vi

it has been six months since our first kiss and
this is what we’ve chosen, he (a-f) and i (i-vi) [but all 12 are written by me, so all “i”s are me and all “you”s are him], as the moments that stand out brightest between now and then.
of course, he chose first, so really it’s more like my top viii than my top vi, but. =)

a.
In eight days, I have spent an evening sitting on you in a hot tub, let you hold my hand under a blanket while watching a movie in your living room, complained about being cold at Silas and Maddy’s so you would keep your arms around me, fell asleep on you in my cousin’s living room, and flirted like a madwoman. After eight days, you are starstruck and I am willing to give you a chance to catch up, should you choose try.

b.
I haven’t seen the stars in a week. It is almost midnight and I am wearing a sweater or I would be cold; my cousin interrupts us twice to take his best friend home and then go back in the house. Finally, your arms are around me and I am standing my ground, refusing to answer a question that you asked six days ago & knowing the consequences. And you kiss me, a slow, gentle kiss like I haven’t experienced in all the kisses I’ve known; tentative, almost, as though you’re afraid I’m going to slap you. I’ve never slapped anyone but you don’t know that and when I lay my head against your chest after you pull back, your heart is beating quickly and I am smiling (but you don’t know that, either). We look at the time and realize it’s past time for you to go and “One for luck?” and once more I am lost in your arms and then you are gone. It is over (and it has only begun).

c.
It has been a week since I’ve seen you, but we’ve talked for hours every night. Five hours last night [five hours phone conversations] and tonight it’s been four. You’re laying on the floor of a charter bus, coming back from a band trip to Chicago, talking to me instead of sleeping like everyone around you. And everyone around you, before they fell asleep, told you that you’re crazy for thinking this could work (and right now, I’m not sure I disagree). You say you love Chicago and somehow our conversation turns to living there someday. You and I, together. And we’re going to own a charter bus and travel the world; let the world pass us by. Be our own world, maybe. Having our own world, our own life, sounds lovely, and this is the start of a future.

i.
It has been two weeks since our first kiss, two weeks since I’ve seen you. A week since we started planning a future (though I think it was more fantasy for me than you). My parents have agreed to let you meet us for lunch and we beat you here, so I am waiting for you outside the door. I still recognize your car, even though I’ve only been in it once, and then you are here and giving me a hug. We sit beside each other, a brother on either side of us and the parents across the table, and isn’t it handy that I am right-handed and you are left? I am on your right and under the table, your fingers find their way to mine and we are holding hands, though no one but us knows. I am coming to the realization that being with you feels as right in the daylight as it did at midnight and can you tell that I am starting to fall in love?

ii.
The phone rings and I know it’s you (I always know when it’s you) so I answer before my parents can. “Hello?” You can’t talk long, you say, but you have something you want to tell me. And something in my stomach feels funny (because, in the same way that I knew it was you calling, I know what you want to say) and I don’t know if I want you to say it or not. There is a moment of silence, and I swallow and say, “You don’t have to say anything right now, you know,” and you disagree.
“I want to. I want to, it’s just. It’s hard. It’s just hard.” I am sitting at the computer, the lights off and ignoring the flashing messenger boxes of my friends, waiting for you to break. Waiting for whatever it is that’s holding you back to give. “Laura. I love you.” And somehow, I know you’re telling the truth. Somehow, I know I can believe you in a way I’ve never believed anyone before.

d.
I think I love you but I don’t want to say it: saying it would make it permanent, would make it something I couldn’t take back. But I can’t let you say it to me and not say anything back, knowing that I love you back, so those few times you have — you are still uncomfortable with loving again and don’t say it but once or twice a week, when you think I need to hear it — I reply with “And I you.”
“I love you.” “And I you.” “Oh really?” “…Yeah, really.” And we have established a pattern and I can love you without having to commit to anything.
Tonight, my mother has made me cry while I was on the phone with you and then walked away. Right now I can’t breathe and you know I’m not okay, so you say “I love you” and expect my usual response and I say, almost inaudibly through a sob, “I love you, too, Ry” and then there is a pause, a pregnant silence, and you say, “That’s the first time you’ve ever said that.” It’s only then that I realize I’ve said it. It is then that I realize I mean it. And I mean it. I say it again, sitting in the dark and crying. “I love you.”

e.
It is raining and I am in a dress and without an umbrella. You are in line, twenty-five people ahead of me, but you see it’s raining and wait, risking getting yelled at to keep me dry and happy. We walk across under your black umbrella and as soon as we’re through the other doors you run off, bum knee and all, to get back in line and walk into the chapel as though nothing happened. The girl standing in front of me, Lauren, turns to me and whispers, “You’re really lucky. He’s incredible.” I smile and nod and say quietly, “I know. I’m lucky he loves me as much as I love him.”

iii.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry. please don’t cry. I’m not okay with seeing you cry.”
“You can’t see me anyway.”
“It’s a good thing, too, because crying makes you ugly and I don’t date ugly chicks.”

“I miss you so bad right now I could cry.”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t; crying makes me ugly and you don’t date ugly chicks.”
“Sweetie…”
“Is it always going to be this hard, Ry?”
“…if I say yes to you, will you regret saying yes to me?”
“Ryan, just because I dislike being in our situation doesn’t mean I dislike being with you. Don’t ever get the two confused.”

“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Crying. I’m ugly when I cry and you don’t date ugly chicks.”
“Bull. You’re always gorgeous. I bet it makes your eyes sparkle.”

iv.
Thursday night and the week is almost over; in 36 hours, we’ll be gone. I’ve always hated dances but the last few hours haven’t been so bad, sitting in a hallway with you, getting an Aww from a man-circle, feeling beautiful. It’s over now, though, and we have tomorrow and breakfast on Saturday together before we

‘re gone. This moment with your hand in mine, the sun just under the horizon, is some kind of perfection, and I look to the right. Hovering over the lawn are what look like a million fireflies; the grass looks like it’s glowing and I can imagine everything being as perfect as this. I can imagine never forgetting what it feels like to walk up the sidewalk with your hand in mine as the sky darkens and the grass glows.

v.
I am on the phone with my best friend: she is in Florida, leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow morning, and I’m not going to talk to her for six weeks. I have spent the past six days with you and it is hard to imagine not being with you tomorrow, so her leaving feels more immediate. You walk over to me from the other side of the room where you’ve been sitting at the piano and you’ve never been one for PDA but in the middle of a crowded lobby, my best friend centimeters away (though thousands of miles distant), you kiss me. Everything burns bright and white with happiness and laughter and I kiss you back. In the middle of a crowded lobby, I kiss you back.

vi.
We’re laying in the backseat of a car. You tell me I don’t have to do anything I’m not comfortable with and I turn my head and mumble, “But then you’d hate me forever,” (though it’s not true, I know you wouldn’t hate me and besides, I’m perfectly comfortable as long as I’m with you). You ask me what I said and I shake my head, turned away from you, staring at the back of the front seat.
“Laura. Look at me.” I turn back to you, leaning on my forearms, and your eyes are so blue. Your eyes are so blue. You don’t need to say what you’re going to say; I know it all already. People say you can’t see love but this is love, this light that is shining, and I’ve never seen beauty until now.

f.
Before today, I haven’t seen you in a month; that is, it would’ve been four weeks tomorrow. Before today, I’ve never been with you with no parents, no chaperones, no family members, no time limits, and no rules. Before today, I didn’t know I had this in me (didn’t know I could have that in me) but here we are. The wind is cold through my sweater [the same one I wore almost six months ago] but my cheeks are flushed and I can feel you on my skin, I smell you in the air and taste you when I lick my lips in lieu of pulling out my chapstick. And maybe nothing has changed, not really, but everything feels different and I am more in love right now than I ever have been before. This is something special. This is life.

suppose i never ever met you
suppose we never ever loved
suppose i never ever let you
kiss me so sweet & so soft
suppose i never ever saw you
suppose you never ever called
suppose i kept on singing love songs
just to break my own fallfidelity | regina spektor

[& i really have met you at the bottom;
and you really did catch me when i got here.]