Page 1 of London, Love, & A Little Something Irish

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Nataly

New Year’s Eve, 2014, London

I don’t know if he’s “the one.” He doesn’t fit my listentirely… which should make this an easy no. But… what if he is?

Does he make my heart race? Not really. So this should be simple. On paper, itis. But in real life? Not so much. And WHY have most of the guys I’ve dated had names starting with the letter J? Not that I’m a serial dater (notthatmany guys), but enough to know J-named guys have been a disaster for my love life.

I may be only twenty, but I’ve always known I don’t want to mess around. I want to be married. And I don’t want just any love. I want that can’t-eat, can’t-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff. Mary-Kate and Ashley knew what they were talking about inIt Takes Two. And once, I thought I’d found it.

“I can literally hear your brain working from across the room,” my friend Joy says, one eyebrow raised as she applies her eyeliner. We’ve known each other since school down inBournemouth—a little seaside town on the coast of England—and moved to London together for university.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and we’re getting ready to go out. I’ve been curling my hair while silently spiraling.

I pause, curling iron still in hand. “How can you tell?”

She grins, tugging the corner of her mouth up. “You? Quiet for anything more than a minute?”

I press a hand to my chest in mock offense. “Joy, I am wounded.”

She laughs as she puts on her mascara. “Come on, what’s running through that pink-sparkle brain of yours?”

I sigh, letting my curling iron rest for a second. “I’m just thinking about Joel. And… my ex.”

His name started with J and ended in disappointment.

The thing is, it didn’t start out that way. We met at work. He was confident and charming, and he pursued me. When he paid attention to me, it felt like the sun was shining directly on my face. He had this smile—mischief and a strong jawline—and when he said my name, it made me feel… seen. I fell hard.

It wasn’t just the way he made me laugh, though that was part of it. Or the way he kissed me and treated me like I was important to him. It was the way he made me believe we were something special. We’d text for hours, talking about anything and everything.

Joy tilts her head. “What about your ex?”

“I’m sure you remember I couldn’t shut up about my heart being broken when he ended things.”

“I remember,” she says, gently. “You took it really hard.”

I let out a breath. “Yeah. I think I spent more time crying into my pillow than talking for a week.” I grab my hairbrush and run it through the bottom of my curls, watching them bounce back.

I ignored the warning signs. The way he pulled back when things got serious. The way he never liked me talking about my faith. I wanted to believe we could work through it. I wanted tobelieve he thought I was enough for him. That love would be enough.

It wasn’t.

When it came down to it, Jesus got in the way of him “getting some” and he called it quits. Just like that. Three months of falling for him, and it ended in one conversation where he told me he "just thought I was too good for him.”

Jesus and I are a package deal. And apparently, that was one person too many for him.

This was the pattern of my dating life.

The worst part? I actuallyconsiderednot waiting for marriage with him. I let myself think maybe I was being too rigid. That maybe if I compromised, I wouldn’t lose him. That maybe he really could love me. Theoutrage. But I was infatuated. He made my breath catch and my knees go weak, and a girl can get a little lost in the romance of it all.

“Now that I look back, I think I probably liked theideaof him more than I actually likedhim,” I say. “I even saw a guy a couple of months ago when I was at work who made me double take. I thought it was him, but it wasn’t. My heart still beat like crazy... but I realized I didn’t want him back.”

Joy scrunches her nose. “Girl, we all knew he wasn’t right for you.”

When I really think about it, what did we even have in common? Sure, we had chemistry—the kind that makes your heart race and your palms sweat—but when it came down to values, we couldn’t have been more different. He wanted the physical stuff to come first. I wanted a foundation built on faith and trust. And while I was busy dreaming of our future, he was busy finding reasons why we wouldn’t work.

And yet… I still cried when it ended. I still felt that hollow ache in my chest when his name popped up on my phone for the last time. Because when you invest your heart in someone—even someone who doesn’t deserve it—it hurts when they walk away.

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