Rain
Comic 792 - Huge Mistake
Author Notes:
As for the drama itself... well, what do you make of it? I mean, WE know from reading the last few chapters that Aiken's done a lot of growing up since he walked out on Jessica. But she hasn't seen that. Even if Rain or Fara might've said off-camera that he's better now, that could still be hard to swallow when her last memory of him is so overwhelmingly bad. Even if she did have a firsthand account of his personal growth though, would she be so out of line if she were still hesitant to forgive him? Then again, all her hesitation aside, she IS still wearing his necklace and has mentioned on a few occasions (usually somewhat indirectly) that she misses him.
And what of Aiken? He's admitting his mistake. He's apologizing. He seems sincere. But is there more he could/should be doing?
©2004-2016
Rain, all characters and all other aspects of the story are copyright material belonging to me.
SRS is booked for me for May 3rd. As such, your support has never been more welcome. ^_^
Like Rain on Facebook!
Buy Rain - Volume 1, 2, and 3!
Vote for Rain on TopWebComics!
Donate to help the author of Rain
Buy crochet pride scarves and wristbands! (And we do custom orders.)
Buy Rain t-shirts, notebooks and other merchandise now too!
Anyway, I think that no matter how sincere and apologetic Aiken is here, it's going to take a long long time for Jessica to forgive him.
I understand why she didn't tell him, but dropping that so far into the relationship, a reaction like his isn't unexpected and it is hard to put all the blame on him for overreacting. That was a MAJOR bombshell to drop to someone you are getting married to soonish.
I understand my opinion here won't be popular, but every situation has two or more sides, and learning to see things from all angles is how we grow and respect others. Aiken is trying to understand Jessica's side of it, and is showing that he is willing to learn and grow as a person.
In short, Jessica is not blameless. Not to say I like how Aiken reacted to the news, but the problem was he saw the news as "you aren't even a woman!" Now he has changed his thinking and he accepts that "trans" is a thing. And now that he has gotten past his feeling of betrayal, he's remembering how he used to feel, and perhaps he still has those feelings.
In today's comic Aiken is IMHO doing as good a job as anyone could ask of extending an olive branch. He isn't asking her for an apology, or pressuring her to get back together, or anything. He has offered unconditional apologies.
I ship them so I hope she, in time, accepts his apologies. He was willing to marry her when he thought she was a cis woman who couldn't have kids; perhaps he will be willing to marry her as a trans woman.
She might be thinking "Does he expect that he can simply apologize and I'll just accept it instantly?" The two answers to that are (a) no, he's not expecting anything; and (b) did you expect that you could simply say "by the way, I never told you I was trans" and he would just accept it instantly? In other words I'm hoping that she will accept his apology after he accepted a far more shocking surprise.
In regards to what Aiken is doing here, he's definitely attempting to make strides in the right direction. I think the smartest thing he's doing here, even if unintentionally, is saying he doesn't know what he wants Jessica to say. When faced with the question, "what do you want me to say?" In any situation where an argument or fight has occurred, answering any actual phrase is bad. What you end up doing is telling them what you want to hear, so that in your mind, the situation is resolved, even though it doesn't take the other persons feelings into account. You want them to say whatever their honest reaction is, because that's the only way to learn how the feel about the matter and about what you did to them. Of course, the reverse is also true.
Difference here is, I'd caught myself immediately rather than weeks/months later. Too late though, even IF one of the guys involved forgave me a mew few months later.
But I wouldn't have Lemon if not for all that and no permanent damage was dealt to them, so all's well that ends well I suppose.
Now if only Aiken's situation was so simple.
I just went through the entire archive in two days. You have done a good thing here. You can have doubts about many things, but never doubt your talent for storytelling.
I cried
I do agree that it's not necessarily a good idea to have a relationship where you don't feel like you can trust your partner with your whole life, but I also don't fault her for not wanting to share that part about her. It certainly didn't help that Aiken snapped at her afterward.
It's... hard for me to read all these people laying blame on her for not sharing something so personal. It hurts to think people believe anyone is entitled to that information.
*sigh*
But *marriage* is pretty darn personal. Marriage should be the entwining of two lives, ideally not to be separated for the rest of their lives. I would never have kept any big secret from my fiancee, and I never keep any big secrets from my wife. (Do I have secrets? Yes. Not big ones. If anyone tries to blackmail me with my wife, it won't work.)
I don't think anyone here thinks that Jessica should tell everyone she meets all her secrets. And while I think she was in the wrong not to tell him, I don't think that's the worst thing ever. Even he has come to understand, at least a bit, why she did it, and he has forgiven her.
But a secret of that magnitude, that was asking for trouble, really.
quote directly from the site itself: "Founded by a Christian psychologist, eharmony is committed to helping Christian singles find love every day."
"Of all the coffee shops in all the towns, in all the world, He walks into mine! Play it, Heather!"