Could this be love?

I walked straight back into the theatre midway through rehearsals for the annual pantomime, The Wizard of Oz.  And who should be playing the role of the Tinman, but the man who was to become the father of my children, Ryan. 

By this stage, my story had evolved in such a way as to hide the true me.  And the Bella that met Ryan was definitely something he could be interested in.  Added to that was the fact that his marriage was falling apart and he needed a caring ear and a strong back to support him.  Enter the next evolution in my character.

I was good at supporting people in crisis.  I had the natural ability to say the right thing at the right time and as a spin off, helping someone else made me feel good about myself.  Somehow, I felt that I was earning the right to exist.

Our flirtation slowly progressed, assisted in no small part by our friends.  I struggled with the idea that I may have found the man for me and this influenced my behaviour in many ways, some of them not positive, including the fear that he would find out just how worthless I really was.  To lead Ryan as far away from the truth about myself I told him that I was a virgin.  I wanted him to believe that I was a better person than I believed myself to be. 

I constantly struggled with the fear that he would soon realise that I was not worth his time and I would be dumped and I started to stray towards actions that would end the relationship on my terms, rather than his.  But this was not the way it was meant to turn out and for some reason Ryan stuck with me, even when I left him sitting in the bar whilst I went for a motorcycle ride with another potential suitor.  Talk about hedging your bets.