Chapter 1: The Jeep
We sat in his coldly furnished dorm room apartment at Assumption College. The couches and chairs were old and worn with wooden oak frames and a tweed fabric that had seen better days. The floor was a cold commercial square vinyl that you would also find in a convenience store or fast food restaurant. We were just hanging out, but still the air felt heavy from the awkwardness of all of the things we hadn’t said yet, at least not out loud. I could feel the attraction between us, undeniable and unsettling. I guess I always could. It was the kind of attraction that was more than physical, something deeper, magnetic. It was giddy tension mixed with the strict emotional inhibition we had held in for years.
The kind of desire that pulls without permission and lingers no matter how you try to reason it away. It was inevitable, something already in motion far beyond our control, waiting for one of us to acknowledge it.
I glanced at my watch. It was getting late, and I needed to go. I wasn’t sure coming there in the first place had been the right move, but something had pulled me there anyway. Part of me hoped he would finally say something, finally acknowledge what had existed between us for the past few months, or really, for the past ten years. I could sense he was struggling, but I was raised to believe that a man should make the first move, even in 1998. If a man truly wants you, he will go after what he wants. I needed to be sure he felt it as deeply as I did, and for that to happen, he had to say it first.
As I left his apartment and walked to my car in the dark, I realized it had started to rain. I felt deflated as I ran to my Jeep, drenched within seconds. I hadn’t realized how much I had wanted David to acknowledge what existed between us. How much I wanted him to take initiative, and how disappointed I was that he hadn’t. Maybe I was imagining things. But that seemed impossible. I saw the shift in his behavior over the past few months, and even as a sophomore in college, I knew what an interested man looked like.
Still, I started mentally backtracking. It was probably for the best. After-all I did have an on-again off-again boyfriend at Northeastern. And though David had always lived somewhere in my mind, where did I honestly think this was going?
I started my Jeep and was about to pull away, when I saw David running through the rain toward me. He opened the passenger door, jumped in, and sat awkwardly for a moment. I knew this was it. I knew he was finally going to acknowledge the feelings we had been circling for so long.
He looked over at me and said “I have something I need to tell you. Rose, I’ve never met or known anyone like you before ever. I’m in love with you. I always have been. Will you please go out with me?”
In retrospect I should have said a thousand different things. But in that moment, I was still stunned, despite this being exactly what I’d wanted. All I could manage to say was “I’m sorry but I’m dating someone right now, so I can’t be with you”.
Looking back, I can’t imagine why I responded that way. I can only imagine the deep wound it must have caused him, after the courage it took to say those words out loud. I knew how much strength it required, and turning him down gutted me in that moment.
Years earlier, in high school, I had been on a break with my boyfriend and ended up seeing one of my friend’s boyfriend’s behind her back while they were still dating. We were caught, and I carried deep regret over it. I had vowed never to never be that person again. So sitting there in the Jeep, with David pouring his heart out to me, I felt I had to say no. I would not repeat my past mistake. I would make up for that failure.
Little did I know then how deeply I would regret that decision. Integrity matters when you’re young and dating, but so does being honest with yourself. At that moment, I knew that I wanted to be with David. I knew it felt right. I even believed fate was at play. But instead, I chose guilt and obligation, and stayed where I was.
A month or two after that rainy night in the parking lot of David’s apartment, I finally came to my senses. I ended things with my boyfriend, I knew we were never meant to last. David was the one. He always had been. We were right together, it felt inevitable, something written long before either of us could name it.
So I called. I left voicemails. I sent emails. But David never responded. I wasn’t sure if he was getting the messages, after-all he did live in a dorm with a group of guys, but he should have received the emails. Right? He must have been too hurt. And I don’t blame him.
Eventually, I learned he had a new girlfriend. Maybe she was deleting the messages. I later found out that she was, by all accounts, a very bad rebound.
I never forgot that night in the Jeep, the rain, and the way his voice sounded when he said my name, and the words he had been holding back for so long.
I've never met or known anyone like you.
Coming from someone who had known me since elementary school, it meant more than he could have known. What I didn't realize then was how long I would carry that night with me, or how deeply I would regret the choice I made.
David and I didn’t speak again for several years after that night.
At the time, I told myself I had done the right thing. I chose integrity. I chose not to repeat an old mistake. I chose what I believed was responsibility over impulse.
But some choices don’t reveal their cost right away. Some wait.
And by the time you understand what you’ve lost, the moment has already passed, quietly, completely. Leaving you with nothing but the memory of sitting in the rain in a Jeep, knowing something mattered more than you were brave enough to admit, and wondering what would have been….
Someone I Used to Know 