Month: July 2011

Up on the Roof

Shane and I were long-distance internet lovers before long-distance internet lovers were really normal. Yes, in this way, I was weird. I know. Shocking.

He came to visit once while we were still dating. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but he somehow ended up hanging out with me for the day. We played badminton and went to the arboretum and met up with some of my friends and he threw his arm around me amiably and took my picture and played with the family dog. It was a nice day. But the thing I remember most about that day was sharing my “hiding spot” with him. (Not as dirty as it sounds– but we’ll get to that.)

I don’t know if all teenagers do it, or just me, but I delighted in knowing things that no one else in my household knew. I knew, for example, that I could pop the screen off my bedroom window and climb out of it fairly easily. I tried it several times, just to prove it to myself. I never actually had to use my super secret escape method, but I could have if I’d wanted to.

I also knew that I could climb onto the roof of the shed in our back yard and sit on the side facing away from the house, and no one would know I was there. This I did fairly frequently. I had my own room (which was extremely lucky in a family as large as mine), and really, no one ever bothered me if I went to my room and closed the door, but the roof of the shed somehow seemed more private. I’d go up there to think when I really needed to be alone.

I took Shane up there. I’m not sure why. I can’t remember taking any other boyfriend up there. It could have been because I knew he wouldn’t be popping by to visit whenever he felt like it, and climbing up there to invade my privacy. But, mostly, I think it was because I just wanted to share something secret with him, that was only mine to share. In a lot of ways, Shane already knew me better than most people. He’d read my writing (fiction and non-fiction), and when you’re a writer (even if you haven’t decided yet that you’re a writer), that means something. So it was probably also because I felt more comfortable with him than I’d ever felt with Joe.

We sat up there together in the afternoon sun, reclining on the slope of the roof, soaking up the last warmth of the shingles. I don’t remember if we talked about anything important, or if we even said anything at all, but I remember feeling happy. It wasn’t a secret anymore that was just mine– it was ours. And I was glad.

Joe’s Smooth Move

Honestly, Joe wouldn’t have had to be all that smooth with me. I thought he was the best thing in the world. I was completely smitten. It didn’t matter that he had a dumb sense of humor, wrote awful poetry, and once popped a zit on his leg in my presence. I didn’t care– he was perfect.

But, despite my already thinking Joe was the best thing since… well, since my last crush, he still managed to execute some smooth moves designed to make me fall even more madly in love with him.

He went slow with me when we first started dating. I think he could tell I was a little… we’ll say skittish. Basically, I probably would have screamed, scratched him, and run away if he’d made a move too fast. I was fourteen and had never so much as held a boy’s hand before.

Joe was smart, though. He worked with it. He always had a ton of cats running around at his house, so maybe he learned the technique from them. After all, cats are pretty good at the whole scream, scratch, run away pattern. He’d wait until I made a tiny move. Then he’d make a tiny move. And before I knew it we’d be snuggled up next to each other and he’d be grinning in his victory.

He did this once in the back seat of a car when we were driving home with a group from some church function. He convinced me to sit in the middle next to him instead of leaving the middle of the bench seat open. We rode along for maybe twenty minutes or so just holding hands, and then he pulled the stretch-and-yawn and left his arm on the back of the seat behind me. It was so contrived I almost laughed.

When we hit a bump, his arm came down around my shoulders. When I started nodding off, he inched me toward him until my head was on his shoulder. And just like that, I was sleeping like a kitten on this boy who made me so giddy and nervous normally that I could barely stop fidgeting when I was with him.

That? Is a good talent to have.

Where Are They Now: Luke

Luke and I didn’t part on the best terms. Basically, I cruelly dumped him and he was heart-broken.

We tried to stay friends, but that doesn’t usually work when one person is over it (me) and one person is still in love (him). I’m sure it was misery for him, and I didn’t set out to cause it. Yeah, I dumped him, but I didn’t want him to keep on being unhappy because of me. So it was sort of a relief when he moved far away. I missed him, of course– he was my best friend before we ever dated. But he deserved a new start, and I hoped the move would give that to him.

For a while, we didn’t talk much. He moved to be with this girl he knew, and they started dating either right before or shortly after. I think they must have dated for something like two years. So, seemingly, it worked. Moved = new start = forget about Ramona and move on.

And then his girlfriend dumped him.

I’m not sure why, but the first person he decided to call when his long-term girlfriend dumped him was me, the last long-term girlfriend who’d dumped him. I tried to be a good friend. I tried to listen. I took his calls on the fire exit stairs of my office building and let him tell me what a bitch she was. I listened to him go through the same “but why” reaction that he did when I’d dumped him. And it was like I was dumping the poor guy all over again. I didn’t like it much, although I have to admit it was nice to spread the guilt around a little. Now I was not the only girl who’d ever broken his heart.

I had hope that it would be a permanent reconnection for us– that we’d keep being friends even after he got over the hurt of being dumped, again; that maybe this new hurt would replace the old hurt that I’d caused him. Alas, no. He lost a bunch of weight, got some tattoos, dyed his hair black, and started dating another girl. He’s married to her now and they seem happy– actually, kind of freakishly happy. So I’m happy for him.

But I miss my friend, selfish as it is. I wonder what kind of catastrophe it would take for us to be friends again, but I don’t want that to happen to either of us, so I just have to be content occasionally stalking him on Facebook and being happy that he’s happy. That’s what a good friend would do, right?