For a moment I imagined how good it would feel to make him listen to explicit stories about every man I’d ever dated. But when he turned to me with tears on his face, I knew there was nothing I could do to make him feel worse than he already felt.
We cried in each other’s arms and wondered if things could ever be the same between us. I didn’t know if I could feel safe again. I started to tense up every time he said my name, waiting for the hurt. Expecting it. Guarding against it.
The next time I saw him he said, “I love you, Jacque.” “That’s right, say my name, bitch!” I yelled, calling out the line from the movie American Pie, in which the lead character, a high school senior, is dating a girl who is a bit aggressive when he loses his virginity to her on prom night. In the funny scene, she demands he say her name.
Arne looked at me a bit shocked, and then we both howled with laughter. I won’t lie: It still makes my skin crawl to think about that moment. For a while, we even made a pact that we were only allowed to use pet names for each other to ensure we both felt completely safe. And the hilarious names we came up with kept us light-hearted and ever more confident in our love.
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