PART 9 – I Stopped Trying to Guess What Wendell Was Hiding and Started Paying Attention to the Small Ways He Was Learning to Trust Me

I didn't ask Wendell about the photographs again right away.

That surprised me.

A few weeks earlier, I would have brought them up every time we spoke, hoping one question might lead to another until I finally understood everything.

But something had changed after our conversation in the garage.

I no longer felt that I had to force the truth out of him.

I wanted him to offer it willingly.

There was a difference, and I was beginning to understand why it mattered.

We continued seeing each other as we had before.

We talked about ordinary things.

We laughed when something struck us as funny.

Sometimes we sat together without saying much, and I found that I enjoyed those moments more than I expected.

I had spent so long wondering whether Wendell was keeping me at a distance that I hadn't fully appreciated the ways he was already letting me close.

He remembered things I mentioned in passing.

He noticed when my mood changed.

He never treated my grief as something I should have finished dealing with by now.

Those things mattered.

I wasn't going to pretend they didn't just because he had handled one part of our relationship badly.

But I wasn't going to pretend that part didn't matter either.

Both truths had to stay with me.

One afternoon, I caught myself thinking about the blue tape on the yellow paper.

It was a ridiculous detail to remember.

I could have forgotten the color of the wall or the position of the workbench.

Instead, I kept picturing those two strips holding the message in place.

For my Winnie.

The words had been written simply.

There was no long explanation underneath them.

No declaration meant to impress anybody.

Just a few words, followed by a date.

I wondered how long Wendell had been looking at them.

I wondered whether he had read them to himself when he was alone.

I wondered whether he had ever considered taking them down.

I couldn't answer any of those questions.

And, for once, I let them remain unanswered.

I had learned that curiosity did not give me permission to invent a whole story around what I didn't know.

If Wendell wanted me to understand the message, he would have to tell me what it meant.

Until then, I could appreciate what I had actually seen.

He had written something for me.

He had kept it where he could see it.

And he had been frightened when he realized I had found it before he was ready.

Those facts were enough for now.

They didn't tell me everything.

They did tell me that my first assumption might have been wrong.

I had believed his closed door meant he didn't want me in his life.

Perhaps he had been trying to prepare a part of that life for me.

If so, his way of doing it had caused unnecessary hurt.

But the intention mattered too.

I wanted to be fair.

I also wanted to be careful.

I had spent years learning the difference between kindness and trust.

Kindness could be offered in a moment.

Trust had to be built over time.

Wendell had been kind to me from the beginning.

Now I needed to see whether we could build the other thing.

I didn't make a formal decision about it.

I simply began paying attention to what happened next.

When we spoke about our days, I noticed whether he answered my questions directly.

When he mentioned something he was working on, I listened without immediately asking whether it had anything to do with his house.

When he became quiet, I tried not to assume that his silence meant something bad.

It wasn't always easy.

Sometimes my mind returned to the months when I had been left guessing.

I would remember how often I had gone home wondering whether I was being unreasonable.

Then I would remind myself that I had finally told him how I felt.

He had listened.

Now I had to give him a chance to show me whether he understood.

That was not the same as forgetting.

It was a decision to move forward without dragging every old question into every new conversation.

I hoped Wendell would do the same.

One evening, we talked about Christmas again.

The subject no longer felt as mysterious as it had before.

It still carried a certain weight, but I didn't feel the same anxiety when the date came up.

Wendell asked whether I had thought about what I wanted to do.

I told him I hadn't made any firm plans.

He nodded thoughtfully.

I waited for him to say more.

He looked as though he might.

Then he stopped and smiled at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing."

I raised an eyebrow.

He laughed softly.

"That's not a very convincing answer," I told him.

"No," he admitted. "It isn't."

I smiled, but I didn't press him.

The old version of me would have spent the rest of the evening wondering what he had almost said.

This time, I let the conversation move on.

It felt good not to chase every unfinished sentence.

I was learning that patience could be a choice rather than a surrender.

There were still moments when I wished he would simply tell me everything.

I wasn't going to pretend otherwise.

But I no longer wanted to discover the truth by accident.

I wanted to be included in the telling.

That was what I had asked for.

And that was what I intended to keep asking for, if necessary.

Later, when I was alone, I thought about how strange it was that a relationship could make a person feel both wanted and uncertain.

Wendell had made me feel wanted in many ways.

He had also left me wondering where I stood.

Neither feeling canceled out the other.

I had to decide whether we could build something honest from that point.

I didn't know yet.

But I was no longer willing to let fear make the decision for me.

Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Christmas Eve Was Getting Closer, and I Had to Decide Whether I Could Accept a Promise Without Knowing Exactly What It Meant