Our Love Story Continued…

The Ma Nouvelle Mode love story is back. After taking a little break over the holidays I continued our love story last week. There are now ten (TEN!!) installments of our little story! I should have known it would take me this long to tell our story. We’re not even close to being done. Well, we’re getting there, but… ya, still some stuff to tell. Read on!

If you would like to catch up I have 10 installments of our love story. Here they are:

one // two // three // four // five // six // seven // eight // nine // ten

*************************************

School was back in session again and this year we were seniors! Last year of college, I couldn’t believe it I made it this far. I had been working at the Princess Cruise offices in their human resources department but had to stop when it came time to start the volleyball season. I also had a job at Victoria’s Secret during the summer so I kept pretty busy.

Little did I know this semester was gonna be tough. I was anxious for DM to get back from The Bahamas because we hadn’t been able to talk very much at all during the summer break. We hadn’t been officially dating since the beginning of the year, but I still had a thing for him. I would always have a thing for him. No matter how many guys I hung out with or dated, he was always in my head. I hated it. I had never had a guy have that kind of ‘power’ over me before. I hated not being able to move on. I hated that every time I saw him with another girl, I got so insanely jealous. It never crossed my mind that he might not like it when I was with other guys. I was the queen of double standards, remember? He didn’t like that too much.

He had come back for the school year and he wasn’t so quick to call me this time. It was weird, he was very distant and almost uninterested. He wasn’t in a rush to see me and something was different. I questioned him about it one day. Maybe not the wisest thing to do as I most certainly didn’t get the answers I wanted.

Me: “Are you okay? I feel like something is different.”

DM: “Yep.”

Me: “I feel like there’s something wrong. What happened? Am I missing something?”

DM: “Nope.”

Me: “Just tell me the truth!! Don’t I deserve at least that? Come on, what do you take me for?! There’s someone else isn’t there? Gosh darnit, DM, just tell me!”

***Well, that escalated quickly…***

I didn’t have the best insight with how to deal with DM. I was so used to getting what I wanted all the time. If someone didn’t give me what I wanted, I threw a little fit — like the one above — and most of the time it all worked out.

This could have contributed as to why I fell so hard for this man. I couldn’t run him. He wasn’t going to let me boss him around. He didn’t rise up to my challenge and play my games. (Or maybe stoop to my level?) He walked in his own lane and even though he cared about me and my words did, in fact, hurt he never let on or gave in.

DM: “Actually, there is.”

Me: “WHAT?!” I had fully expected for him to say something along the lines of ‘no baby, of course there’s no one else! I love you, I’ve always loved you and I want to be with you forever!’ I might have been a tad bit delusional.

DM: “Well, over the summer I’ve been getting to know another girl. She’s nice. She understands me. I can relate to her. We’re not dating exactly, but I like her.”

oh no. OH NO. This was serious. He didn’t just kiss her or mess around or whatever, he actually liked her. He doesn’t really like anyone. His heart was really hard to get to and if he actually had real feelings for this chick, it meant trouble. I was losing him and I had no idea how to get him back.

So I didn’t. We stopped hanging out. I didn’t talk to him but only every once in a while. We were friends, I guess, but we didn’t talk much or hang out at all.

After I while I noticed that he had started hanging out with another girl, Megan. She didn’t go to our school but she lived in the same apartment complex as our friends did. She was everything he didn’t like. She wore shorts skirts, had short hair, and smoked cigarettes to name a few. I was certain he wouldn’t have any feelings for her. I was partially right.

I was kinda in the dark at this point. First I knew that he had chosen Danielle over me. If he didn’t choose to be with her in the end, I didn’t know about it. Then, what seemed like all of a sudden to me, he was hanging out with this other girl. All I knew was that he didn’t choose me. And even in all my toughness, all my trying to play it cool, it really, really sucked.

After he stopped hanging out with Megan and I wasn’t dating anyone, he started to call me again. Well, hmmm, he wants to ‘be friends.’ How in the world is that going to work? Well, somehow I couldn’t say no to this man, so we started hanging out again. We weren’t dating, but we were kind of rekindling a romance of sorts.

Little did I know that during this time behind the scenes, or at least behind the scenes to me, DM was getting a lot of flak for… well life, I guess. His assistant coach didn’t like me one bit and was going to be sure that DM had nothing to do with me. He would say things to DM about me that weren’t true. He accused him of doing things he wasn’t doing. And — little did we know — that he was also saying all these nasty things to DM parents in The Bahamas behind his back. It did not bode well for our relationship.

Very early on during DM’s basketball season, I was at work one afternoon when I got a phone call. It was a mutual friend of mine and DM’s but he never called me so it kinda worried me a bit. I waited till my break (like the good employee that I was) and called him back.

“Okay, so, something just went down today. I don’t know if you already heard about it. But you should come by after work.”

I finished my shift and went by his house. DM was there in the back room, but when I got in our friend met me in the front room.

“So the coaches have made a decision. You guys aren’t allowed to talk. During this basketball season, you guys aren’t allowed to be together. I know, it’s crazy. He’s in the back room if you want to say goodbye.”

It was all so dramatic…. saying goodbye, not allowed to see each other, it was straight out of Romeo and Juliet. But at the time there was nothing really ‘romantic’ about it.

I went to the back room where he was, hoping to get some kind of explanation. He was sitting there, he seemed pretty down.

DM: “The coaches think we’ve been messing around. They think you’re a bad influence on me. They think you’re affecting the way I play. Basically I can’t see you anymore.”

Me, being the fighter that I am: “That’s is ridiculous. Ridiculous, they can’t do that, what gives them the right? Let me talk to them, I’ll tell them how stupid it all is. They can’t control you just because they gave your scholarship!!”

Well, as it turns out, they can. And they did. We spent the entire senior year basketball season avoiding each other. Literally walking 10 steps in front of the other person after leaving a class we shared together. I didn’t really know how he felt about me. I didn’t know if it was as hard for him as it was for me. We really did honor the coaches’ decision and we maybe talked on the phone one time the whole season.

Until one night. I was sound asleep when my phone rang. It was a mutual friend, Rick.

Me: “Heellloo?” In a groggy, sleepy voice.

Rick: “Have you talked to DM? He talked to his dad earlier this evening and no one has seen him since! I’m coming over.”

To be continued……

Author information

Natalia Owner & Author
Natalia is a mom to two crazy boys and wife to one handsome dude. She lives in France part of the year where her husband plays professional basketball, but she hails from Southern California. The hubs was born & raised in Nassau, Bahamas, which makes them an intercultural, interracial family traveling the globe together since 2007. She loves to cook (but mostly eat), hang with her fam, be adventurous, & find ways to stay girlie in a house full of men. On her site you can find loads of hair tutorials, makeup ideas, & fashion tips for the everyday woman. She believes that beauty and fashion don't have to be intimidating and that every woman should learn to embrace her own beauty. TwitterFacebookGoogle LinkedIn

The post Our Love Story Continued… appeared first on Ma Nouvelle Mode.