Confidence Building 101 Read online

  He continued to peer down at the floor as memories which he thought had passed began to pour back. “We dated for close to two months and everything was amazing. I mean, we…we…”

  She curiously observed the now stammering teen who was seated beside her. He was so open and confident just moments ago, and that was the version of him she really liked. This incredible young man didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.

  “We kinda…did stuff.”

  “You two had sex?” she brazenly inquired.

  Kevin timidly nodded.

  She held out her wine glass with an ear-to-ear smile. “Alright, Kevin! Fifteen!”

  He clinked glasses with her as the two both helped themselves to another sip after a laugh.

  “Asking this cutie out, dating, and then having sex,” she noted. “You sound like quite the playboy to me.”

  “No playboy here,” he groaned. “She goes off to this summer camp for a week like she apparently did every year. She didn’t want to but her parents made her. I don’t think her dad really liked me. Anyway, the first few days are cool. We’re texting and she calls me every night and stuff. Now, listen, I’m not some obsessive guy. Do I want to talk to my girlfriend and know what she’s up to? For sure. Am I possessive and controlling? Absolutely not. But suddenly the calls and texts end, and she stops returning my messages as well.”

  She watched his face change. This moment in his life was in the past, and sitting on the couch with her had brought those feelings back. That could be a good thing though. Perhaps it was a chance to get over this self-proclaimed hurdle that he still struggled with. All she could do was listen.

  He took a deep breath and went for it. It was time to let it all out. “I was waiting for Scott to meet me at the movies when I checked her Instagram. I remember sitting on the bench outside the theater. I can still feel the sun shining down on my face. It’s like that moment just happened yesterday. Rachel took pictures of everything. We only dated for two months, but there were probably two hundred photos of us on her account. She just loved posting stuff. I got on there…”

  She followed his eyes dart down to the floor again as his emotions caused him to labor with his words. This confident guy had never gotten over his ex-girlfriend, and she wouldn’t move a muscle until Rachel was a distant memory for him. That was her promise tonight.

  “And every single picture of us was gone,” he finally managed to admit. “It was like I didn’t even exist, but the most shocking part was all the new pictures she’d put up.”

  “Of what?” she asked.

  “Of her with her new boyfriend,” he struggled to answer. “She met some seventeen-year-old guy at the camp and I don’t know what happened, but you would’ve thought they were married from the pictures I saw. And so many of their poses, and captions, and all of that stuff; were the same things we did. Rachel just swapped me out for him.”

  “Sweetheart—”

  “We lost our virginities together, but she acted like I didn’t exist,” he interrupted, growing somewhat frazzled for a brief moment. “And then it hit me like a train. She found someone better.”

  Lisa’s jaw dropped. “Don’t say that!”

  “But it’s the truth,” he said. “I know what I am. I’m a skinny, somewhat goofy guy, who couldn’t exactly pass for a model. You should’ve seen this guy. He was tall, ripped, and had young Leonardo DiCaprio hair. The guy looked like a movie star and he played football. I can’t compete with that!”

  She set her wineglass down on the coffee table to give him her undivided attention. “Kevin, that’s ridiculous! You’re funny, smart, and very handsome. You’re an amazing guy.”

  “But she upgraded,” he argued. “That’s what happened, and what’s to stop things from playing out the same way the next time I meet a girl? We’ll date for a while, and then I’ll just lose her to the first jock who throws some attention her way.”

  She reached her hand out and rubbed his knee through his jeans. “That isn’t how the real world works. That isn’t love. That’s juvenile lust. Are those two still together?”

  He revealed, “No, they didn’t even make it to the end of the summer, and then Rachel’s dad got a job out in Arizona so she moved before school started. I don’t know what she’s been up to over the past couple of years. I stopped checking, to be honest.”

  “That’s for the best,” she told him while continuing to slowly massage his knee. “Listen, that’s life at your age. People constantly fall in and out of what they think is love. That girl didn’t know what she had. You’re a total catch. You aren’t some dumb, using, multiplicative jerk. You’re an amazing, caring, funny guy. I can’t even tell you how badly I would want you to date my daughter if I had one. You’re that special.”

  He sheepishly smiled before timidly looking away again. “I’ve liked a few girls since Rachel, but I could never ask them out. I always feel like I’m being kicked in the stomach whenever I try to talk to them. I start jumbling my words and I probably come off like an ass.”

  Lisa did her best to hold back her grin. She was very familiar with him jumbling his words. He seemed to do it around her on a regular basis, but he’d stayed fairly composed since they sat down on the couch together. Maybe they were taking baby steps in the right direction.

  His eyes were still on the floor below. He couldn’t believe he was admitting to this. “There’s always this voice in my head—”

  “Telling you that you’re not good enough?”

  His attention shifted to the brunette who’d just finished his sentence. “Um…well, that wasn’t what I was going to say…”

  “But it’s what you’re thinking,” she added her two cents. “That’s what I’ve taken away from our conversation. This Rachel girl ruined your confidence. You said it yourself! That she upgraded! And you’re scared that the next girl you date will do that too.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  She attempted to comfort his distraught face with her soft voice. “Is worried a better word?

  “I don’t know…” he sighed.

  “Did Scott ever mention my cousin Jacky?” she asked.

  He shook his head no.

  She picked up her glass and took a big sip of her drink before starting. “Jacky is my cousin. She’s three years older than me and grew up down the street, so I always looked at her like a big sister, you know? She was responsible for so many of my first experiences. My first time smoking weed was when I was in the ninth grade and she called me to come hang out with her friends who were all seniors in high school. I still remember sitting in a circle in one of their backyards, listening to all these awesome older girls exchange stories about the things they’d done with guys. I totally lied when it was my turn and made up this ridiculous story about letting my fictional boyfriend feel me up. I was fourteen at the time! I didn’t have any experience with boys!”

  He laughed along with her as he soaked in her story. Listening to this amazing woman open up to him was indescribable. He was finding out about her past? And what about that thing she mentioned earlier? About wanting him to date her daughter if she had one? His infatuation with her was only growing.

  “My first beer was when I tagged along to a party like a week later. Again, all seniors and I was a freshman, so it’s hard to describe how psyched I was to be there. She was even somewhat responsible for me losing my virginity. That didn’t happen until I was eighteen and in college, but there was this guy I really liked, and I would talk on the phone with Jacky for hours as she coached me and gave me advice. She’s been so important in my life.”

  Those deep blues eyes now seemed to sparkle. That long brown hair may as well have been silk. Every word that poured from her captivating mouth sent him deeper into the trance he was already lost in. He just wanted to know more about her: her favorite movie, her first concert, and what truly happened with Scott’s dad. He wanted to know everything.

  “She moved to Texas when I was a senior in high school,” Lisa
went on with her tale. “She had a friend who went to college down there so she shared a little apartment with her. It sucked having her leave, but we still kept in touch—it just wasn’t as easy back in those days. Holy cow, that was 1998! I’m getting old!”

  “You’re not old!” he jumped in with a laugh.

  “I’m not young either,” she smirked back. “Anyway, we didn’t have Facebook or Instagram back in the nineties, so we would talk on the phone, write each other letters, and stuff like that. It was more fun in a way. Having everything at your fingertips can ruin the excitement and anticipation of stuff. I remember how we would take pictures of our lives and send them to each other. Like, physical pictures that you had to get developed at the store, and there was something so awesome about hoping I had a package when I checked my mailbox every day—so I could take a peek inside my best friend’s life who lived thirteen hundred miles away.”

  He continued to gaze at her, curious to see where she was headed with this memory.

  “So, Jacky goes to this party with her friend one night and meets a guy,” she continued. “They hit it off; and the next thing she knows, they’re dating. This guy has a great job in the oil business, and she comes to find out that his dad owns the company. Two years later they’re married. You should’ve seen the house they moved into. Kevin, it was insane. I had her send me pictures of every room! It looked like something out of a magazine. I was dating Scott’s dad by this point and it was comical how different our lives were. We were eating soup every night, meanwhile Jacky’s bathroom was half the size of our apartment! It was ridiculous!”

  Kevin took a sip from his wineglass while he pondered that scenario. While moving into a huge house sounded like fun, he would be more than happy to live under a bridge if it resulted in having Ms. B by his side. Scott’s dad was the world’s biggest idiot for leaving this unbelievable woman.

  “Two years go by and she’s still completely happy,” she told him. “They were even trying to have kids. Her husband’s dad had unexpectedly passed away by this point, and he left the company to his son, so he was making crazy amounts of money. One night Jacky’s husband asked her to swing by the store to pick up a bottle of wine for a party she was meeting him at. She grabs some wine and heads to the checkout line to pay for it, when everything suddenly goes dark.”

  “Goes dark?” he asked.

  “Yeah, the power went out. The cashier was trying to use the key to open the register, but it’s stuck. So, everyone is just standing in line, waiting for something to happen. A few minutes go by when this guy in front of her turns around and smiles with a six pack of beer in his hand. He cracks one open, says ‘I think we’re gonna be here a while,’ and hands it to my cousin. Jacky told me that she instantly knew.”

  “Knew what?” he inquired.

  “That she was in love,” she revealed. “She never met her husband at that party. She grabbed a cup of coffee with Rick instead.”

  His brow furrowed while he did his best to understand what he’d heard. “So…she cheated on her husband?”

  “No, she didn’t cheat,” she said. “She told her husband that she wanted a divorce, and she didn’t get alimony, or a chunk of the company, or anything like that. She left with the exact thing she’d entered the relationship with: nothing. And do you want to take a guess at what Rick did for a living?”

  “Finance?” he speculated.

  “He was a middle school gym teacher,” Lisa revealed with a smile. “Well, ‘was’ isn’t the right word. He still is. She left a marriage to a good-looking, extremely successful, unbelievably wealthy man; to start a relationship with a middle school gym teacher. She divorced a man who was making millions of dollars a year, for a guy who makes what, thirty grand?”

  He watched her retrieve her phone from the end table as he reflected on what he’d been listening to. If a handsome millionaire couldn’t keep a woman, then what chance did he have? He was going to end up all alone.

  Seconds later, she handed him her smartphone. “Tell me what you see.”

  The Instagram account of a “Jacky Thomas” was open, and his finger began scrolling through the images. A family photo in front of a Christmas tree, Rick playing catch in the backyard with their son, and Jacky carrying a birthday cake out for their daughter.

  “They look happy,” he noted.

  “Happy isn’t the word for what they have,” she went on. “Those two are in love at a level I’ve never seen before. They have two beautiful children, a little house, and not a hint of the luxuries my cousin once experienced. I used to get pictures of her in front of the Eiffel Tower, on Caribbean beaches, and sitting in a brand new Corvette that she received for a birthday present. Now look at her pictures. My cousin works in daycare. They’re just two hardworking, blue-collar people, who are madly in love with each other. Jacky was married to a guy who a lot of people would consider to be the ultimate catch, and she left him for love. You can’t explain or understand why things happen. They just do.”

  “I—”

  “There will be plenty of other girls in your life,” she interrupted. “Women will come and go, but that doesn’t change who you are as a person. Your perception of yourself is based on what you feel, and only you. Never let someone label your worth. Did Rachel break up with you because you treated her poorly?”

  He answered, “No.”

  Lisa stared at him.

  Her warm, comforting face suddenly explained everything. Rachel left because she left. She just had. He hadn’t hurt her, mistreated her, or caused her to drift away. He had to stop blaming himself, and Ms. B had made sense of two years of heartache in a handful of minutes.

  She reached out to take his almost empty wineglass, already heading for the kitchen before he could ask what she was up to. What’s that one saying? Mother knows best? She wasn’t this kid’s mother, but she still knew what was best for him.

  “Really?” he laughed at the sight of her returning with two full glasses of wine. “I guess we’re past the point of drinking half full glasses…”

  “Why not enjoy ourselves?” she told him with a grin as she took her seat once again. “What was I going to say? Oh yeah, there’s something I want to talk about: your confidence and attitude.”

  He curiously gazed at her.

  “I see the open, outgoing side of you with Scott,” she said. “I honestly don’t know if my son would have the social life he does if you hadn’t come along—especially a girlfriend! He used to be so shy and quiet when he was younger. Now, you told me about your first date with Rachel and how nervous you get around girls, so I want to give you some helpful advice. It’s something a lot of guys don’t figure out until later in life; and to be completely honest, there are a ton of men out there who still don’t understand this.”

  He downed half his glass which got a little giggle out of his buddy’s mom. Those nerves were coming back and he was desperately trying to do something to shoo them away. The alcohol wasn’t having the immediate effect that he’d hoped for.

  “Women love confidence,” she revealed. “We like guys who take charge, and are assertive, and will lead us places. We don’t like jerks though. There’s a huge difference between a man who’s confident, and a man who’s arrogant. Believe me, I work with a ton of guys who don’t understand what I’m talking about. A guy who’s aggressive and dominant can be the biggest turn on in the world, but only in the right way. Do you get what I’m saying?”

  The blank stare coming from his spot on the sofa answered her question. She took a moment to think of the best way to convey her message in a way that he would understand. “Okay, let’s go back to your first date with Rachel.”

  He quickly glanced away. That was the last thing he wanted to do. He’d already portrayed himself as a big enough nerd for one night.

  “There’s nothing wrong with what you did,” she told him. “Nervousness is part of being human. No girl wants to date a robot; but at the same time, there’s something very sexy ab
out a guy who’s assertive. Personally, I love a man who just goes for it.”

  He asked, “Goes for it?”

  “Yeah, goes for it,” she nodded. “Be confident in your actions. What was the vibe you got after that first kiss with Rachel? Before you walked away.”

  “Ran away…” Kevin corrected her with a smirk.

  “Ran away,” she chuckled. “Did she feel comfortable to you? Or did she seem nervous too?”

  He took a deep breath as he went back to that sunny afternoon years ago. “I’m-I’m not totally sure. I-I-I don’t think I’m a…”

  She stared at him, encouraging the tense teen to continue with her eyes.

  “I don’t think I’m a good kisser.”

  Lisa’s eyebrows perked up.

  “Rachel never said anything but I always felt it,” he confessed. “Even when we would make out and stuff. I don’t know.”

  “You gave Rachel a little peck on the lips, right?” she asked

  He nodded.

  “Why did you stop there?” she further probed. “What was your reasoning for not going further?”

  He wasn’t following. “It was our first date…”

  “And?” she questioned again.

  “Well, you can’t go further than that on a first date…” he said, bewildered that he had to explain this to a woman approaching forty. “That’s the rule.”

  She helped herself to some of her wine before shooting him a look of disagreement. “According to who?”

  He was still having a hard time understanding her confusion. “According to everyone, right?”

  “Those dating rules are ridiculous: the number of dates you need to wait to kiss, when you can have sex, and all that stuff,” she expounded on her thoughts. “It’s nonsense. If there’s a connection, then there’s a connection. And if a guy is aggressive and makes a move, then there’s nothing saying the girl has to put a stop to it. Kevin, I know the type of guy you are and I don’t need to explain this, but you should never pressure a girl to do something she doesn’t want to do.”

  “I never would,” he quickly voiced.