47. Daydreaming

The entire flight from Denver to Texas I had a smile plastered to my face. I wanted to wake my seat mate and say, "Guess what? I have a beautiful, perfect, British boyfriend who I'm absolutely crazy about." But I knew I wouldn't stop at my seat mate. I wanted to stand up at the front of the plane and ask to make an announcement over the intercom. "Attention passengers: Please consult the first aid safety pamphlet in the seatback in front if you, because I've fallen, and I don't want to get up."

I chuckled to myself at the ridiculousness of it.

I relaxed in my seat and tried to sleep. The feeling of complete happiness tingled over my skin and made me feel awake, energetic. My leg bounced at turbo speed. How was it possible that 12 hours earlier I was in tears, thinking I needed time to make a decision? Who needs more than one second to choose between happiness or longing? It took me 10 and a half hours, but I chose happiness, I chose Cayden. I knew I'd never regret that decision.

Adding to the tingle of happiness was the overwhelming feeling of luck. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world that he chose me. Even after I burped at the table and shot beer out of my nose when it fizzed out of the bottle too fast, he chose me. Even after my straightener broke and I had to endure four days of the all-natural look, (straight on bottom, curly on top, and frizzy everywhere), he chose me. Even after my PMS-induced emotional breakdown that nearly broke his heart into a million pieces that morning, he still chose me.

I looked out the window and thanked my lucky stars.

---

When I finally cuddled up in bed that night (still smiling) I decided to browse through the billion emails in my inbox just to make sure I didn't miss anything too important. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that Cayden had emailed me earlier that day.

I was afraid to open it. What if he typed it while I was on the plane and it said, "Now that I've had a second to gather my thoughts, I decided I can't do this. I can't come visit."

The subject read "Thank you baby." It seemed promising enough, so I held my breath and opened it.

Hey Baby
I guess you'll maybe get this when you touch down in Denver and have a bit of free time between flights. Hope your flight went well from London.

It went awful.

I had planned in my mind such a nicer way to say goodbye to you, but if I'm honest, it was sooo hard. I hate goodbyes, and the fact that our future is still kind of 'hypothetical' as of yet made it a bit harder because it may be the last time.

My eyes started to burn.

These last few days that we've spent together in London have been so amazing for me and I really want to thank you for them. For four days, although we saw the different sites of London, I actually didn't care where I was. Yes, we saw some beautiful things and ate some good food, but you can take all of that away and I'd still have had an amazing time.

I felt the same way. I thought about the night we sat at the train station waiting for the train, full of Indian food and slightly buzzed, and I was perfectly happy just laughing and goofing off with him. Pick up that bench and put it in the middle of nowhere and I'd still called it heaven.

On Friday night, I knew right then that I wanted to give things a go with you, and it's why I got everyone to meet you and not just my sister and Nate. Then when you said you wanted to give things a go on Sunday, it made me happy because I think we could have something really special if we wanted to.

We can! We do!

Seeing you upset this morning and not sure of what you want hit me hard. I don't normally put myself out there to get hurt because it does me no good, but it did hurt this morning. I hope you don't feel like I was pressuring you into an answer today, that's the last thing I want to do because you need to make the decision for you. So when you went left, I was in a terrible mood. I just really wish you were here with me still. I'm normally happy on my own but today it felt llike there was a big void.

I felt so bad that I caused this. I caused his shitty day. I caused his bad mood. I caused his void.

I like you so much Whitney, like you wouldn't believe. I've completely fallen for you (yes, even with messed up hair this week). Do you feel the same, I'm not sure but I know from how I'm feeling right now that it's for real. I started to think about what's important to me. First and foremost my aim is to be in the states, ideally working in consultancy as you know. Where that'll be I have no idea right now. You are convinced that I won't like Dallas as a place when comparing it to London/New York but that made me think, would I be happy anywhere with you? The way I'm feeling right now, I'd say yes. I said before you came here that if things went well, I'd really put the effort into making something work between us. That's what I'm prepared to do. Spending money on flights to the states to see you, planning things around you, I'd give that a go. It may fall flat on it's face and not work out between us but you mean enough to me now to give it a go.

It wouldn't fall flat on it's face. I have no doubts about that.

So, I've said how I feel (not very well admittedly but this isn't easy for me) and you obviously need to do your thinking. Whatever you decide, please do it for you. I've not put my feelings above in here to confuse you, I just want to be 100% honest so you know how I feel about the situation. Once again, thanks so much for a lovely time and hope you arrive home safely. -Cayden

My heart was pounding. I wanted to call him, to wake him up, apologize again for ruining his day, ruining his airport goodbye. But I decided not to wake him up.
I hit reply.

(Readers, just a heads up: If gushy romantic crap makes you want to vomit, stop reading here. Go grab a puke bucket and come back)

Oh man, I just now got to read this email! It's almost midnight here and I just got back to my place. I hope I can keep my eyes open to type everything I want to say.

Let me start by apologizing again and again about my slight panic attack this morning. I wish I knew what came over me. This trip was everything and more than I had hoped it would be, so I don't know why it freaked me out like it did. Probably too much information, but I started my period today (good timing!) so that probably had a lot to do with the emotional shitshow I put on this morning. (Probably also had a lot to do with the whole bag of Percy Pigs I demolished yesterday and the two chocolate bars I knocked out today.)

But like I said earlier, with you, everything is just so damn perfect, and I see forever with you. I know hearing that might scare the shit out of you, as it should any guy. No guy wants to hear his new girl say "forever" this early. But I'm trying to be honest with you. I see you in my life forever. You're exactly what I want. I'll never find anyone else like you and I don't want to. You make me completely happy.

I also forgot about everything else while I was with you in London. I didn't think about work or anything like that. I just absorbed you. I just wanted to take in every piece of you. But at the same time, I was afraid that played into why I jumped at saying yes in the first place. Because I was in la-la land over there. Of course I'd say yes, it was like a freakin dream come true being there with you. So when I had my panic attack today, part of it was that I was afraid I hadn't considered everything because my head was clouded with you, you, and you (and London, and maybe Ben's Cookies), so I wasn't looking at the big picture.

I was so afraid I'd wake up from my little dream. But it's not a dream. You're real. We're real. What we have is real. I won't wake up from this and I don't want to. I really wish I hadn't said anything this morning, because I could tell I hurt you. My heart sank when I saw your reaction. I never want to make you feel that way again. Then all morning I just wanted to scream "yes! I want to be with you!" But I kept telling myself to clear my head and think about it on the plane.

I'll spare you the details on the next part of the email, but basically I told him all about how I tried to call him from the gate and the whole technology debacle. I told him about the Transformers, the movies, almost missing my flight to call him. Blah blah.

And I can't believe you're thanking me for the past four days. I need to thank you! Over and over again! You made it perfect. Absolutely perfect.

I don't want you to be sad or angry or lonely when I'm not there. I don't like thinking about you without that adorable smile on your face. I feel really weird since leaving you. I'm trying not to call it lonely, but I guess it's just a weird adjustment from having you all to myself all day and night to not having you at all. I wanted to lay on your shoulder on the plane today. It hasn't even been a day and I miss you!

So, after reading all of that (I'm sure there's some rambling in there, but I've been awake for 21 hours), how do you feel about things?

---

And then I slept.

I finally slept.

I didn't dream, but I didn't need to. I dream when I'm awake.