On how it didn't "go there," after all.

"You'd make the perfect heroine of a chick flick," W said to me over our table at Lestat's on Monday night. "You're sweet, and attractive, and slightly conflicted..."

We'd been talking about the past week, how I'd juggled my time and priorities between his visit and Sunshine, whose mom passed away on the 28th, how Lui kept swinging back and forth between being okay with W's existence and glaring at me for flirting with him, and made the whole week sort of awkward by it, how scared I am of having to become anybody's "little wife," and of losing myself in the process.

"I know I can be happy with Lui, in the long run," I said. "And I do want all this: the husband and the babies and the friend to grow old with. I just don't want it all right now. Because right now, I'm only 24, and I'm in the best shape of my life - I mean, I looked good last night..."

"You did. Look. Really. Good last night." He spoke slowly and poignantly, so I could savor every word, reëstablishing for myself that compliments from outside a relationship just have so much more je ne sais quoi. "You looked beautiful."

That set me off glowing. "And I don't wanna have to dumb myself down, and lose the right to get compliments like that one."

"You shouldn't have to. It really just sounds like you need to talk to him about all this." And before I insisted yet again that Lui and I have talked about all this, ad nauseum, he added, "I really wish I still lived here, so he'd get used to seeing me, and maybe realize that I'm not a threat to him."

"I wish you still lived here too... It'll be okay, right?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I really want you to be happy." He took my hand, as he'd done a few times over the past few days, for comfort or strength. His hands are warm, and rough; Lui's are unnaturally smooth; I guess it takes being overly familiar with one thing to take such notice of another. It wasn't the first time that night that we'd felt like we were in a movie, and commented on it.

When I dropped W back at the house he was staying at, effectively saying goodbye after five days of intense emotion and awkwardness (not all down to him by any means), I got out of the car to hug him, and he held me for a while, allowing me to take notice again, this time of how strange it is to hug someone my own height (Lui is 10 inches taller than I am; W is not quite three). He kissed my cheek through my hair, said, "It's been really good to see you, Elle," right into my ear, and finally pulled away.

As he was getting his bag out of my backseat, I couldn't resist trying once again to have the conversation he once refused to have. "So... seriously?" I asked, biting my lip.

"Seriously what?"

"You never even wonder about it?"

W smiled. "Sure, I wonder about it... More like dream about it, maybe... Always good dreams." He put his bag down in the street to hug me and kiss my cheek again. "Goodbye, Elle."

I drove off, immensely satisfied and dissatisfied by the whole thing. Why should I feel so bad for being made to feel so good? Being built up and validated, recognizing feelings without acting on them - these things aren't betrayal. Suddenly, I was pissed. I can't live my life walking on eggshells, wondering what lingering glance or witty reference to someone's pants is going to turn Lui against me. I called Libertine on the way home and tried to blow off steam, only to have Lui get upset with me for having talked to her ("So either you're mad at me, or something happened with W," he said). So I blew up at him instead, told him how awkward he'd made the few days I had to spend with W, who - regardless of feelings past or present - is more of a really good friend to me than he is anything else, told him I was not going to be his little wife, I will not tone myself down for him, I will not give up all my male friends for him, I cannot spend the rest of my life like this, and if it happens again, he'll have to let me go.

I finally got through to him. He's spent the last week trying to make it up to me, got W's number from me to apologize to him, and now the two of them may or may not be planning something (that's as much as I can get out of him, and I haven't asked W about it), he told me about all his own doubts so that I wouldn't feel so guilty for having my own; in short, he seems to finally understand what I've been trying to tell him for months now. And so, even though he thinks it's the opposite, I now feel more comfortable with and ready for the whole marriage thing than I have in a long time.

Which is a good thing, because, well, we have to go take care of this greencard thing on Sunday.