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Chapter 8

Step Eight: Do not be afraid to act upon your true feelings

It was the next morning and I was still trying to avoid having that talk with Ranger and Morelli. All right, I was being a chicken again. So what? I felt like a rabbit being pestered by a hungry snake – the only difference was that now there were two snakes.

I just felt like I wasn't ready to make a decision.

One minute I was beginning to crave the life my best friend led, and the next minute the two men in my life demanded of me to choose between them.

But I couldn't. Maybe something inside of me was afraid to actually take that step and make a definite choice. I didn't know; and I wasn't exactly eager to find out.

Unfortunately, Ranger and Morelli hadn't looked like they were going to take it any slower after our conversation from the night before.

Trying to shake off these thoughts, I took a sip of my coffee. It was around ten in the morning and only few tourists occupied the tables in the bistro. Towels were thrown over the chairs beside them and it looked like they just wanted to eat and drink a little before settling down at the beach for the rest of the day.

Raúl was cheerfully chatting with a group of teenagers – obviously recommending some discos in the immediate vicinity to them.

I enjoyed sitting all by myself at a table outside the bistro and reading the newspaper as a shadow fell over me.

Automatically glancing up, I was unhappily surprised to see Morelli towering over me. He certainly didn't give me a lot of time to prepare myself for this encounter. Men, always so impatient…

"Morning, Steph," Morelli said. His gaze wandered away from my horrendous outward appearance to the stool opposite me. "May I sit down?"

Hesitating, I cast a glance at Raúl who had stopped paying attention to the teenagers he was serving and was instead focusing on Morelli and me with a concerned frown on his face. I forced a reassuring smile out of me for his sake and emptied my cup of coffee quickly.

"No," I replied, standing up and grabbing my purse. "Let's go somewhere more private."

I placed some money on the table and waved a brief goodbye to Raúl. Morelli quietly followed me as I headed straight to the beach. Taking off my shoes, I walked through the sand along the ocean to some beach chairs that were unoccupied and apart from the increasing stream of people.

We sat next to each other in one of those large beach chairs, both facing the horizon in an awkward silence.

Eventually, I could feel Morelli take a deep breath as his arm brushed mine. What disturbed me was that I felt no excited shudder or nervous anticipation.

I felt next to nothing except for maybe dread due to the oncoming conversation.

"So, you love us both." It wasn't a question. "What does this mean? What happened to us – you and me?" he quietly asked, unknowingly voicing the questions that were running through my head just a few seconds before. "What happened to all of our plans? We want to get married, Steph. Do you really want to throw that away? Just like that?"

"You want to get married," I muttered, biting my lower lip as his head turned to me.

"What?" he hissed.

"I don't know if I want to marry right now," I hastily explained. "You just kind of pushed me into this whole wedding thing when you told your mother and grandmother we'd get married. But you never asked me."

He ran a hand through his thick dark hair and laughed incredulously. "So, that's it? After all these years you couldn't even tell me that you want to end our relationship?"

"No!" I almost shouted. "No, I didn't mean that I want to end it… I just don't know if I'm ready for marriage. I never got the chance to think about it."

He chuckled humorously. "Steph, I love you. Of course I've thought about marriage and stuff. Aren't you supposed to do that when you're in love? It makes me think that you obviously don't want to marry me – and you're a woman. Don't all women want to get married and settle down?" I shifted uneasily. His speech was getting more and more passionate. "I'm not Orr if that's what you're afraid of. But I'm no Ranger either." He sighed and continued in a much softer and oddly vulnerable voice, "You know, I've accepted the fact that there'll always be something between you two. Some chemistry or some kind of bond, but I need you, Steph. I want you to choose me."

He took my hand and stroked the palm with his thumb.

I looked into his eyes and for the first time I realised that there was something missing. I couldn't pinpoint what it was, but something wasn't there in those familiar eyes; something that I wanted, that I needed to see there. Something I saw every time I looked into Ranger's eyes…

True, I mean Morelli was the first man I ever loved, but still there had been something missing all those years. Something that Ranger had been given me unconditionally and unlimitedly…

When suddenly it hit me.

My heart beat erratically in my chest and my breathing became laboured. Emotions and thoughts and past occurrences flooded my mind all at once, and suddenly the solution to my unsteady relationship with Morelli seemed so clear as if I'd known all along and just ignored all the signs.

I smiled sadly as his fingers brushed a tear from my cheek.

"You are my first love," I whispered, my voice shook weakly as I spoke. "All those years ago when I was still a teenager… I've never been able to completely let you go. It's just so hard to let go."

Understanding dawned in his eyes as he continued to stroke my cheek affectionately. "You don't have to let me go. I can stay right here by your side."

I shook my head. "I was afraid, Joe. Afraid to let you go. But I have to. I'm not in love with you anymore."

He froze. "But you said-"

"I know," I interrupted. "I know what I said a few weeks ago. I still love you, that's true, and I could never let you leave my life completely, but I'm not in love with you. I have to let you go. I have to stop being scared," I said, desperate for him to understand.

"I don't understand. Everything was fine before you came here! You wanted to marry me, you said you loved me. Now you say I pressured you into the concept of marrying me, you take back your words of love to me, and I don't even understand why! Why are you thinking like this all of a sudden? Is it because of Ranger?" He suddenly yelled and I could practically feel all the hurt and pain radiate off of him.

I wanted to comfort him, but I knew he would probably misunderstand my intentions and try to make me change my decision that felt so right to me. I hurt for him and a part of me was saddened at the thought of breaking up with him, but the other part, the much greater one, knew that what I was doing was right.

I loved Morelli, and I loved Ranger. But in love I was only with Ranger. No matter what I had thought these past weeks and maybe even months, I now knew that Morelli could never be the one for me. He couldn't understand and support me like Ranger did. Ranger may behave like a moron sometimes, but he knew me. He knew what I wanted and needed, and he knew how to encourage me. In a way, I sometimes even suspected that he knew my needs better than I did.

Morelli tried to be there for me in his own way by disapproving of my friend and job choices. But he would never be able to completely understand me like Ranger did. My feelings for Ranger surpassed those for Morelli, and that was what I had been afraid of; it had scared me to feel so much for another person without knowing how that person felt about me.

Morelli was safe, I knew the rules of the game we played – but Ranger was different. He was a mystery, and my body and heart were at stake with him. It frightened me that he held that much power over me while I apparently only served for his amusement.

"It's not Ranger's fault I'm breaking up with you," I softly disagreed. "I'm not the one for you, Joe. I can see that now. You and I, we wouldn't be happy. Look at us! We have a on-again, off-again relationship that seriously can't be healthy! It can't go on like this forever."

I felt a heavy weight being lifted off of me. I knew I was doing the right thing – I had known all along. This alone time had subconsciously made me see my true feelings. I had only been afraid to acknowledge them.

Ranger was the one for me.

Whenever Morelli criticised my job or my work methods I got annoyed that he couldn't accept the way I am; Ranger never criticised me. And I wanted it to stay that way – I wanted to be enough for him just the way I was.

Morelli studied me carefully. "And with Ranger it would be different?" he softly asked, all fight seemed to have left him as his whole body expressed defeat.

Another tear suddenly rolled down my cheek. "I hope so."

He then smiled at me, a sad smile that was full of sweet and bitter memories, and regrets. "I'll never stop loving you," he vowed and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

More tears slid down my face as the finality of it all hit me. In a moment of intimacy that only two people could share that have known each other for many years, we looked deeply into each others eyes to silently say goodbye to the concept of being lovers.

Abruptly, he broke our connection and stood up. "I'm going to take the next flight back to Trenton," he said and sighed. "Maybe it'll be best if we don't see each other for a while."

I wiped the tears away from my face and stood up as well. His wish for distance between us upset me, but I forced myself to accept it and give him the time he needed because I feared to lose his friendship. He'd been a very close person to me for far too long that I could risk losing him.

"Okay," I quietly agreed.

He must have sensed my unspoken fear, because he turned one last time to me with a small but heartfelt smile on his face, and said, "After all, Bob is going to miss you, and we wouldn't want to upset Bob, now do we?"

I laughed a raspy laugh that felt free and depressed at the same time.

Sadness as well as happiness surged through me as I watched him walk back to the boardwalk, his muscled shoulders stiff and tense and his whole stance proud. I was sad to give up my first love for good, but on the other hand I felt also adventurous and lively for the new things that lay before me. For a new love.

This night, as Raúl and Lester visited me in my hotel room with three bags of bagels and a few bottles of sangria, I finally mourned the loss of my first love.

However, the two men that had the honour to witness this, made sure that the mood didn't stay sad for too long. They always found a way to end my momentary lethargy and to make me see the positive side of my break-up.

"Well, Bomber, I really have to say that I'm proud of you," Lester said later that night, grinning like mad, and leisurely threw an arm around my shoulders. "You finally came to your senses and dumped the moron. And all that for Ranger – that's so romantic."

I rolled my eyes at his theatrical behaviour. "Idiot! I didn't break up with Joe for Ranger." He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I was definitely tempted to whack him with one of the bottles. "Ranger still needs to prove that he's worth my trust," I elaborated. And that he really loves me and wants a honest to God relationship with me, I mutely added. "If he doesn't, then there's nothing going to happen between us."

Lester choked on a sip of sangria. "Well, then it's good he's not going to take no for an answer," he muttered.

"Sounds a little tyrannical," Raúl piped in in an unusually grave voice. "You're not going to let him walk all over you, are you?" he said to me a little worried.

I snorted. "Hell no!" I exclaimed and touched my bottle to Raúl's. Lester rolled his eyes at our antics, but smiled good-naturedly.

It was by far the strangest wallowing I had ever taken part in, but it was exactly what I needed.

Lolling on my bed, drinking, talking, joking and laughing – and even shedding a few tears, I felt my heart lightening as the night wore on. Though I would have liked it if Mary Lou had still been there to have some female talk with, I felt somehow connected to the two men that tried their best to replace my best friend.

A detail suddenly struck me that I hadn't paid too much attention to before and I sobered slightly as I looked at Lester. "Why didn't you tell me that they wanted to come? Why did you keep this from me?"

His goofy grin faded as he slowly turned to look at me. "Would it have changed anything?" he simply asked in return.

"Yes! In fact, it would have! It wouldn't have been this great of a shock!" I retorted and pointed an accusing finger at him. "Besides, I thought that we'd become sort of friends. Don't friends tell each other everything?"

He laughed in amusement. "I'm not a woman, Bomber, I don't think this rule applies to me."

I scowled at him. "Sexist pig."

He winked at me and touched his bottle to Raul's.

My eyes narrowed even more at the both of them.

Sighing, Lester squeezed my shoulder. "Don't be mad. I'm just kidding." I rolled my eyes at him, but smiled a little. "Ranger asked me not to tell you. He obviously feared you'd border the next flight to the Congo or something. He's new to showing his feelings to the woman he's got feelings for, you know? Just give him a chance. Please."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Until now I haven't seen much of this 'showing his feelings to the woman he's got feelings for'. He never once talked about himself or his feelings! He has been quite aggressive and uttered a few demands, specifically – since he's arrived – about me making a decision. I didn't even know that it was so important to him that I come clear with my own feelings! He's behaving like a jerk most of the time, even more so the moment I came here for a vacation. He's probably going to leave as well, now that his rival has been disposed of, and he can finally get me into bed whenever he wants to. There won't be any confession on his part about his so-called feelings to me!"

Raúl and Lester looked at me warily.

"What?" I snapped, fully annoyed now.

"Here," Lester said, handing me a full bottle of sangria. "Drink this. You're far too sober for your own good."

Rolling my eyes in exasperation, I took the bottle and drank.

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Flashback

"How do you realise you're in love with somebody?" she asked and leaned her head back against the headrest of her seat.

It was too dark to see the look on his face as he turned his head to her briefly, but in the lights of an approaching car she could see him quirk an eyebrow.

"I mean," she tried to explain, "how do you know? How do you know this is the one person in the world you love? The one you want to spend your life with, get married to and have many, many babies with?"

"You only drank two margaritas. You can't be that drunk," he finally said.

She rolled her eyes. "Ranger, I'm serious here!"

It took him a while to speak again, but when he did his voice had lost its humorous quality and instead sounded almost wistful. Though it was hard to decipher since he spoke so quietly.

"It's quite… intense, Babe, and sometimes you only realise that you love someone when it's too late."

She furrowed her brows in thought, not realising that he didn't answer her question. "Well, that sucks."

She missed the hint of a smile on his face.

"But shouldn't you fight for the person or something?" she asked.

"Why?"

"Well, when you love someone you want to be with them, so it's only natural that you fight to get them, right?"

He was silent for a little while longer now.

"It's not always that easy, Babe. Sometimes the person you want to be with is attached to somebody else," he said. "It would be selfish to destroy that person's happiness with another only because you want them as well."

She shrugged her shoulders. "That's a really sucky situation," was the only thing she could come up with before she yawned. "But what do you do then?"

He smiled into the darkness, a bitter smile. "Wishing it was you who was with them."

Her eyes closed as she curled up on the plush of the passenger seat and soon sleep overcame her after she mumbled, "I want to be with you."

His eyes left the road for a moment and looked warmly down upon the sleeping figure next to him.

An hour later he stopped the car in front of a house. His eyes were indifferent yet again as he prepared to gently shake her awake.

Out of their own accord, his fingers brushed across her forehead, carefully stroking her warm skin. He pressed a chaste but tender kiss to her temple and whispered almost beseechingly, "If you really want to be with me, then you have to let go of him by yourself. I will not manipulate you into leaving him. Let go of him and come to me."

As he stepped out of the car his gaze lingered on her for a moment before his eyes hardened at the sight of Joseph Morelli's house.

End Flashback