Monday, 25 May 2009

• A Generic Love Story pt. 5

  This is the last part, and then we'll get back to our regularly scheduled programming. =) Thanks for reading.

  College started, and I accidentally got a boyfriend. His name was Philip and he was 24 and didn't know any of my friends. I was neutral toward him, and I told him I wasn't looking for anything serious. That didn't work for him like it had with other guys. "Just let me take you out to lunch," he said. "Just let me take you to a movie. Just let me take you to a baseball game." Everytime I turned around, he was doing something nice for me, and when, after 8 or 9 dates, he asked if he could call me his girlfriend, I said yes, mostly because I felt I owed it to him.

  I was physically attracted to him and cared for him, but there was nothing intense there. I wanted desperation. I wanted passion. I didn't have it, and both of us deserved it. I ended it.

  I dated my friend, Eric, and fucked that up royally. I was happy with Eric, but it was a long distance thing, and it was hard, sometimes, to remember what I was supposed to feel. It was terrible of me, but I wasn't ready for the seriousness that would have been necessary eventually in that relationship.

  I went to a church overnighter while still dating Eric. Clayton was there. I hadn't seen him in a few months, as was the general pattern. He had grown up, I realized. He'd gotten so tall and handsome, and he no longer looked like he was eleven years old. He was still hyper and friendly, but he was also more serious than he had been previously.

  I spent the night wanting him to be beside me, to touch him. Someone asked if we were dating, and I almost said yes. I wanted so badly to be able to say yes, and I didn't know why. Before then, I had honestly thought I was over Clayton.

  He drove me home that night. He'd been upset that week, and we hadn't talked much over the past couple months. He told me things were hard, but wouldn't open up. There was more to it than that, I knew, but he wouldn't say, and I didn't know what to do to make him feel better. When we got to my driveway, I hugged him. Kissed his cheek. The corner of his mouth. On his lips for a second, though every inch of my body wanted it to be more.

  I pulled away. Smiled. He gave me an odd, calculating look and said nothing as I got out of the car. It took me until I opened my front door to realize exactly why that was so wrong of me to do.  I hadn't even given Eric a second thought. I felt sick to my stomach. I called. Apologized. Eric said it was okay, he understood, it was a friend comforting another friend. It didn't matter.

  But it did matter. I couldn't stop thinking about Clayton. It was a problem.

  I took a few days to think about it. I realized I couldn't be in a relationship with someone if I was going to forget about the relationship. It wasn't fair.

  I can't remember the premise for me going over to Clayton's the next week. A movie, maybe. Just to see each other, perhaps. All I remember is standing in his kitchen with his hands on my waist while he leaned against the counter, wondering how he had possibly gotten that tall. Wondering when he had started looking at me like I was the only thing he saw.

  He kissed me then and there was that passion, that longing, that I wanted. It was always there, between us. We had so many kisses that could very well have been our last one, that we had never taken a single kiss for granted. We still don't, consequently.

  It took a few weeks. I talked to Will - who was still a major part of my life - and told him I was planning on asking Clayton out. He didn't like it, but he wanted to ask out another one of our mutual friends, so we figured it was a good compromise.

  Clayton and I went driving. He showed me where his grandfather lives and works, where his uncle owns a business, the lake where he jet skis in the summer. We found cornfields, forests, lakes, little towns we'd never seen before. We listened to music and just talked for hours. When he wanted to take his jacket off, he asked me to hold the wheel. No one else was on the road, but I am terrified of cars. I cried I was so afraid, cried and laughed at the same time because it was so ridiculous - he'd made me cry on our first official dates, which is so fitting to our relationship. That would happen to us.

  It was a few weeks before we made it official. We parked his car (don't get any ideas, kids) in the cul-de-sac by my house. It was freezing out, but I pulled him out of the car. We ran through someone's yard, over a barbed-wire fence, and onto a hill where someone had planted rows of new pine trees that barely reached to my waist. We shivered together looking at the stars until we couldn't feel our fingers anymore. He teasingly complained, said that I was crazy and it was freezing. I called him Florida and said we were in Ohio now, so he'd have to suck it up. He laughed and lead me back to the car.

  We sat in the backseat and kissed and he held me for a while. I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in. "What do you want?" I asked. I'd asked him before, when we were almost-dating the first time. Everytime he'd shake his head and say he didn't know. I expected the same thing - technically we still had Will to think of.

  "I want to be with you," he said. "Is that what you want?"

  I grinned like an idiot, nodded, and kissed him. As if it were the first time. It was the end of December, December 29th, two years and one day since my initial dream of him (weird, huh?) and exactly two years since the day I realized I had a crush on him.

  I can't tell you the relief I feel every day that we are finally together. I still love Will, I still care for all those other guys, but there is absolutely no one I look at the way I look at Clayton. I see attractive people, and all I can think of is how he makes me feel. How much they fall short of his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his caring, beautiful nature. How they could probably never spend 8 hours on the phone with me talking about nothing and everything. How there is no one in this world I would rather be with. How if I didn't have him, I'd rather be alone.

  I could never write a novel about how we fell in love. For one thing, it would have to have an ending, and this certainly hasn't ended yet. But also, it would simply be too predictable - looking back, it was always him.

  • 10:27 AM
  • 232 Views
  • 22 eProps
  • 20 Comments