"I Love You 22"

 Season 3 Episode 22. The number 22 is very significant in my life. It’s the day I was born.  It’s how old L was when I proposed to her.  It’s the day I said I love you to L for the first time. It's also the episode number where Laura finally tells Carmilla that she loves her.  So when this episode ended I figured this would be the best time to get to the I love you story.

    Well, now things have finally gotten interesting.  Believe it or not, LaFontaine the level-headed one of the group went out and made an insane and rash decision.  She kidnaped the Dean and now they have her traped but with no way of bringing Perry back at the moment.  So they are left with taking shifts to watch her while they try and come up with a plan.  

   

 Carmilla warns Laura and Lafontaine not to listen to anything the Dean says.  LaFontaine and Carmilla take the first two shifts with Laura taking the third shift.  A montage ensues as the Dean verbal assault on each of our character's psyche going after all of the insecurities and fears.  Since the Dean was captured she hasn’t paid too much attention to Carmilla and LaFontaine she has however been focused on Laura. (Now this could be the Dean’s way of seeing if Laura is truly meant for her Carmilla.  Again that sneaky parent angle again.) So when the montage ends Laura's body language has sharply declined.  Carmilla enters the room as the Dean has fallen asleep and Laura is sitting sad and defeated by the Deans' verbal assault.  Carmilla seeing Laura's body language comes over to Laura to talk with her.  Here is how the conversation went.  

Carmilla: Is she out?

Laura: Yeah.  Nothing like umpteen hours spent emotionally annihilating your enemies to leave you plumb tuckered.

Carmilla: I told you not to listen to her  Everything she says is a lie, Laura

Laura: Except it isn’t.  Everything she says is true.  Yeah, the way she says it is all horrible and twisty like some evil total perspective vortex but it’s still true.  She’s loose because of me, there’s no getting Vordenberg’s heart to stop her because of me.  And even if I had the best -

Pause: Alright we have been here before.  Laura is again blaming herself again for everything that has happened and the situation that there in even though she really didn't have any control over the situation.  For Carmilla, she has been slowly preparing for this speech as we have progressed.  The first in Season 1 Episode 27 the Second at the end of Season 2 Episode 36.  I love how each time she interrupts and stops Laura mid-sentence.      

Carmilla: (interrupting): Okay, stop!  Stop.  Look, you’re struggling, okay, and you’re allowed to.  Because, Cupcake, the universe is huge and it's arbitrary and uncaring.  You know, one moment you can get sucked into a Hell pit and the next moment you can get pulverized by a meteor and, really, in the grand spectrum of things, it’ll mean nothing.

Laura: If this is your cheering-up speech, it needs a little work.

Pause: Let's be honest here Carmilla isn't very good at the big speech.  Who is?  I certainly am not.  Most of my big speeches to L sounded pretty close to this.  I have to give Laura credit for the first time she makes a little fun of Carmilla's not so great speech.  Which I think lightens up Carmilla and really gives her the opportunity to say exactly what she is feeling.     

Carmilla: Okay, I was evil for the better part of three centuries, so, you know, give me a break.  The point is if nothing means anything then the only thing that means something is what we make.  I mean, you know?  Look at me.  I, I used to use hopelessness as an excuse for all of the awful things that I did.  Until this … prissy little overachiever that I was … totally planning on handing over to my Mother unraveled all of my plans.  Because she thought we all deserved better.  (smiles)  Even me.  And, yeah, you are flawed.  And struggling, and uncertain, but … it is so … beautiful.  The way you try.  (Laura looks like she’s about to cry) What?

Pause:  Sometimes telling the truth is all it takes.  Carmilla probably had a plan going in and she started it until being interrupted by Laura.  Feeling a little embarrassed she threw out her plan and just told her the truth.  I know we already know Carmilla is head over heels in love with Laura and even Laura knows it heck Perry, LaFontaine, Danny, Dean, Maddie ECT.  But Laura doesn't know why.  Why has this three-hundred-year-old vampire fallen for me? What makes me so special?  What makes me more special than Elle?  What made me worth saving?  Carmilla just answered every one of those questions. 

Laura: To hell with “light and casual”

(Yet another kiss!)

Laura: I don’t want to be light and casual with you.  I don’t want to pretend that what I feel about you is some stupid, frothy thing that doesn’t matter, because it is like the axis that my world turns on. And, yeah, we could talk ourselves out of it because this is scary and, and hard, and, and, and maybe the world’s about to end but … if it is, then I want us to have something good to hold on to.  (quietly) I love you.  Why shouldn’t that be something good?

Pause:  Carmilla's patience has paid off,  Laura has finally confessed her love.  It took Laura to poke a little fun at Carmilla to say to hell with the plan.  Here I am this is who I was and this is who I am now and why I'm in love with you.  This is what makes you special to me.  This is what makes you different from everyone else.  Laura up to this point has said everything up to the words "I love you."( I Love You. I Miss us.) She has shown Carmilla how much she loves her told her how much she loves her.  But there is something holding her back something that hasn't allowed her to say it.  Fear, and it took Carmilla easing all those fears to break her fear.        

(They kiss again, and the Dean wakes up and starts to sarcastically slow-clap.)

The Dean: Oh, how sweet.  Doomed, clearly, but still, very sweet. 

Pause: Haven't we been here before?  Yep (Parental Intervention).  The Dean, Carmilla's "Mother" has kind of been at this since the beginning.  She has constantly been meddling in Carmilla's love life.  It's almost like she has been trying to help Carmilla grow up (like a 300-year-old vampire needs to grow up, but she did).  This is defiantly a go with me.  Think about it lets start with Ella.  Carmilla's "Mother" is trying to teach her to be honest with people.  The first challenge with Laura a choice between the status quo or take a stand for Laura.  In season two she is constantly meddling in their love life but this time puts the pressure on Laura to make a decision.  And now here we are the Dean has manipulated Laura and Carmilla to finally have that talk.(The Talk) It’s short.  All be it, but it's definitely the talk.  I know the Dean looks sarcastic.  Her standing up and clapping and that their love is sweet, but she has shown signs of trying to help them.  It's almost like there are two sides to the Dean.  Parents do care even the evil ones.  

Wait a minute did Carmilla get the chance to respond to Laura between the kiss and her "Mother's" interruption.  No. No, she didn't.  Now Laura is the one who initiated the kiss and Carmilla's  "Mother" interrupted them mid-kiss.  Should Laura be worried because Carmilla didn't respond?  No.  She already knows Carmilla loves her.  She may not have said the words but she has shown on numerous occasions that she does.  Laura knows that Carmilla will say it when the moment is right and that moment was interrupted.

This is a long one I know but there's a lot to dig into.  So mine and L's I love you.  It all started with a snowstorm (Christmas Chaos) yes that snowstorm.  That moment that single moment for me planted a question in my mind that lingered and festered all of Christmas break all through New Years'.  That question was is L in love with me? I'm guessing L was asking herself the same question.  This little event has changed everything.  This act of nature along with the interference of one parent had moved what was a very new relationship forward.

The moment that stuck with me from the snowstorm was the fact that L got so upset by the situation.  We had been dating only a little over a month.  Heck, we had only known each other for 3 months.  I had never seen her this upset before and the reason she was upset was that she couldn't see me.  Then those questions that Laura had been asking herself (Yep that's right we switched characters again).  Why me?  What made me so special?  What had I done to make her want to be with me this much?  Why was she willing to risk going out in such a terrible storm just to see me?  Now again I'm guessing L had a lot of these similar questions after this as well.  

So here I am Christmas is over and we have a week till New Years' before we head back to school.  Most of my days at that time would be spent playing video games with my brothers and sure I did stuff like that.  At night I had trouble sleeping constantly thinking about all of those big questions.  Trying to answer each one.  The thing is I kept coming to the same answer to all of those questions and it was quite simple.  She loved me.

Well, that opened up even more questions.  How do I feel about her at this point?  Do I feel the same about her?  What about her makes me feel like this?  And the biggest question do I love her?   At this point L made me feel like no one had before.  She made me uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time.  What I mean by this is she pushed me showed me how to grow up.  She also made me feel comfortable, safe, she made me happy.  To this day every time, I walk into the house after work no matter what my day was like as soon as I see her my spirits are lifted.  That really hasn't changed since we met.  

I actually was able to answer all of those questions before New Years'.  The challenge came with first getting the courage to say the words.  The second challenge came with finding the right time to say them in the right situation.  Its hard to get time alone in a dorm room or on campus someone is always around to make it awkward. 

January 22, 2005.  It was a Saturday L had another one of those days where she was with her sorority all that night.  I found one issue at this point finding a girlfriend so early in college. I hadn't established a friend group of my own yet outside of L and our group of friends.  So that night I was again alone in my dorm working on some homework and watching some basketball.  Not expecting to see L I was in bed watching a movie around midnight.  

Something also happened after Christmas break L switched dorms and became roommates with one of our friends down the hall from me.  So again there's a knock on my door.  Again my roommate was at his parent's house.  So I crawled out of my bed and open the door.  It's L all bundled up.  Hey, I said I thought you weren't coming back till late tonight?  L said, "I got cold and I missed you.  Let me go put my stuff away and get changed".  I crawled back into bed and finished my movie about 20 later L crawled up into bed.  

I turned the Tv off and we settled into bed.  I asked how her night was she told me about all the prep work that had begun for initiation.  Now, most people see that word and think cult.  L may have found the most realistic sorority ever sure they had some of the BS but all in all she had a really good experience.  So I asked how close was initiation which is a big deal mind you.  She said in the next few weeks.  I told her I wanted to tell her something usually that's never a good thing this however was about to be a good thing. I thought.  I hoped.  Yikes, this is scary.     

So when you're telling the first person in your life that you love them it's scary.  My palms were sweating my heart was racing.  I was nervous but I knew what I wanted to say.  So I jumped I took her hand looked into her eyes and I told her I loved her.  Now the next three seconds are the most terrifying of my young life.  Will she respond? How will she respond?  And then I heard "I love you too." We embraced each other after and said it again before going to bed.  Not much really changed after that.  It’s almost like we both already new it and we were just acknowledging it out loud.

Saying I love you to a person is never easy meaning it can be even harder.  So when you say it make sure you mean it. For Laura she has finally caught up to Carmilla for the past few months Carmilla has waited and hoped and now that this moment has come she feels relief.  Laura no longer has any doubts about herself or Carmilla.  Carmilla again has succeed in showing Laura that no mater the odds or risk she will be there for Laura.  Laura has proven to Carmilla that no mater what her terrible past was like. Carmilla is worth saving and loving and that her story doesn't have to be dark and sad it can be happy and beautiful.