April, 2008:
"If I do 70 push ups, will you stay?" he asks, half kidding, half serious. We are sitting in his living room, his arm around my shoulders, our usual positions.
"Will you?"
I don't know what to say. I know I can't stay; I have to go back, have to experience things for myself.
"You're really going to do 70 push ups?" I ask, skeptical. I realize he works out all the time, but 70?? Please. I'm in good shape, and I can barely do 7.
To my dismay, he gets on the ground and starts doing them.
"Count out loud!"
So I count. He does more than 70, "just because." He gets up, his perfectly white teeth gleaming in the mid afternoon sun. "So," he asks again, "Will you stay?"
..................................
We are in my apartment. We're both in our pajamas, brushing our teeth in the bathroom. He finishes before me, and as I am throughouly cleaning my pearly whites, he wraps his arm around my waste.
"Now, if you go," he beings. "Who's going to hold you while you brush your teeth?"
...........................................................
"How did it go?" he asks, when I pick up the phone. He is referring to the family therapy session I had earlier that day with my mom.
"Horrible," I choke out. I have just sat down to eat dinner, after almost killing myself on the freeway by not being able to see on account of my tears.
"Are you okay?"
"Not really."
"Did you eat yet??" he asks, alarmed. He is aware that any negative emotion can disrupt my eating schedule.
"I'm just eating now."
"Okay, my break's over and I have to go. I'll talk to you later."
It's Friday night. I'm not supposed to see him tonight, because his family is in town. After dinner, I am still upset. But at this point in my recovery, I have finished my dinner; I do not throw the rest out, I do not start bingeing, and I do not purge. I go back to my room and lay down. My hair is up, my pajamas on, and I'm sporting my glasses. My face is puffy and swollen from crying. All of a sudden, there is a knock on my door. He is standing there, and as soon as he sees me, he wraps his arms around me. Gives me a card.
"I hope this card makes you smile, because I hate to see you so sad," it reads.
I do not deserve this boy. He is my guardian angel, and I don't even realize it.
................................................
Today.
These memories of him are what keep me up at night, are what has me tearing up when I hear the "Five Dollar....Five Dollar....Five Dollar FOOTLONGS!" ads from Subway, from hearing "The Great Escape," and any song by Secondhand Serenade. Every time I'm in San Diego, I think back to the nights in his car, hand in mine, driving down the freeway to his place or back to HG, around the steep curve he liked to drive on because it scared me and I would squeeze his hand each time and he would laugh and ask "Are you scared?" and I would always act like I wasn't. "You don't have to worry," he would say, and squeeze my hand back. I think back to Mission Bay, to Pacific Beach, to Sunset Cliffs. To me falling asleep on him and him saying "It's time to go," because it was late but I would protest and stay five more minutes. He always made me call him when I got home. "It's me," I would say. We always had something to talk about, that night he called when I was at HG and I talked to him for over an hour. How long had it been since I had talked to someone that long? To that night he came to the apartment and wanted to "show me his car" and he pushed me up against it and kissed me for the first time. He stayed up late one night because I needed to talk to him on the phone when I was upset.
It's over now. I haven't seen or spoken to him in months. I'm scared to. I don't want him to see me like this. I'd rather just wonder if things would work out between us rather than risk getting rejected. I couldn't handle it. Not by him. After finding the videos of him playing the guitar on youtube, I almost had a mental breakdown. To see him making music, his hand tapping the guitar in that familiar way I remember, to him smiling atrandom moments, made me smile and broke my heart at the same time. I wonder what he's doing, if he knows I'm back. If he does know, he hasn't contacted me. That's not a good sign.
Sometimes I think I should just call him or text him, no mattter what I think the outcome will be, because I'm going crazy not knowing. I have random dreams about him. I can't stand it.
I believe in fate. I hope the saying "Let something go, and if it comes back to you, you know it's yours," is really true. Of course, that would mean he has to come back, or I'm screwed. Either way.
I never thanked him enough for everything he did. And now it's too late. But no matter what happens, how much time passes, how many experiences I have, I will never, ever forget the boy who caught me while I was falling, and kept holding on, even after I could stand.
