the p.s. to the whole 'dog ate my bundt cake' story is how drew handled it. as i sobbed, drew's eyes filled with tears and he told me how much my effort meant to him... that no one's ever put in the effort with him like i have... and then he told me that he loves me.

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last night we both got grumpy (for different reasons) and so we weren't being as affectionate as we normally are. we were watching television with his friend chris, and during a commercial break drew got up off the sofa and walked to the kitchen. i watched him from behind as he clutched the sides of his loose-fitting jeans and gave them a tug. i smiled at this, at how unbelievably adorable my boyfriend can be, and then i looked at chris to see if he saw it, too. chris was staring at the television, and i had the urge to blurt out "isn't he fucking cute" or, worse, holler it out to drew ("honey you could not be sweeter!")... instead i decided to keep it to myself. but it's true. he's gorgeous, and even when i'm annoyed with him every little mannerism makes me tremble. i can barely contain myself around him.

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our grumpy states climaxed with me abruptly leaving drew's apartment, then immediately feeling lost and alone. i called him when i got home and he said he had just called my cell phone. we talked it out and fifteen minutes later i was back in his room, spooning him in his bed. it felt so comfortable and so right. suddenly a rush of emotions charged through me. it was a mixture of love and intimacy, fear and confusion, and an intense sexual attraction. as his body warmed mine, i thought to myself "please don't give up on me." wow. where did that come from? drew and i were nowhere close to that kind of talk -- it had barely been a disagreement. just grumpiness. anyway, this all happened very quickly and i didn't have time to process any of it properly. but suddenly i was thinking about my dad. "don't give up on me." it doesn't make any sense, really. it was my mother who ended that marriage... it was me who cut off all contact with him ten years ago. maybe it's not him so much as just the whole breakup of our family. maybe my need to feel wanted and needed 24/7 is connected to some feeling of loss created by that divorce. the feeling that nothing is forever, that love doesn't last, that abandonment and rejection are imminent. it sounds silly and i feel silly (and overly dramatic) typing that, but i know that it was something big because suddenly i was crying. i didn't make a noise because i didn't want drew to hear... i just let the tears fall. i swear to you that i'm really not a crier. i'm not ashamed to cry, i just don't do it that often. i also wasn't trying to hide anything from drew... i just honestly didn't know what the tears were for and it was too late to open up a "my parents fucked me up" conversation. today i feel like it's only natural that experiencing true love would expose my emotional damage, and so i'm trying not to fault myself for feeling so needy last night. i need to work hard to keep myself from putting unrealistic expectations on this relationship and let it continue to grow naturally. at the same time, i don't know that i can handle letting drew become so important to me that losing him would reduce me to the 1988 version of myself -- the scared, lonely, angry kid who suddenly felt that he had no future.

but there's no stopping this relationship. if watching the boy pull at his jeans makes me swoon, i'm already in too deep to get out unharmed. i really love this guy.