Melody, my PCA that replaced Jackie after Jackie went back to school for nursing, was a major blessing in my life. She loved to style my hair just like Jackie had and take me out of the apartment for walks around the neighborhood just like Nan had (although she never stole any flowers off anyone’s lawns). Melody made sure my hair got washed three times a week, and got me in the shower every single day, even though it meant going through the painstaking process of disconnecting and capping off running IV lines and spending twenty minutes covering up my accessed port in my chest so that it wouldn’t get wet at all.
She never complained about anything, but we did have lots of long serious talks where I told her about some of the crazy things I’d been through in the last 26 years I’d been alive. Melody always knew exactly what to say and do in almost every situation.
What was really fabulous was that she and Jeff shared a similar raunchy yet hysterical sense of humor, but she could also be completely professional as well. Melody and Jeff loved to go take cigarette breaks together between all of the essential tasks. Sometimes they would be gone for as long as twenty minutes. I knew they were just out there smoking and nothing else because out my window I could see them talking and puffing. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but from their body language, I could tell that this was a strictly buddy-buddy session.
Melody’s kids, Max and Jared didn’t have to come with her every time that she came to work, but when they did she would sit them in the beanbag chairs in my living room with their videogames and strict instructions not to touch anything except the bean bag chairs and their Nintendo Switch. Sometimes her thirteen-year-old daughter Serena would tag along for the sole purpose of making sure they didn’t fight or touch any of my stuff.
Melody explained to me that because Max and Jared were so emotionally disturbed it was unsafe to leave them in the house alone with just a young teenager watching them, they could get violent at the flip of a switch and would then need Melody’s complete and total attention and possibly EMS or the police.
Luckily, nothing to that extreme ever occurred while they were at my apartment.
After Melody had been working for me almost a month she told me that she wanted to talk to me about something alone, when Jeff was nowhere nearby. I was really confused but she refused to answer any other questions and kept putting her perfectly French-tipped manicured fingertips to her mouth.
When Jeff got out of the bathroom, I took a deep breath and prepared to lie to him for the first time in our entire friendship. It didn’t seem right, but Melody had had a look in her eyes and I felt like this was probably something really important. I trusted Melody, and I knew Melody loved Jeff like a brother, and would never do anything to hurt him.
“I’m going to take a shower a little bit early tonight, I think I’ll call it a night for now, but if I still can’t sleep after my shower then I will call you back,” I told him.
“Is everything ok?” he asked.
I squirmed a little.
“Yeah, just kind of feeling overheated and exhausted,” I lied and then felt like I should scrub my mouth out with soap for lying to my best friend.
“Okay, well, if that’s what you want… I just hope you feel better,” he told me.”
“I’ll call you later tonight,” I told him.
Once we were alone, I looked at Melody.
“What is this all about?” I asked her.
“Do you like Jeff?” she asked me.
“Of course I like Jeff, he’s my best friend. I exclaimed bewildered.
“But do you love Jeff?” she pressed.
“Jeff is like family to me, of course, I love Jeff,” I told her.
“Could you see yourself having a romantic relationship with Jeff?” Melody asked me point-blank.
My mind went reeling.
“Oh, you mean like, like Jeff?” I asked finally getting it.
“Yes,” said Melody with one eyebrow raised slightly smiling at me with a bemused smile.
In my defense, I had never even ever remotely had a crush on anyone (male or female) my entire life. I had concluded a couple of years earlier that maybe I was just asexual and would just be alone for the rest of my life, but then when I saw Jeff that first day at Side By Side in the main building, I had felt tingly little bubbles of excitement bouncing around inside my body and all I had wanted to do was run over and hug him.
“Yeah, I think I have a crush on him,” I admitted. “But it would never work out. He’s 41, I’m 26, I’m stuck in this dumb chair and I know my disease is degenerative and that I will over time get worse and worse. I need help with the most basic of activities. I can’t put all that on Jeff, he’s going through so much right now.”
“I knew you had a crush on him,” Melody smiled at me.
“How?” I asked.
“It’s the way your eyes get so big and adoring when you’re watching him do anything, it’s the way you hold eye contact with him, it’s the way you talk to him and the way you talk to other people about him. He knows all that other stuff about you and helps you with it on a daily basis without complaining. I think you should ask him out on a date.” She told me.
“Where would we go for a date?” I asked Melody.
“I’ll take the two of you to make matching his and hers build-a-bears,” she told me.
The idea of going on an official date with Jeff to my favorite store in the world so that I could engage him in one of my favorite hobbies was so exciting I felt like if I sneezed, magical pixie dust would come flying out my mouth.
“I don’t know if I can ask him out though,” I hesitated.
“Why not?” asked Melody.
“What if he says ‘no’? Not only would that completely crush me, but it would also probably ruin our friendship, it would make things too awkward.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, I’m sure he’ll say yes,” Melody assured me.
“Maybe I should wait a couple more weeks first and gradually bring it up.
“Jeff is a good-looking guy, and he’s smart, creative, funny, and loyal. If you don’t ask him out yourself soon, someone else will, and then you will have lost out on a man that was completely and totally meant for you.”
“I have to ask him out then,” I declared aloud.
“That a girl!” said Melody. “Also, he has been talking non-stop during our smoke breaks about how much he loves you and how badly he wants to get together with you, he just didn’t know how to bring it up because of the age difference.
“This is like going beyond robbing the cradle,” Is what he told me. He also said, “I always thought when I turned 40, I’d trade in for two 20s, well I’ll just stick with the one 20. I’ll stick with Becca.”
The following day when Jeff came loping into the apartment, I felt like I was quivering inside. I was going to do this. I was going to ask Jeff out. Melody hadn’t arrived yet, and I wanted to talk to him alone. It was now or never.
“Do you want to sit somewhere?” I asked Jeff.
“Sure,” he pulled up a black wheelie office chair and plopped himself in it.
I was so nervous I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to speak. I had to clear my throat a few times to get my voice to come out as anything but a little squeak.
“Are you okay?” Jeff asked me. “Are you choking?”
I shook my head no and finally when I opened my mouth, words came out.
“You’re my best friend in the world Jeff, but you’re more than my best friend, I also like you, like you.”
“You like me, like me? Are we in middle school again?” Jeff asked smiling his big “cat ate the canary” smile.
“Okay, I’ve fallen in love with you,” I adapted my statement.
Jeff’s face was turning red and he was grinning ear to ear.
“I want to move slow, because I’ve never been in a relationship before, but I definitely want to be with you. I’ve been head over heels in love with you from the moment I laid eyes on you at the main building (of Side by Side Assisted Living), but I’ve been terrified that you would say you didn’t want to be with me because of the age difference or something like that.” I explained.
“I have been wanting to be with you since I first met you too. Same story, I was afraid to ask you out because of the age difference.” Jeff said.
“Age is just a number once a person is past 21, we were meant for each other,” I told Jeff echoing what Melody had told me.
Jeff lowered the side rail of my bed and leaned in and gave me a long hard hug. I melted against him smelling his Old Spice Aqua Reef scent of deodorant, and body wash. He stroked my back lightly and it sent tingles of excitement down my spine, almost as if his fingers were magical, then he laid me back down in the bed, holding my hand as we talked about the logistics of our first date to Build-a-bear and going down there with Melody, and about how someday we would rent an apartment and move out of Side By Side and just have our PCAs take care of us. We talked about getting a vehicle someday when we moved out of Side By Side to be more independent.
Mostly we sat there together in bliss and kept repeating, “I love you so much!” to each other and hugging each other, Jeff had pulled his chair all the way up to the bed so that his knees were touching it, he was the first man (besides my dad) that I’d voluntarily allowed into my personal space bubble, but it felt so comforting and so right
Melody came before her usual time to get me ready for our first date to Build-a-bear., and then when we got to Melody’s car, she helped transfer me into the front seat while Jeff dismantled the wheelchair to put into the trunk. We hung my IV bags, pumps, and tube feeding from the handle on the side of the car and then made the drive down to make our united fuzzy buddies.
I let Jeff pick out the bear that we should make together, but the funniest thing was, the one he picked out was the exact same one that I would have picked out. He was a light brown bear that had super soft and wispy fuzzy fur, expressive eyes, an embroidered nose, and the sweetest little smile. On his foot, it said, “Life is Good”. Jeff named his Oscar. I of course got the same bear, but I named mine Molly, we brought them to the bath station where we squirted high-pressure air all over them, brushed them out with a build-a-bear brush, and then picked out clothes for them. Jeff got Oscar a pair of sunglasses too.
The whole time we were there Melody was shopping with Serena so that it was just Jeff and me. Jeff kept calling me “honey” and “sweetheart” and “babe” which felt so right. For the first time in my life, I felt a love so unconditional and pure that it was like drinking sweet nectar from the Gods and it was all coming in my direction from the man I loved most in the world. Our months of friendship had gone way past friendship ages ago, but neither of us had been brave enough to admit it.
On our way home from Build-a-Bear Melody was driving so Jeff and I took our bears out of the boxes and had them take some selfies.
Finally, it seemed, my life was turning a corner.