(no subject)
I can always tell when he enters a room. Why? Because I’m looking for him, normally. True, sometimes, I try to place myself in plain view of his eye, but normally, I just wait and see if he comes to me. He usually does, and this is part of what’s gotten me so flustered.
He walks up behind me when I’m looking in the mirror and places his hands ever so gently on my hips. I look up to see him smirking and I can feel his fingertips pulsing on my sides. I let out a soft, “Hey,” that comes out sounding more like we’re dating than flirting hardcore. He just grins at me and in my head, things are moving much faster than this. We’re on the table at that moment, when we’re actually still standing in front of the mirrors. He lets his hands stay where they are, the touch just hard enough to let me know they’re there and soft enough to have me writhing inside. I try to finish my makeup and keep that serene smile on my face. It’s harder than it seems, seeing as this has been going on for a month, and I am not any clearer on his feelings now than I was 30 days ago. Just when I think I have him figured out, I begin to second-guess myself.
Other times, he pulls me into these unnaturally long - but not un-enjoyable - hugs and holds me there for as long as he wants. I try to take him in, his smell, his energy, his feelings, but I normally only get the first one. Then, I’m stuck with his cologne on my clothing for the rest of the night, a painfully subtle reminder of him. His hands find their way to my lower back and he draws me into his shoulder and I’m in the only corner of heaven that’s more like hell. Occasionally, he nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck, that spot that drives me quietly wild. I laugh lightly and pat his back or make nonchalant comments, trying to make it seem like I don’t want to wrap my arms around him and keep him there, trying to make it seem like this isn’t what I want and more. Have to keep up appearances or the hungry wolves of this program jump on it and devour it and spit it out, another hopeful relationship left bleeding in the dust.
Then we hit the days where he ignores me. No matter how tantalizing his flirting is, these days are always the worst. I squirm and pout inwardly and I’m screaming in my head, just not out loud. I’m screaming, “What do you want from me? What am I doing here? What are you doing now?” and he obviously cannot hear me or see me or have any desire to be around me at that moment. But then he breaks it with the quickest flitting of eye contact, a brief glimpse of that damned smirk of his and the pit of my stomach drops to the floor. He won’t come over and talk to me, he won’t motion me to him, he won’t make any effort to get closer, no - he’ll just keep bringing his eyes up to mine and I’ll just keep sitting there, silently kicking and screaming, begging for a cease-fire and more fighting at the same time.
He and I met around five months ago. I remember “interviewing” him the first day of school, asking meaningless questions like “What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite kind of music? If you could be any animal, what would it be?” and not really being the slightest bit intrigued by him. I can remember being involved in activities with him for these past five months, not really ever noticing him or caring to, brushing past him both physically and mentally.
So what happened? Why does he suddenly consume most of my free thinking time? Why do I now go to bed with that grin of his burned on my retinas? I wish I knew. If I could give up a limb to be able to read minds or tell the future right now, I would, solely for the fact that I don’t know how much longer this present-tense can go on. I don’t know how much longer I can put off the future-tense questions in my mind. I don’t know how much longer I can keep my hands off of him, my mind away from him, my heart out of his reach. I don’t know how much longer he wants me to stay away, if he wants me to stay away at all.
C’est la vie, no?
As the pounding bass slowly beats at my temples, I feel a vibration just under my left armpit and soon hear the all too familiar whine of his custom-picked, polyphonic ringtone. I slide my purse off my shoulder and, having been too lazy to zip it closed after I last dug through it, slip my hand inside to search for my phone. The two males of the group I’m with are too drawn into the flashing lights and techno music of “Dance, Dance, Revolution!” to notice, while my female friend (and the only one that I know particularly well in this group) watches my hands eagerly. I know that she is hoping it will be someone she knows and can tolerate, so that she can tell me to invite them to join us, giving the old “I haven’t seen ________ in forever!” excuse.
I realize that when you leave for college, you lose touch with a lot of people that you’d like to see again someday, or you come to the realization that there were people you wanted to spend more time with, and now you’ll never get the chance. What I do not understand is why suddenly, those aforementioned college kids come back on breaks and want to see every living, breathing thing they came in contact with in the entirety of their high school “career.”
Though I am 100% sure I know who it is already, I glance at the caller ID, partly to stall so maybe, the girl that’s staring at me will shove off and return to the boys and partly because I want to see his name on the small screen. Instead, I am denied of the satisfaction of both of my wants, seeing as she continues to fixate on my phone (looking almost hungrily now), and it is not a call I’m receiving but a text message. A subconscious smile has graced my face by now, I’m sure, which only heightens the look of the girl. I flip open my phone, clicking to messages and reading his short message.
“Who is it?” she asks. I can practically see the saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth. My smile turns into a smirk, not at her question, but at the inside joke that he has sent me, in response to the inside joke that I had sent him a few hours earlier. I guess she took this as a sign that I was being coy or playful, so she asks again.
“Who is it?” This time, her inflection is less friendly, more forceful, one of the few qualities that I can’t stand in her. I have no obligation to tell her who it is. If I wanted to tell her, which I didn’t particularly, I would’ve done so the first time she asked. This, of course, is all lost on her.
“Eric,” I say, unable to keep that smile off of my face now. Yes, I grin stupidly when I think or say or do anything concerning him. Am I proud of it? No. Can I change it? Probably. Do I want to exert that effort to do so? No. C’est la vie.
As soon as I say the name, I know I probably should’ve lied. Her face lights up and she lets out a squeal that makes me cringe slightly. She starts rambling about how I just have to invite him to come with us, she hasn’t seen him in forever (I told you so), and that forceful tone re-enters her voice again.
“Invite him to come with us,” she commands. I laugh politely and tell her that there’s no way he’d want to hang out with us at Putt-Putt, but she doesn’t seem to comprehend this. “INVITE HIM TO COME HANG OUT WITH US,” she practically screams. Jumping back slightly, I raise my hands up in surrender. Normally, I’m a rock-solid person, but in this case, I know she will not shut up about it until I call him.
I type in his speed-dial numbers, hitting pound which takes me to his phonebook entry. He has such a ridiculous name in my phonebook (obviously, not his real name) that you’d be hard-pressed to pick his entry out as him. I smile - more - at the thought of his stupid name. Hitting the call button, I reluctantly hold my phone up to my ear. She nods in approval and that grin on her face grows wider as the seconds pass. I am secretly wishing he will not pick up.
He doesn’t. His phone is off, and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been thankful for that. Shrugging and putting on my best disappointed face, I turn back to her, saying, “Phone’s off.” She looks crestfallen for approximately a millisecond, and then she’s back to the DDR, cheering on the boys and giving that loud, fake laugh that blatantly shrieks, “I’m attempting to flirt with you!” I give one last smile at my phone, close it shut, and slip it back into my purse.
I join the group again. I have been quiet today, partly because I’m feeling overly pensive, and partly because I do not fit in with this group as well as I could. My morning was spent with this girl, a college kid who was back in town for two days. I dropped her off at one of the boys’ houses, and went home, thinking I could do something a bit more enjoyable with my afternoon. I must’ve been home for an hour, maybe two, when I got a call from her again.
“Are you at Jon Kim’s playing DDR?” she shrieks. I tell her that I am not, and I will not be there until this evening. “Oh NO!” (Still shrieking.) “We were hoping we could find his house and bust in and be like, ‘HEY JON KIM YOU’RE ASIAN!’” I give a half-hearted laugh. I am not in the mood for this right now. “Well, what are you doing?” she says after a pause. Uh oh.
“Uh, nothing…why?” I reply. Already, I do not like where this is going.
“Daniel and I are going to come pick you up!” she squeals. Uh oh.
“Well, uh, what are we, uh, going to do?” I stutter as I try to think of ways out of this.
“WE’LL THINK OF SOMETHING. WE’RE COMING TO PICK YOU UP.”
She hangs up on me. Uh oh. I walk slowly back into the living room where my mother and grandmother are watching a movie, some Kevin Kline flick, and tell my mother that I am heading out again, Daniel and Audrey are coming to pick me up. Inwardly, I am hoping she says no, or gives me some reason to not go, but she merely shrugs and says that’s fine. Great. I go upstairs to brush my teeth, getting ready slowly, putting my things back in my purse and sighing. Not only do I have no idea what we’ll be doing, but I know that this afternoon will turn into Daniel and Audrey inside joke time, with third wheel (and an uncomfortable, quiet one at that) Kirin in the backseat. I look back on how I should’ve said no, I had something to do, people to save, diseases to cure. Once I have everything, I go to sit in my front room, directly in front of the windows. The sun falls in, warming my back and keeping me fully unprepared for the temperature outside. Sunlight is so deceiving at times. This is the point in time when I send Eric that first text message, missing him already, though it’s been less than 24 hours since I saw him last.
After a minute or so, I see Daniel’s feminine blue Passat pull up and stop in front of my house. I hesitate for a minute, waiting to see if the two of them will get out, come ring my doorbell. It’s not too late to run out and say I’m not going. I don’t, of course, thinking to myself, “No one else has called me yet. I can spend the afternoon in my house or out with them.” I decide to branch out, see if I can make it in this small but very different group.
In the car, the first sign of how the afternoon will go is shown. Audrey plugs in Daniel’s iPod and turns to an incredibly loud rap song. This is apparently already an inside joke between the two of them. Spectacular. As Daniel turns up the volume, my seat begins to vibrate. At the moment, I’d like for it to be a massage, but it feels far from one. Instead, it’s a rather annoying facet that’s merely combined with the pulsating music, music that is already giving me a headache. I start to relax, though. There is no point in making myself uncomfortable. I begin to laugh at the ridiculous song we’re listening to, or make snide remarks at things that are said. True, I am only showing a portion of myself at the moment, but with a new group, I figure that’s a good start.
I sit in the backseat, still completely unaware of where we are going, until they finally decide to head toward Putt-Putt. I laugh, but I am secretly cursing my decision to go with them now. Audrey and I went to Putt-Putt once this morning already, by ourselves, at 10:30 AM. I have no desire to go again, and certainly not with these people. We stroll in, Daniel and Audrey eyeing the DDR machine immediately (which Audrey and I played that morning, already), but are taken aback when there is a small, effeminate and rather bizarre looking male playing. It is obvious he is a DDR veteran: he’s playing while resting against the bar, the tell-tale sign that he has played one too many times. As his feet fly across the arrows, Audrey whispers (and her whispers are still inexplicably like shrieks), “Oh em gee, Daniel, you should totally challenge him to a dance-off!”
Daniel shakes his head adamantly, but she is relentless. Daniel decides the best tactic here is to step toward the machine, so that maybe, Audrey won’t talk about this guy while we’re standing closer to him. We circle awkwardly around the metal panels, Daniel’s head starting to rock forward in time with the beat. This guy is good. He is honestly one of the weirdest looking people I’ve ever seen (something about his face - I just can’t place it - makes me furrow my brow), but he’s doing very well at this pointless video game that does absolutely nothing for your dancing skills. As Audrey and Daniel continue to banter back and forth about the aforesaid dance-off, I find myself trying to picture this kid at an actual dance, with real people, maybe a girl, even. I almost want to take him by the shoulders and tell him that this game is no substitute for human interaction, and that if he wants any kind of decent personal relationship, he may as well give DDR up and look for a friend or two. Trying to imagine that instills this sadness in me, one that takes a decent amount of time to shake.
The next hour or so is a blur. I can remember Daniel eventually stepping up with this kid, playing a level down from him. I can remember the kid treating him like he was stupid, which I was surprised to find Daniel just taking that. I remember a second male arriving and joining our group, one that I have French with but have never particularly talked to or made any kind of contact with. They all play a few more arcade games before everyone (minus me) decides that playing Putt-Putt would be a great idea at the moment. Oh, joy. What else can I do but shell out the five bucks for a stupid game with these people that I’m not uncomfortable with, I just don’t particularly mesh with?
I decide that to create a scapegoat for my lack of talent, I’ll suggest that Audrey and I use the plastic kiddie putters, and she, of course, takes the bait, yelping with feigned excitement at the thought of it (a smart choice on my part, seeing as Audrey and I ended up competing for the worst golfers in our group, me winding up victorious by only a few points).
At this point, I was ready to bullshit some excuse about home, my family, been out all day, should be dropped off, but after the game of golf, Daniel and Tripp (my French peer) decided that now would be a good time to show off the sub-woofers in the back of their cars. Tripp had apparently just gotten his for Christmas, but Daniel had him trounced by a mile, sporting two huge ones in the trunk of his previously mentioned, girly Passat. For approximately twenty minutes, possibly more, Daniel and Tripp attempted to: play the same song at the same time, play certain songs that they thought would sound “beast” with the woofers, out-do each other’s woofer, and finally, strike ‘gangster’ poses for Audrey’s camera in the back of Tripp’s environment-ruining SUV.
Needless to say, this was not the most entertaining situation.
Just as I started to seriously itch for a way out, the three of them decided that at this moment, they could not live without Taco Bell. Struggling to hide my restlessness and eagerness to return to my home (a rare happening, me wanting to actually be in my house as opposed to out on “the town”), I just smiled and laughed and got in Daniel’s backseat for the ride over. Sitting there, smile plastered to my face, the bass from the sub-woofers vibrating against my back, I began to look out the window, watch the cars and buildings fly by. There is, of course, only one person I am thinking about right now and