The Question

It’s a good thing there weren’t any daisies growing this time of year, because if they were, I would have pulled the petals off a whole field of them. Every step I took down the sidewalk became a mantra: he likes me, he likes me not, he likes me, he likes me not… The questions so pervaded my thoughts that in the busiest hours of the day they were buzzing around in the back of my head (Does he? Should I? Could we? Can I?) and in the quiet moments – while waiting for the bus, while trying to sleep, while microwaving my morning coffee – it became a deafening, wordless roar of mingled doubt and hope.

And when hope prevailed, and should I? turned into I should! I will!, I was inundated with a new flood of questions: How? Phone? Email? Show up uninvited? Heart-shaped note slipped under the door? And still more: How? Earnest? Shy? Sultry? Funny? Desperate? Stoic? The joltingly implicative What if he says yes? And then, the little traitor of a thought, What if he says no?

Immediately I would want to drop everything, crawl into bed, and forget about ever getting up again. Everything else lost meaning to me. All day I questioned why I wasn’t pounding at his door right now, and when my doubts answered that question for me, I questioned why I was even alive. At times I saw how ridiculous I must seem, and thought, What’s wrong with me? Am I becoming depressed? Am I just overreacting? Why am I acting so helpless? I can do this! I am strong and smart and brave enough! And what if it’s no? I can live through that! I can do this, can’t I?

I was walking down the sidewalk from the bus stop, each pounding footstep echoing the same questions until I found myself saying out loud “yes! Yes! Yes!” I ran the rest of the block to my doorstep and pulled my keys out so fast they stung my fingers. I couldn’t get the door open fast enough, and when I did, I practically threw my purse across the room as I raced to the phone and picked it up – and paused. The dial tone buzzed. It sounded like fear.

What am I doing? I knew exactly what I was doing. It felt more right than anything I had ever done before. Why was it so hard? Why did the phone suddenly feel like a white-hot coal in my hand, burning me? I was breathing hard, only partly due to the running. Suddenly my mind, for so long so alive with thoughts and feelings, was quiet. I was through asking questions of myself, and now, I was going to ask him. Wasn’t I?

I gulped, took a deep breath, and slowly dialed the numbers. I paused before dialing the last one, and then, when I did, there was no turning back. Every muscle in my body and every voice in my head was perfectly still as I listened to the ringing on the other end.