22

Jessie was looking up in confusion. “Why do people make such a big deal about calling someone?”

Samantha, who was starting to look a little disinterested, just shrugged. Joseph, however, sat up. “Because a phone call means that you want something from that person.”

“Want something?” Jessie asked, a little confused.

“Nothing weird like that,” Joseph said. “It just means you want something. People don’t call you for nothing. It might be about business, it might be to tell you something, or it might be just because they want to share a little more time with you. But they want something.”

“So why does it matter so much that the guy calls the girl?” Jessie continued.

Now Joseph shook his head and sat back. “Oh, that’s all social convention. It doesn’t make sense, and don’t try to make sense of it. It’s not worth it.”

Samantha, however, piped up. “It’s all about control. If it’s up to a guy to call, then he has the control.”

“Eh, that’s just the appearance of control,” Joseph countered. “Girls still have just as much control as anyone in a relationship, no matter who’s calling. But it’s a stupid tradition. Picking up a phone and calling someone, it’s a simple way of telling someone you like them, no matter what you actually say. It’s such a simple thing, but when you’re in that stage before a relationship begins, it’s a little thing that can make your day. You probably haven’t had a chance to feel that yet, but trust me, you will someday. And that shouldn’t be a feeling that’s exclusive to girls, just because it’s convention for a guy to call.”

“Like it’s so hard to pick up a phone and call a girl,” Samantha said, rolling her eyes the other direction.

“Hey, it’s a lot of pressure,” Joseph countered. “A guy calls too early, and he seems needy. He waits too long to call, and he seems disinterested. A guy can give the wrong impression even if he tries to do everything right. It’s hard to figure out what anyone is thinking with it.”

Jessie pondered that for a moment. “Is that what they call ‘game-playing’?”

“Yes, yes it is,” Joseph replied. “Even if the only games being played are in your own head.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that,” Jessie replied. “I don’t want to be one of those game-players.”

“You can’t not play it, Jessie. That’s just naive,” Samantha said to her. “Even if you don’t intend to, you’ll just be left wondering if the guy you’re dating is, and trying to guess what it means when he takes too long to call. Just because you think you won’t play games doesn’t mean someone else won’t drag you into theirs. That’s just life.”

“So who can you trust?” Jessie asked her seemingly more experienced cousin.

Samantha shrugged. “No one. Not even yourself.”

“That’s sad,” Jessie said. She turned to Joseph, looking for some support. “That can’t be true, can it?”

“I wish I could tell you different, but she’s right. You especially can’t trust yourself, and I say that from experience. Even if you’re perfect at seeing what’s going on behind the scenes in anyone else’s relationship, you’ll never realize what’s going on in your own. And other people will say anything to manipulate you sometimes. If you want to protect yourself, you can’t trust anyone.”

“But…” Jessie began to say.

“But,” Joseph cut her off, “if you don’t trust someone completely, you aren’t living life.”

Samantha looked up at him, squinting. “How does that work?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Joseph said. “But at some point, it does.”

Jessie shifted a little in her seat and looked away like she was losing interest. Samantha seemed to have stopped paying attention, and was just lying back in her chair, enjoying the Arizona morning sun with the benefit of the last remnants of cool air from the frigid nights.

“Do you believe in ‘The One’?” Jessie asked him.

“The One?” Joseph asked back.

“You know, like one true love?”

“No,” Joseph said.

“What?” Jessie asked, almost as a reaction more than a question. She was genuinely confused that she didn’t get the answer that she was expecting. “Really? Why?”

“It’s just too depressing to think about. What if Sera was my One? Or Caitlyn? Or someone else?” Samantha looked over at Joseph. He glanced at her, but other than locking eyes for just one moment, he didn’t acknowledge her in any other way. Joseph looked back to Jessie. “That’d mean that I’ve missed my ‘One.’ If I missed her, what else is there I can look forward to?”

“Everyone else I know believes in one true love,” Jessie said.

“Yeah, but how old are they?” Joseph said. Jessie looked a little taken aback by that. “Look, I’m not trying to be condescending, but when you’re young, believing in one true love means you’ve yet to find that someone. When you’re older, it means worrying that you’ve missed that one person somewhere in your past.”

“Oh,” Jessie said. “But how can you not believe in that? This story of yours, it sounds like you believe in destiny.”

“Maybe I did believe,” Joseph said, “but now, I really think that there can’t be just one love in your lifetime. There’s many people who can be perfect for you; you change throughout your life, especially when you’re young, and what’s right for you changes as well. And each love will be different. That’s the adventure in love, not knowing what the next love will be like, even though you’ve been in love before.”

“But…love is love,” Jessie said. “How can you know you’re in love if it doesn’t feel the same each time?”

“The same way you’ll know you’re in love the first time you feel it, even though you haven’t felt it before,” Joseph answered. “No one can tell you what love feels like. Anyone who does is lying, or is writing a cheap pop song.” Joseph sighed and sat back. “My point is, if you let yourself get wrapped up in the possibility you lost the love of your past, you might miss a love in your future. As much as I love telling these stories about my past, I can’t be hung up on one of these girls. I just hope these experiences helped me be ready to find someone who is good for me.”

Jessie had stopped looking at Joseph, and was staring down at the ground, being introspective. “Anyway,” Joseph said, “I don’t know if I was looking for destiny, with Caitlyn and Sera. Maybe I was just looking for a good story.”

As Jessie let that sit in, Samantha looked over to Joseph and caught his attention. “So, what happened with Caitlyn? What changed for you guys?”

“What do you mean?” Joseph asked.

“Well, you already told us about when you met her again after high school in the pool hall and all that,” Samantha said. “What changed about her?”

“What do you mean?” Joseph asked.

“You guys never hung out in school, right?” Samantha clarified. “At least you and Sera had that when you started to get close after school. What made Caitlyn desperate enough to hang out with you?”

Jessie guffawed at that, but Joseph just smiled. “That’s a fair way to put it. Let’s face it, she didn’t need me as a friend in high school. She always had people. But after high school? Well, things really changed for her.”

“Yeah, like her not going to college, right?” Jessie asked.

“Right. She and I were in similar mindsets, but it took us a while to really connect,” Joseph said.