I told her... well, yeah, she was, though jsut in a flirty way as it stood.
"That really isn't terribly comforting! I can't believe you didnt tell me about this!"
I was completely bewildered. I pointed out that I had even told her that Leanne and I got on well!
"I know you did but i'm just so scared mike! You know what i'm like!"
Scared? HUH? Oh what? Surely she couldn't mean... nah! I said we weren't exactly having hardcore sex talk or anything.
"But the conversation was going that way right? I know it shouldn't be a problem but i can't help being insanely jealous!"
Good Lord, she WAS jealous! Actually my first thought was "Wow! A girl is jealous about another girl interested in me! I never thought THAT would happen!" My second thought was "Hang on, what the freakin' hell is going on here! She can't be JEALOUS, not after how clear she had made the way things were!"
She sent more messages, seeming increasingly displeased. Afraid to try and tackle things directly, I asked her what had upset her.
"I'm not upset. Just kinda shocked and in complete loathing of leanne!"
WHOA there! WHOA WHOA WHOA! Loathing? Elle now loathed Leanne because she had flirted a bit with me? After insisting that there could never be anything REAL between us? And she was saying SHE was shocked? I was absolutely flabberghasted. I just didn't know what to think or do, but Elle had offered to call me when she got back to her room, and an hour later she did.
And she told me what had changed. At about the same time as I waa finally accepting that she would never love me and we would never be boyfriend and girlfriend, she was busy changing her mind on that very subject. Because she was slowly feeling more and more strongly for me, and as things were getting better and better she found it harder to deny what she felt. And after our great time together in Norfolk, she had to think long and hard about the way she had set things. And she had decided...
... that she loved me.
She had it ALL planned out. She did not tell me at once; she planned a surprise. When she came to see me that weekend, when I said "I love you" to her, as I inevitably would, she was going to say not "I know," but "I love you too," and blow my mind! How sweet!
Only she had muffed it. I had said "I love you," and almost on instinct she had said "I know" back, and she had lost the moment and panicked and not found another one in which to say it and all the time I was in complete and utter ignorance about the whole thing. She had stayed calm, though- she was going to see me again soon and could try again
And then the next thing she knew she was hearing about me being all flirty with Leanne! And to her it now looked as if she had lost her one single opportunity to tell me that she loved me and now I was going to give up on her and fly away with some ex-girlfriend of Ben's! And hence, she had freaked out... but now it was all ruined because she could not possibly say it without it just looking so horribly jealous and she did not know what to do! Whoa whoa whoa, I thought...
"Elle... do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I love you, Mike." This is the point in the films that the music cuts in, the bit I wanted to last forever.
I had done it. I had earned it. The impossible had happened. And I had not pressured or forced. I had done EVERYTHING Elle had asked. I had SOMEHOW been patient. And SHE had come to ME! The miracle had ghappened AGAIN, this time in the form of something that would never have happened if Ben had not met this girl eight years earlier and if she had not been passed onto me by my friend and if we had not started flirting at that precise time! WEIRD!
I decided to shoot for the moon. I asked Elle if she wanted to be my girlfriend.
And she said yes.
And that seems to be a good point to end part 4.
OMG!!! Could this story get any better? This would make an excellent film. Why is that when you start to forget about a crush that crush becomes interested in you?
It seems the fates are aligning in favor of Ush. That is so weird how a relationship several years prior could influence this one. I have to say that I was a little more than happy to see Edna jealous. It always looked as if Ush was the one getting jealous, and to see the tables turned was a pleasant surprise.
Bigger questions: Why am I starting to think of Ush as a character instead of a person? hehe How does Ush seem to always know the exact time to stop a story to induce the fatal amount of suspense. Where are my favorite socks? Oh, never-mind the last one. 🙂
Thought I would add this quote kind of reminds me of the story so far.
"Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you." -William Authur Ward
Errr... no, Celsius... no... if it worked out that happily I would most likely not be telling the story.
Part V, coming soon, will tell of my all too brief only time in my life having a girlfriend, and how the whole thing catastrophically blew itself to pieces soon afterwards, until it was all entirely finished.