Time to put on my big girl panties....

“So what do you think I should do?” I asked, wiping a tear off my face.

It was just after lunch and my brothers where playing in the water with Cay, leaving me and my dad on the beach alone. I filled him in on my situation, knowing he would be disappointed in the married man detail but also knowing he would give me the best advice as to what to do.

“Jessica,” he said, and I could hear the undertone of disappointment in his voice. He opened his mouth to talk again, closing it right after. I grabbed my beer off the top of the cooler and took a sip, trying to judge what he was about to say. “I don’t approve of the married thing. With that being said I know you are an adult and you’re going to make your own decisions. While I wish I could ban you from seeing him, I know that wouldn’t stop you, so I am not sure what to say. I don’t want to encourage you to be with someone that would tear apart a family if kept secret, however I can tell he’s the one you want.” He said sighing “Just the way you talked about him, I can tell he’s the one you would rather be with at the end of the day. With that being said, you clearly have feelings for Cole too. You just light up in different ways when you speak of both of them, and the light in your eyes when you spoke of Andrew just shone a little brighter. You seemed really interested in both guys, but you need to pick one Jessica, or you’re going to ruin one family and hurt someone who you seem to care about as well. You really have gotten yourself into a tough situation here.”

I half smiled, knowing then what I had to do. “Thanks Dad,” was all I could manage to say, leaning over and giving him a big hug.

I stood up from my chair, reaching my hand out to help him up, “let’s go swim,” I said smiling, knowing I could deal with the guys tomorrow, but right now I needed to spend time with my family before they had to leave in the morning.

My dad stood, wrapping his arm around me closely and kissing me on top of the head, “no matter who you chose, he better treat you right, and you better be happy.” He said smiling, then left me with that thought as he started to jog into the water splashing Michaela.

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I washed, then rewashed my body, repeating the same gesture with my hair, giving me another excuse to stand in the hot shower and avoid my phone a little longer. My dad, brothers, Michaela and Annie left about 40 minutes prior. After saying our final goodbyes, and some embarrassing and unnecessary tears on my part, I found myself alone in my house once again. It had been awhile since it was just Daisy and I, and I had a strong feeling that after my conversations with the guys the loneliness wasn’t going to subside. Putting it off a little longer I cleaned the house quickly, getting everything back in order and now here I was, standing under the hot water just waiting for it to run out and force me out of the shower, just so I could steer clear of texting the guys a little longer. Wow, I got myself into this sticky situation and now I was becoming such a pussy.

After a few minutes the hot water started to fade into a luke warm feel until it eventually was raining ice down over my body. I turned it off and climbed out, wrapping my robe around me and padding into my bedroom, where the dreaded phone awaited. I don’t know why I was making such a deal of this, I mean asking each of them to talk is the easy part, what I really needed to be worried about was what I was going to say once that point in time finally came, and I couldn’t even get myself to put the whole process in motion. 

After practically pacing a hole in my carpet I sat down on the edge of my bed and picked up my phone, texting Cole and Andrew both the same thing:

                      I have to talk to you about something. Can we meet up some time soon?

After pressing send with shaky fingers I tossed my phone onto the other side of my bed and decided I needed to distract myself with my hair and makeup for a while. And that’s exactly what I did for about twelve minutes (no I wasn’t counting……..) until my phone buzzed with a reply. And like the typical girl I try not to be, I practically broke my hip and fractured my skull diving across my room and onto my bed to see who it was.

Cole.