A Love Story in the Making
The snow is swirling around us, the cold nipping at our exposed faces and hands. I’m tickling her and she’s laughing and we’re throwing snow at each other. Music is playing from my car; a mix of Owl City, Never Shout Never, and others reaching through the snow. The soundtrack to this night. I’m tickling her, and she suddenly throws snow in my hair and runs away. I laugh and quickly chase her down. I grab her in my arms, both of us laughing. Me, with my loud carrying laughter, and her with her soft giggling that makes me smile. I place my hands on her sides, and she puts hers around my neck. We start to dance, the snow falling softly around us. As I look in her eyes, I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to kiss her for the first time. This is the perfect moment. I should take it while I can. But it wasn’t always like this...
Early October, a few months earlier. I’m single and still hurting. My last girlfriend, the first girl I ever truly loved, had broken me and left me for another guy. I was lost and had given up any chance of finding someone like her again. I didn’t let that keep me down though, and I was planning on going to every homecoming dance I could. Hartland’s came and I asked my best female friend to go with me. We had a great time, but we were only friends. The next weekend was Brighton’s homecoming. It was the night that would change everything. I didn’t have a date to this dance so I ended up taking four of my close female friends. Once again, it was a great time, but no one really caught my attention. No one but her.
The first time I saw her, it was only a fleeting glance. She was walking just a little ways away from me. She and another girl were laughing about something. I still remember her smile. It was... flawless. I knew right then I wanted to dance with her. But then she was gone, and I didn’t see her again. I had lost my chance before I even had one. So I went back to dancing with my friends for the night. Before I knew it, the D.J. announced it was the last song. It was Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. I started dancing with one of my female friends, but half way into it, I looked to my right and there she was. She was dancing in a circle with her friends. It was now or never.
I knew I didn’t have a shot so I looked to my friend, “I’ll be right back, I’m about to be rejected.”
My friend laughed and wished me luck.
I walked over to her, swallowing my nervousness. I tapped her lightly on the shoulder, and as she turned to me, I caught my breath. God she was pretty.
“I’m sorry for interrupting you, but will you dance with me?”
She barely hesitated, “Sure”.
We took a few steps away from her circle, and I put my hands on her waist as she put hers on my shoulders. We danced for a few seconds in silence, words fumbling around my head. I finally found my voice.
“Sorry about pulling you away.”
The rest of that short dance we spent with small talk. I told her my name, and she told me hers, Angela. I love that name. She was a sophomore at Brighton, and I was a senior at Hartland. Then, the song was over, and I was standing there awkwardly wanting to ask for her number, but not feeling like we’d shared enough for that. Before I had a chance to decide what to do, three of her girl friends ran up and swarmed us.
“Do you want her number?!”
Before I could respond, a girl grabbed my phone and punched in Angela’s number.
Without even thinking of what I was doing, I stepped away from her friends and towards her.
“Thank you for dancing with me,” I said before doing something I couldn’t believe. I took her hand and kissed it gently before turning and walking away without missing a beat. I”ll never forget that moment. I still think it was the most daring thing I’ve ever done.
So we started texting each other the next day. We found out we were both going to Pinckney’s dance the next weekend which was pretty fan-frikin-tasctic to me. She was going with a group of friends, and I was going with a friend who needed a date. We said we’d have to get together at the dance. Every day that week we spoke. I hated texting, but I loved texting her.
The night of Pinckney’s dance finally came, and I picked up my date and headed to the dance. I’ll keep this one short I promise. An hour into the dance, my date left without even telling me because she wasn’t feeling good. I didn’t know until one of her friends told me. So there I was, stuck at a dance with no one I know besides a girl I’d just met and was falling head over heels for. I ended up just hanging out with her and her friends. I honestly felt like a creep the whole time, but I had no one else to hang with. There was one part of the dance though that I’ll always remember. I had just found a friend from Hartland who was at the dance with her boyfriend. As we spoke, I glanced over to see the girl dancing with another guy. I instantly felt jealous. I know, I know, I barely know her and I’m already jealous? That’s stupid right? Well say what you want, but that’s what happened. After the dance, I gave her a hug and said goodbye. No elegant kissing of the hand this time around, but that was okay.
For the rest of the weeks leading up to Sweetest day, we kept texting and talking on the phone into late hours of the night. I found out she’s never had a boyfriend before or even been kissed. I won’t lie, I didn’t believe it the first time I heard it. She was so gorgeous. I couldn’t think of any reason at all for a guy not to like her. Yes, she may be quiet, but how could she never have had a boyfriend? It didn’t matter to me though. I was starting to like her.
I remember our first “date/hang-out.” I picked Angela up and we walked around downtown Brighton. We got lollipops from Oh My Lolli, ice cream from DQ, went into the city art gallery, and even tried on clothes at a store. Well, she tried on clothes. It was an all girls clothing store. We still laugh about what happened there. The girl helping us was really sociable and fun to talk to. At one point she was talking to me about and said something along the line’s of this:
“Your girlfriend is really cute.”
I laughed, “No we’re just friends. This our first date,” I still remember pausing when Angela looked at me, “... I mean hang-out.”
We still can’t decide if it was a date or not, and I write this with a smile across my face and her voice in my ear telling me she can’t believe she still remembers it like I do.
After that day, I knew she was the only girl I wanted. I’ll be honest, more than one girl liked me at that time and up until that moment I was interested in them. That all changed though. She’d stolen my attention and affection more so than anyone had ever done. I wanted her, and on Sweetest day, only a few days after our first date thing, I made that completely apparent.
I had it all planned out. I had called Edible Arrangements a few days before and ordered something I hoped she would like, a case of twelve chocolate covered strawberries. I know, why not flowers. You want to know why? Because Angela was different than any girl I’d ever liked. She was special and unique and I was falling faster for her than I ever had before. I wanted my present to be different and memorable to show that.
Well Sweetest Day came around, and I went and picked up the strawberries. I called her and made sure she was home, but didn’t let on that I was coming over. When I knocked on the door that day, she opened and I saw her light up with the same smile I’d seen at the dance. That same, flawless smile. To this day, I don’t know for certain why I didn’t ask her out that day. It was probably too early, but only a week or two later wasn’t. I asked her out in front of her house, and I was so happy I could hardly sleep that night.
The two weeks that followed were short, and we barely saw each other. One of the times we did though is another memory we still laugh about today. We were in downtown Brighton, and I wanted to kiss her pretty badly. We were on the bridge over the pond, and I was chasing and tickling her around it. Every time I got her in my arms, I wanted to hold her tight and kiss her, but every time she would run. I wouldn’t know that she had wanted to kiss me until months later. We had fun; but as I said, things weren’t always perfect, and they were about to get bad.
About two weeks after we started dating, I found out my ex who had dumped me for another guy was single. It hit me hard, and while I knew it wasn’t true, a part of me thought she was coming back to me because she realized how the guy she left me for really was. So, in all of my stupidity and ignorance of how I truly felt, I broke up with Angela. It was stupid of me and one of my biggest regrets.
The next few weeks were really hard on me. I drifted being two types of depression. The first one was discovering slowly that my ex didn’t want me back and didn’t even want anything to do with me. The second, realizing I’d thrown away Angela for nothing. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t deserve that at all. I knew what I had to do. I had to fight to get her back.
Around the middle of November, I started talking to Angela again. In the beginning, the conversations were awkward, but I didn’t expect anything different. Slowly though, we worked back to where we had been. She knew I liked her, and I was praying to God she liked me back. We hung out once or twice, but the one time I knew was the moment I had to take a chance again. To be honest, I can’t remember what we did leaning up to that moment, but that one special moment I’ll never forget.
We had pulled in front of her house, but it had started really snowing and we decided to play in it. I left the car running and the music playing with my windows down the whole time. We played around for almost an hour before it happened. There we were, the snow nipping at our noses, my hands around her waist and hers around my neck. I got a sudden rush of nervousness, but I forced the words out.
“Yeah?” she replies in her soft voice.
I apologized to her, for everything. I told her how stupid I was and that I had messed up. The whole time, she just stood there looking into my eyes with a soft smile. It was as if she knew everything before I even said it. She had a funny way of making me think that. She still does. It’s nice though. She knows what I mean before I say anything at all.
After I say another I’m sorry I pause. After a moment, I look up and into her eyes.
“Will you go back out with me?
She pauses only for a moment, “Yes.”
We both smile and come a little closer, our foreheads pressing together gently. Now is the moment. This is it. I speak up again.
There’s that smile again, “Yes?”
“Can I... can I kiss you?”
This pause is even shorter, “Yes.”
I catch my breath, and slowly raise one of my hands, sliding it behind her neck and gently pulling her closer. When our lips finally touch, it’s perfect. No, it’s beyond perfect. For a moment, everything fades away. I don’t feel the cold. The wind is silent. All I can sense is her and how I feel in this moment. When we pull apart, I can’t breathe and the butterflies are running rampant. She’s smiling one of the most sincere smiles I’ve ever seen, and we knew the other wants more. We kiss again, pulling each other tighter.
I’ll never forget that moment. Of all my first kisses, that was the most meaningful. It was the most real. It’s been almost a year since that night, and we’re still together. As I look back on the night, I know it was the start of my love for her. While I didn’t realize it or say it till a few months later, that was where it started. No matter what happens I’ll cherish that moment for the rest of my life because for that moment, I swear we would last forever.