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"This song is talking to the person you haven't even met yet. Maybe they're rolling around in the hay with someone else, but they're not as good as you're gonna be. You just have to wait your turn. He's out there, she's out there. They're just learning what to contrast you against."






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a tenth. a first. and a goodbye.}
Sunday, December 2, 2018 | 9:19 PM | 2Comment




To my beloved Internet,

It has been long. Much too long. How I've missed you.

I have started and stopped several entries before this one. I never posted them because they didn't feel quite right. And just as well, I've been so swamped with my fiction writing this year (a revision on one of my novels that resulted in axing 50k words from it, work on another novel I started in '16, and finishing a whole novella!) that I felt like I couldn't dedicate enough time to writing a nice update for you all.

Also, at some point, there was so much happening that I didn't feel like I could adequately write about it all. But, as always, there is the ever-famous bulletpoint entry. So let me sum it up for you:


  • In March of this year, I entered my 25th year around the sun. Many confusing, exciting things have happened in my 25th year, but I've enjoyed 25. 25 is nice, and so far, much nicer than being 24.
  • In May of this year, this blog turned 10 years old. An entire decade of being your ridiculous, overly-sensitive, one-and-only Hopeless Romantic.
  • I continued working at my job, and I continued loving it, as well as being able to experience wonderful opportunities for my resume, as well as wonderful life experiences.
  • I started going to the movies by myself, and it turned into one of my favorite new hobbies. Turns out I'm a bit of a movie junkie, and I enjoy watching them the most when I'm alone, but with a group of other movie junkies who watch movies the same way I do--silently. Ahh, sweet silence.
  • I started seeing someone, who then became my very first boyfriend.


Huh. Sooo...where to begin?

Kidding. I know you guys are DYING to hear me dish on this guy who became my first ever boyfriend. Me. Hopeless Romantic, in the year of 2018, AND A FIRST BOYFRIEND. 

FINALLY.










Now, before you all celebrate, let me stop you right there: it's not Brennan. And it didn't end well.

But, well, seeing as he was my first boyfriend, and most people have their first boyfriend/girlfriend in like...middle school, sometimes high school? Yeah. Usually that does not work out so well. And in this case, it didn't.

But let me start at the beginning. Let's call him Jon.

Now, after the whole Brennan ordeal of late last year, I ended up confronting him. I told him up front that I had felt taken advantage of, and used, and that it didn't fly with me. I told him I take my own feelings very seriously, and that I need someone who takes me seriously as well. I told him that I'll be his friend, but if he can't handle being JUST straight-forward, platonic friends, then he needed to stay away from me.

He ended up responding with this whole rant about how sorry he was for treating me that way, and how he didn't even know what he wanted or what he was doing with his life, and honestly it was pretty sad. It was through this that I realized how hard this breakup of his had been on him, way more than he had initially made it seem.

Frankly, after all of that, it put me off of Brennan for good, and I left him alone. Aside from him sending me Merry Christmas and Happy New Year texts, we mostly stopped speaking--which, after the way he had treated me, I was glad for. Immediately following, I signed up for Bumble, wanting to move on ASAP.

Nothing came of Bumble for several weeks afterward. For a little bit, I was talking to this guy from there who Super Liked me, who ended up coming on WAY TOO STRONG and made me super uncomfortable 95% of the time. 

Nothing came of it for months, and I was feeling so weary of the whole dating scene that I was planning on deleting the app.

But when I sat down to delete my account in June, I decided I might take one last swipe-through, just in case. 

So I was swiping. Swiping, and swiping, and swiping. Losing my faith in humanity and swiping. Feeling my soul die and swiping.

Then finally, miracle of miracles, I find a guy's profile that interests me. Just to see, I swipe right. We immediately match.

The guy? Jon.

I send the opening message, telling him he's handsome and making a comment about something he'd written on his profile. He immediately messages back, super friendly, we talk for a bit. He asks me out to a movie for the next weekend, I say yes. Success.










Now, when we meet in person for the first time, it's a little weird. He's kind of quiet, he's obviously very nervous. I was nervous too, but after seeing him, he was much more nervous than I was. I try my best to be friendly to make him feel at ease, and we go in for the movie.

His laughter during the movie is high-pitched and it alarms me, but it's kind of hilarious. The unashamed, loud way that he laughs is disarming, and shows me that he doesn't care what others think. It warms me to him.

After the movie, I ask if he would like to get coffee at my favorite cafe by the movie theater that plays k-pop videos. He says yes.

He pays for my coffee, and we get to know each other a bit. He seems to have trouble looking directly at me, but he still seems nervous, so I give him the benefit of the doubt. (I found out later that he spent our entire first date absolutely terrified. Poor guy.) He lived in Japan for much of his adolescent years, but he says he likes it in America better. He complains about the trains in Japan, and it endears me to him. He lived a whole life growing up that I could never even imagine, and I want to know more.









So I say yes to date two, brunch at a hole-in-the-wall place downtown. He's a bit warmer this time, more comfortable. We talk about all our favorite movies, and our favorite music. I notice the tattoo on his forearm: the solar system. I love space. And now I like him even more.

Date three: Watching Harry Potter movies at his place. I was hesitant about going over to his apartment--I had never been to a man's apartment before. But I said yes, trying to take a step outside of my comfort zone.

He sensed that I was uncomfortable, and as we watched Chamber of Secrets, he only holds my hand. Fingers laced. I'm on cloud nine.






After date 5--a day trip to the mall, where he bought some things for me as a gift--when we watched a Japanese reality show on Netflix, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I cried, and I said yes. And when we left his place a couple of hours later so that he could drive me home, there was a double rainbow across the sky.

It felt like a sign. A wonderful gift just for me, from the universe.

That day made me so happy. It was wonderful, now knowing that these things could happen to me. I thought I was defective. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was the only one who would never experience that kind of happiness.

I now know that it's possible.






Unfortunately, after that, things steadily went downhill.

We still did fun things. We went to movies, talked on the phone, went out to eat, sat in his car for hours just talking and watching funny videos on each other's phones. Those parts were great. Those were the things I had always wanted, and never thought I deserved. 

I'll cherish those firsts for a long time. Maybe forever.

But sometimes he would ignore my boundaries--my personal boundaries as well as my relationship boundaries. At first I thought it was a mistake, and made excuses for him. I would restate them again and again, reminding him. He would say 'okay' and nod like he understood, and then he would bulldoze past them all over again. This happened so many times that it felt like I was losing my mind.

It happened so many times that when he told me that he loved me, it didn't feel like he meant it.

He said 'I love you' to me after 1 month of being official, after changing our relationship statuses on Facebook.

He said it right after I told him, repeatedly, that I wasn't ready for sex, and tried to force me to do it anyway.

I didn't say it back, Internet. Because the moment he said this to me, after the way he had treated me before in that confusing, unsettling moment, I knew I didn't love him.

Because I could never love someone who wouldn't treat me with the utmost respect. I thought he respected me--he opened doors for me, held hands with me in public, drove me home, and he told me he respected me. I thought that was enough. 

But other times he would shove his tongue down my throat like he was getting paid $200 a minute to do it. Other times, when I told him I was having a bad depression or anxiety day, he would ignore my need for space. And he would whine and guilt trip me when I said I wasn't ready to sleep with him. And when he wasn't whining and guilting me, he was groping me. 

At first it just began to annoy me. Then it began to anger and sicken me. We even began fighting about it. One of the last times I called him out on it, I got really angry. I thought we had settled this discussion the time before, and I was tired of feeling unheard. He swore up and down that he wouldn't do it again, and that he was sorry, and that he'd do better. He blamed his stress on it, and that he didn't mean to upset me. Little did he know, that final time we fought over it, I decided it would be the last time.

A lack of respect is not love.

We spent so much time angsting over this in the end that he barely know who I was.

Maybe Jon truly did love me, or who he wanted me to be. Maybe he still does. Or maybe he just said it so I'd sleep with him.

Either way, my mental health was suffering. The moment I realized I wasn't happy anymore, I wanted out. I needed to end it.






The worst part was that he was away on a trip and wouldn't be back for weeks. And I'm not some asshole who breaks up with someone over the phone. So for weeks, I stewed in misery, waiting for him to return from his trip so I could break it off.

I felt terrible about it. I knew that it would be awful for him to be dumped right after returning from a trip. But I also knew it would be worse, nay, cowardly to dump him over phone call or text while he was gone. It would've been downright cruel. So I did what I had to do.

He had told me once that one of his exes had dumped him over text, out of the blue, without even saying why. So I did the opposite of that.

When he returned from his trip, we went out. In person, sitting outside at a cafe, I told him exactly why I was breaking up with him. And I cried more than I thought I would, though admittedly I have gotten over it pretty fast, 3 months later.

Aside from the boundaries issue (which is unacceptable) and the not listening thing (he was the WORST LISTENER.), what it truly came down to was incompatibility.

He needs someone who wants to screw like bunnies all the time, and who doesn't mind someone who's a bit clingy.

I need someone who listens to me, and who respects me, first of all. But most of all, I want someone that I love.

Because when it came down to it, Jon was not right for me in several ways. I liked how attentive he was in the beginning, how sweet and thoughtful he was. But it changed so quickly, and he showed this other side of him, which I couldn't stand so much that he became unattractive to me. He became so unattractive to me that I knew I could never, under any circumstances, fall in love with him.

I need someone that I love.

And I know what love feels like because I have loved someone before.








With Ricky Bobby, I saw all of his flaws. I knew who he was, and what all of his weaknesses were. None of them mattered. Because down to my very soul, I loved him

I loved him. And as I said three years ago, I may always love him.

I swore I would never blog about him again. But on this tenth year of this blog, I can't help but bring it all back to the knucklehead that made me start this whole thing in the first place.

For years, I've wondered. Wondered if I'll even love someone else.

Thanks to Jon, I know I can.

For a little while, I thought I was on my way to loving Jon. Perhaps I was close. Before that whole incompatibility thing reared its ugly head.

And because of him, despite how it ended, I know now that someone can love me. That I'm not just this unloveable sad sack of a human, the one who cried herself to sleep in high school, thinking no one could ever love her.

I know I can be loved. I know now.









How long have you known me, Internet?

Have you been with me for all TEN years? In that case, wow. Thanks for sticking around.

Has it been a shorter time than that? Even then, wow. Thanks for being an anonymous friend in this lonely wide world.

For ten years, this blog was my sanctuary. It's been the place where I air my deepest thoughts, as loudly and as boldly as I want. I spent my formative years pouring my soul into the words on this diary, where strangers could either read them and identify, or read and be entertained.

I owe so much to this little space right here. This little corner of the Internet has meant the world.

But I'm sure that many of you, if there are much of you left, have noticed my increased absence in recent years. I would be surprised if anyone was reading this right now, in fact.

It's not that I've lost the drive to write. It's that I've channeled all of my energy and all of my soul into my fictional works. The more I gave to my characters, the less concerned I was about my love life, and the less self-absorbed I was.

And the more I've poured into my stories, the less energy I had for dissecting my own life and spreading it into words on the Internet, for the whole world to see.

My stories have grown into books. Books, plural. That I want to publish one day. And most of all, this year, I have been seeking a literary agent to represent my work. To find a publishing house so that those words might become real books one day.

This blog has been so much of my heart for so long.

And that's why I'm turning it into what I love most in this world: a book.









Of course, it won't be a memoir. I'll rearrange some things, pick better changed names, make some things more interesting (i.e.: FICTIONAL.). And of course, give it a happy ending, as my favorite kind of fiction deserves.

As for this blog, and for you all, I wish I could give you a happy ending.

I wish I could've come back with a bombastic, final blog entry in the form of AND THEN I FELL MADLY IN LOVE WITH JON AND HE PROPOSED TO ME AND WE GOT MARRIED AND BOUGHT A HOUSE AND NOW WE'RE HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END.

God, I wish I could've. More than anything.

But the sad fact of real life is that it's not as interesting as books. Things don't normally get happy endings. If they get endings at all, a lot of times they're anticlimactic and full of loose ends. Sometimes the endings are sad and tragic.

I think if I had eventually abandoned this blog, just up and left it without another word, that would've been the tragic ending.

So I thought: if I give this an ending, let it be like most of life: anticlimactic, same as always, and maybe a little boring. (Aside from me finally filling you in on that first boyfriend thing, months later.)

Because God forbid, Internet, that I end this epic love story with you with a tragedy.

To those left out there who have read my words, read my life, and have stuck with me, this is where we say our goodbyes. I've always been terrible at goodbyes.

This ride has been wonderful. And I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else. I may not have found love in Jon, or in anyone after Ricky Bobby (so far), but I sure found it in myself, and in you.







When I finish this book loosely based upon this hopeless romance life of mine, I'll likely delete this blog from the face of the websphere. I hope that enough of you see this final entry before I do, but don't worry, that may be awhile. (But just in case, if you wish to download an archive of my entries, or copy-and-paste or screenshot them, or what have you, I would do it ASAP.)

If 'The Life of a Hopeless Romantic' (title pending) appears on the YA shelves of a bookstore one day, I hope that some of you might recognize me there and pick me up to live on your bookshelves, so that you won't forget me.

Because I certainly won't forget any of you.

I love you. Adieu. The end.

And, for one last time: Happy Holidays, and happy New Year. Take care of yourselves, Internet. May your lives be full of love. And show love to one another, even if it's hard to find for yourself.

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Forever,
Your Hopeless Romantic


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hopeless romantic's first kiss. ever.}
Sunday, May 1, 2016 | 10:56 PM | 0Comment

Internet. What a night last night was.

I don't even know where to start. Not since high school have I had a night this significant.

To be honest...I didn't think I would ever be writing an entry like this. At least not for a good while longer. Receiving my first kiss was of course something I hoped for, but I never even fathomed that it could happen this year, even this week. But it did.

Let me start this crazy story from the beginning.

His name is Luke*.

I swiped right on Luke two weeks ago. We matched immediately.

It happened during a surprising, short lived burst of bravery I had on Tinder where I swiped right 4 TIMES in one session (unprecedented for me) and inexplicably matched with all four of them. Of the four, though, only 2 of them actually messaged me.

One was Luke, and one was a dude I'll call Roy*.

I texted them both at the same time for a day. Luke asked if we could "hang out sometime". I said sure, maybe next weekend (all the while in the back of my mind I was sure that I would bail last minute and say that I was busy).

Then for a few days Luke and I didn't talk, and I talked to Roy a lot more. Me and Roy had a ton of interests in common.

After another day or two, Roy asks me out, too. Like an idiot, I forget that I had already agreed to something with Luke that weekend, and I tell Roy, "Sure, I'll be free this weekend!"

Then...later, I remember. Crap. I double booked. This had never happened to me before. I hadn't ever had 2 people interested in me at the same time.

But, also remembering that Luke hadn't even talked to me in like 3 days, I shrugged it off. Our plans had never been solidified anyway, and he probably decided he didn't want to go out with me after all. Whatever. I was used to that at this point. AhemAMADcough. (Speaking of, guess who finally moved? Saw it on Instagram. Bon voyage, Amad. Have fun in La La Land.)

So, I carried on, fully convinced that that Roy and I would be going on a date.

Well...until Luke texted me on Wednesday.

Luke and I resumed talking, and weirdly, my conversation with Roy got abruptly cut off. I messaged him again to maybe start our talking again, thinking he just forgot to reply, but it was totally radio silence. Zero word from him since then.

So Luke and I text for 2 days straight now, and on Thursday night asks if I'd still like to hang out on Saturday.

Considering Roy presumably has fallen off the face of the planet at this point, and the more I talk to Luke the more I realize that we have more in common than Roy and I had in common, I say yes to Luke instead.

Friday...the panic starts to set in.

As much as Luke liked to call it "hanging out"...I knew it wasn't. I don't get why guys my age hate calling dates what they are, but they are dates, whether they want to call them that or not. This was a date date, and I hadn't been on a date since Brennan. (About a year and a half ago now.)

Crap. I had a date!!!! My knee was still hurting and I was still recovering from my near week-long impromptu sitting stint last week (long story). How was I supposed to go on a date?????

Then even more panic flooded in.

What if it went terribly and my impression of Luke was completely wrong? What if he was rude and narcissistic like Amad? What if he was nothing like his pictures and I was uncomfortable? Then, even worse--what if something was wrong with me?!?! What if he showed up, saw me, then immediately walked back out?



Then, worst of all: What if it went great for once? What would I do then? How would I handle it?

Ready or not, though Saturday finally came. As I always do for dates, I spent hours getting ready. (Spent a record 2 hours on my makeup. It looked great and I mean, for that crazy amount of time, it should have!) I pick out a cute yet casual outfit, complete with flat sneakers to accommodate my still healing knee. I do my hair in a cute yet not-too-fancy hairstyle.

Lo and behold, it was snowing. On the last day of April. I KNOW. The freezing weather made me not want to leave the house at all, as it always does, but in the end, I'm glad I did.

I finish getting ready, and by late afternoon, it's time to meet Luke.

Stepping out of the snowy tundra outside and into the warm coffee shop, I search for him at first. Not an easy task, considering I wasn't wearing my glasses (faux lashes make glasses impossible). Soon, though, I see a guy stand up from one of the tables and slightly wave at me, and I make my way over, my stomach in knots.

He greets me with a hug, and I hug him back. As I pull back, I try to read his face. I can't tell if he looks disappointed, disinterested, nervous, or if that's just his normal resting face.

I say I'm going to get my drink, and he says he'll buy my drink for me and comes with me. A little awkwardly, we walk over there together. He asks what I want, without thinking I blurt out, "Hot chocolate," and even though I love hot chocolate, this place has milk based hot chocolate. Since I'm lactose intolerant, that was maybe not the best choice. Oh well. Too late to take it back.



He kindly pays for both drinks and we sit at the table. I get another good look at him, and I realize his whole face is red. He also avoids prolonged eye contact with me--which is usually just my problem. He seems really nervous, and somehow, it's reassuring. Immediately, I ask him questions about himself, wanting him to feel more at ease.

We talk about his job (paid internship) and his art (he's super SUPER talented at drawing), and soon he loosens up and isn't as red. Finally, I see him smile. He has a great smile. He's one of those people that look completely different when they smile--it changes his whole face.

We talk more and more, animatedly about our shared interests and seriously about each of our passions. We click. We laugh and relate. I tell him I still live at home, and that I don't drive, and he accepts it easily (he still lives with his folks as well). I talk about how much writing means to me, and he listens. Really listens. And after I finish, he says, "That's wonderful."

As soon as he says that, I already know without that choosing to meet Luke in person had been the right decision to make.



Soon, we realize the sun has gone down. 3 hours had passed already.

Luke asks if I'd want to go watch a movie, and with the way that he words it, I realize that he didn't mean the movie theater. But we're having such a nice time that I don't think that I want it to end just yet. And watching a movie sounds nice. So I agree.

He throws his drink away, and then proceeds to pick up all the straw wrapper rippy bits that I'd unknowingly made while I was nervous earlier. I thank him and apologize, laughing because I hadn't even realized I'd done that.

We shoulder on our coats and head outside where the snowstorm has picked up even more, and cottony flakes are lightly falling from the sky.

He opens the doors for me, and I thank him. We get into his (well taken care of and nice) car, and he starts to drive through the snow to his house. On the way we talk about what kinds of music we like, and the kinds of music we grew up listening to.

In about 15 minutes, we're already there. He lives on a quiet suburban street much like mine.

We go into his house, and his dad is in the kitchen. A spike of nervousness hits me again, and when Luke introduces his dad to me, I tell him it's nice to meet him and call him 'sir'. He asks me how I am, I say fine and ask how he his, and he says he's fine. Thankfully after that the introduction is over and I can breathe a little.

We go downstairs where the entertainment center was, and I'm relieved to see it, as I had been worried that 'movie' had been code for something else. He asks what I want to watch, and I look through his movies to decide.

I decide on an alien invasion movie that I had never seen before, and he says it's one of his favorites as he pops it into the movie player.

Feeling a little out of my element, considering I had only just met this guy in person today and I was already at his house, I sit on the love seat by the armrest and try to make myself as small and as unimposing as possible.

He asks if I'm cold and if I want a blanket, and I say sure, since I decided to wear tights and a tennis skirt during a snow storm. He hands the blanket to me and I thank him. The movie begins and then, as I put the blanket over my legs, he turns out the lights. Oh.

Then he sits on the couch, scooches right next to me, and drapes the blanket over his legs too.

Oh.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what might happen, and I try to mental prepare myself. It suddenly occurs to me that I've never watched a movie with a boy at a boy's house, alone, EVER, in my entire life. Why had I immediately assumed that when he asked to watch a movie, that he meant only watch a movie????

I realized that perhaps 'movie' was code for something else after all.

He asks if I need anything, and I say no. The movie starts, and I'm tense, arms folded, face carefully blank, acting like I'm paying close attention to the movie but I'm actually fuh-REAKING OUT.

The nervousness makes my stomach churn, and then I realize that I had never eaten dinner, and it was almost 4 hours past dinner time. The thought makes me even more hungry, and I can't quell the growl my stomach makes. I quietly hope he didn't hear it.

Finally, 15 minutes or so into the movie, I ask if he has any snacks to eat. He says that he's hungry too, and immediately he goes upstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat. I take this time to breathe and calm down so I won't be so tense.

In a minute or so, he comes back, and gives me a list of snacks that they have. Muffins was one of them, and so he leaves again and then comes back with muffins. He sits back down, offers me the plate to catch the crumbs with, then we eat our muffins and continue to watch the movie.

At this point I'm not as nervous, considering I've had something to eat now. So I take forever eating the muffin (because I'm a slow eater) and eventually I finish, and he offers to get the plate out of my way, and I thank him as he does.

We get back to watching the movie. About a few minutes after that, he does...the move.



The arm around the shoulder thing (except without the corny yawn part).

I freeze again. The moment oddly reminds me of the time You-Know-Who did the same thing in junior year, minus the movie watching. I froze up exactly the same way. Only this time, there was no friends near me to seamlessly divert my awkward, frozen reaction to the physical contact. We were alone.

My brain is screaming at me to react in some way, and so what I do is free my hair from under his arm. He laughs nervously and apologizes, and it reminds me yet again that he's just as nervous as I am, and it's again reassuring. I tell him it's okay and laugh too, and I take that moment to rearrange myself so that I'm a little more comfortable.

It helps...a little. Still freaking out. My shoulders, where his arm is across, feel like they're on fire. My leg keeps twitching. It feels like I'm breathing way too loud and swallowing way too much. I know he can hear me swallow, because I can hear him swallowing hard, too. And breathing hard.

There's a palpable tension there in that room between us. And I haven't felt that in God knows HOW long. (6 years, to be exact.)

We sit like that for the rest of the movie, and because I actually got myself to pay attention to the last half hour, I applaud because I loved it. I tell him I loved it, and he says he's glad I enjoyed it. His hand tightens slightly on my shoulder, and I ask if his arm is numb. He says not at all, and that I barely weigh anything. And I told him I was relieved because I was worried about that.

I comment a little more on the movie, and he agrees with me, and I feel the tension even more now. There's a lull, and just before I can start to feel uneasy--it happens.

He reaches across me with his free hand, very gently touches my cheek and turns my face towards his face. He leans in.

Before I can prepare for what I think it might be like, or freak out at all, it's already happening. His lips press against mine. I freeze in shock again.

I begin to register what's happening. His lips are smooth and soft against mine. I thought it would be...wetter. Like maybe too wet? But it was a nice amount of softness. His stubble scrapes my face, but not unpleasantly. His aftershave smells really freakin' good. His nose bumps into my cheek. His thumb strokes my other cheek.

It's completely different from what I've thought it would be like for the past...when did I hit puberty...13 years? It's unfamiliar, and confusing, but not unwelcome.

Finally, I snap out of my stupor, and I start to move my lips, trying to match his movements.



(Okay, sorry. Enough k-drama gifs.)

I had heard that when you get your first kiss, you figure out what to do. I didn't believe that, not for one second. 'But there must be some trick!' I would think after hearing that. 'Some secret that I don't know! What is it!! TELL ME THE KISSING SECRET!'

But, honestly? That advice is so accurate. After knowing I should try to match him, and try not to let our teeth bump (I still did once. Oops.), I was just...doing it. I don't know if I did it well or not, really. But I did it.

Internet. I kissed a boy.



After maybe...I don't know. 30 seconds? A minute? (My mind was somewhere else, I have no clue how long it was!) He pulled away, briefly, then leaned in once more to press his lips to mine again.

He pulls back again, looks down at me, and at this point my brain is totally kaput, and I say, like a total fucking nerd, "Um, thank you."

He chuckles and says, "You're welcome." Then kisses my cheek, and then my temple. And it's so much overwhelming physical contact that I have NEVER HAD BEFORE IN MY LIFE that I just slump down against his shoulder in a giddy daze. He hugs me against him with his arm tighter, and then gently, he takes my hand out of my sleeve and laces his fingers through mine.

My heart is racing, and suddenly I realize how sweaty my hand is, so I apologize for it being sweaty, and he says he didn't even notice.

We sit there like that for a few minutes, in a comfortable silence. I say that I'm sleepy, and he says he could tell. He lets go of my hand, then reaches over and softly strokes my hair and brushes it away from my face. For a good 5 seconds I'm positive that I may just pass out from swooning. (Have I ever mentioned that I love getting my head/face touched? I'm like a freaking cat. My eyes almost rolled back into my head. It took everything me not to actually mewl like a cat.)



I ask what time it is, and he tells me it's about 20 minutes past ten. I can't even remember the last time I was out so late, and I tell him that I should probably get home. He says he figured it would probably be time for me to head home soon, and tells me he'll drive me home.

When I get up from the couch, my knees buckle with weakness, and I glance at him, hoping that he didn't see. If he did, he didn't say anything.

As we open the front door, the snowfall from the past two hours is revealed. Even bigger snowflakes are falling, and it honestly looks magical.



Luke opens the passenger door for me and I settle into the passenger seat. He brushes the snow off the car windows outside. I begin shivering, and at first I think that it's from the cold, but then I realize it's the jitters taking over as I begin to comprehend what had just happened.

I whisper to myself, "Oh my God." Then I whip my phone out to send a quick mass tweet to my friends to tell them the crazy news of my first kiss.

He enters the car, and of course I play it cool again. On the way to my house, we make more small talk in between me giving him directions.

We arrive at my house 15 minutes later, and he gets out to walk me to my front door. He hugs me, and I hug back. I thank him, telling him I had a great night. He says we'll have to do it again, and I agreed. Before we break the hug, he leans down for one more kiss. And I think that if it happens again I'll really lose my cool, so I smile and tell him goodnight and to drive home safely. Then I go inside the house.

My dad greets me when I go in, and unfortunately I don't look in a mirror to see my smudged lipstick until after we're done talking. He almost definitely noticed. Womp womp.

Then I went straight to my room, told all my friends all about it as they freaked out and congratulated me, and then around midnight when I came down from my high, I went into the kitchen to heat up some leftover spaghetti because I was starving.

I didn't think I would EVER sleep, but sometime around 3am I finally passed out.

So....what's next in store for Luke and I?

I don't know what's next. But the fact of the matter is that he is, and always will be, my first kiss ever.

How I managed to have such a lovely, adorable first kiss, I'll never know. The whole thing sort of felt like something from a contemporary YA book or k-drama. I still kind of can't believe it actually happened, and part of me still wonders if I hallucinated the whole thing. I'm still in a daze and it's been a whole day.

But I guess that's one thing that I can stop beating myself up over, Internet. Once upon a time, I'd cry myself to sleep thinking something like this would never happen to me. And now it has.



I'm not going to pile expectations on after this experience, Internet. I'm not going to overthink things.

But maybe...just maybe...it might be okay to like Luke. Maybe just a little bit.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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it's happening...finally.}
Sunday, August 31, 2014 | 9:58 PM | 0Comment

Internet, hey!!

So. I've been pretty busy the past month, which is why I haven't updated, and guess what for?

Preparation. For. School.

Yup. You read that right. School. Me. Going to school. After waiting for two years--but really, more like 5 years. Sitting in an actual classroom, listening to an actual lecture, having actual homework. For the first time in 5 whole years.

Mind blown, right?

I started last week. It's still really surreal...I didn't think it would feel real until I stepped through the doors of the campus on my first day. It felt sort of real then, and then felt sort of real on my second day. I think it'll feel sort of real doing and then submitting my first real homework too.

I think it'll finally feel like a solid, tangible, real thing that's happening when going to class becomes routine, and I get used to it. Maybe it hasn't fully hit me yet because it still feels like a special occurrence, like a two time thing and then that's it.

But still...it's happened. After all this time, it's happened.

Let me tell you all about the craziness leading up to it:

I knew I wanted--no, NEEDED--to start school this semester, or I would go completely raving, twitching, chair throwing insane. The anticipation has been building and building inside of me since this time last year, especially considering how things collapsed and didn't work out then. Ever since, I've been thinking restlessly about it.

I'd been feeling especially...how do I put it? Kind of...pathless. I'd been feeling especially pathless lately. Kind of empty. For a bit, I was okay with my lifestyle: no school and no job to fill my time, spending it bettering myself and doing things that I liked to do. But in recent months, that wasn't enough anymore. The things I filled my time with before were fragile and shallow, and only kept me happy for so long before I felt miserable again.

Not to mention that goals I had once set for myself had disappeared somewhere along the way, making me feel like my future was non-existent. That's how I knew that it was time now for school, for real this time.

So, I worked hard.

I studied for the placement test I had to take to place me into my beginning classes, and I went to the testing center and took it. I met with a guidance counselor to help me choose classes, I applied for financial aid (all for pretty much nothing in the end, but I'll get to that in a second), I registered for classes. I got it all done.

Now, unfortunately, because of some unforeseen complication with financial aid (not having the required paperwork for it, long story short my parents have not done their taxes yet because of financial issues and got an extension, but I can't get financial aid without my parents having that done) I had to drop 2 of my original 3 classes, giving me only 1 class to start out with this semester. (So that we could afford to pay for school out of pocket, since it's a community college.) I was pretty disappointed about that at first, especially because one of the classes I had to drop was ballet, which, if you've read this blog for a while now, you'd know that I've been wanting to take that for 2 YEARS NOW, haha. But, oh well. Maybe next semester?

So now, I'm taking English Composition, and I have class twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Easiest schedule ever, right? But I think it's the perfect way to ease my way back into school; not too much at once, and with a subject that I enjoy. Plus, my professor is cool. She used to be a screenwriter, and her and her husband run a karate dojo.

 I bought a cute cheap backpack online(baby pink and floral pattern!), some notebooks and pens and a binder, and now I'm taking this one day at a time. Even if it's only 1 class, it's a huge deal for me.

I'm finally doing something real with my life now. It's small, but it's something.

Plus: I made a classmate friend, Katherine*. She talked to me first on the first day of school, told me she liked my skirt. She's 19, almost 20, and took a year off between high school and college, and spends all her free time on the internet, like me! Hahaha. We've agreed to be each other's life line to the class, in case one of us is absent one day and we need the assignment, and so on. I was worried I wouldn't make any friends at all, let alone so soon, so this is a huge relief for me, and I feel really grateful.

Big steps and little steps, Internet. Big steps and little steps.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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lifestyle changes.}
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 | 9:46 PM | 0Comment

Internet!!

So. I wasn't quite sure where to start with writing about all the things that have changed since I last wrote. I mean just...a lot of things have changed. A lot.

First things first...I live in a new house.

Yup. We moved. ONCE AGAIN. And this time, it's in a house with just me, my mom, and my dad (and dog). You might recall that I've lived with my grandma and young cousins for...well, as long as I've had this blog. Since the 8th grade. Basically my grandma moved into us to help us pay rent, because we could barely afford ours and she could barely afford hers, and it would be much easier for all of us if we lived together.

But after a while the dynamic in the house shifted--soon my grandma refused to help pay rent and the utility bill, and the pressure was on my parents to pay all of it. So as you can imagine, that actually made our financial situation worse. We have been very very tight on money, barely living paycheck to paycheck, for years now.

And aside from money, none of us had been very happy with living together for the past year or so. There had always kind of been tension, especially between my mom and my grandma (my dad's mother), but in 2013 it came to a head multiple times. Someone was always arguing or yelling at each other, or my cousins were always getting into mischief, leaving us to clean after them. And worst of all, for me, was that my grandma was always inviting people we didn't know over to our house without telling us. There had been many a time when a stranger would come over and I'd be in my pajamas in the living room, bed hair and all. Not only humiliating but also annoying when said stranger comes over again, sees me again but in daytime clothes, and would say, "Oh, you got dressed today!"

So around Christmas time, when we discovered that we would have to move soon because the landlord wanted to sell the house, I confronted Mom about possibly moving into separate houses now, and she could not agree more with me. So that led to both of us confronting Dad about it, and then him confronting Grandma, and well...here we are.

It took some convincing on her end, however. Until she realized that she wanted her own house again too, haha. Then we helped her find a house, and we found our new house. And it all worked out!

And here's the most hilarious part of it...we moved next door to our old house. HAHA. Literally one house over.

We were having such a hard time trying to find a place, and then we found out that the house next door was up for rent, so we looked...and it was perfect. Funny how stuff like that works out, isn't it?

SO. The new house. Just a two story, a main floor and a basement. And the entire basement is mine. Main/living space, my bedroom, my own bathroom with a door right to it from my room, and a WALK IN CLOSET.

I've never in my life had a bathroom connected to my bedroom, or a walk in closet. And as it's in the basement, it's quiet, and just as cool as I like it to be in my room. In all honesty, it's the best room I've ever had, and that includes the room I had in middle school where I had my own deck outside.

The only downside: the bugs. Inevitable for any basement, I think. We've been trying our best to keep them away, although there have been some pretty bad incidents (one includes a giant spider on the toilet paper in the bathroom, which I accidentally touched when it fell INTO MY HAND. Will never look at toilet paper the same way. Scarred for life.)  but we're working on it.

But the pros far outweigh the cons, and my stress levels have gone down significantly since moving. I think they have for all of us, even my grandma and cousins. And when we miss each other, we visit each other's houses for a few hours, and then we go home. To separate houses. And live peacefully how we want. Such a relief, I cannot even tell you.

So since we've moved to the new house, we've been very busy trying to get everything organized and looking presentable (or somewhat presentable) and my main area down here only has a folding chair, 3 bookshelves, and a TV in it, lol. But babysteps! We'll get it together eventually.

Aside from the house, some other things have changed for me as well.


  • Me and Rose do not speak anymore, aside from the occasional Instagram comment or Facebook comment she leaves me. Which I'll sometimes respond to. 
  • Me and Jazz don't speak anymore either, except for the time in January when I helped her out at her salon school by being a hair model (where I made the mistake of letting her chop off WAY too much of it, ack!) She was supposed to graduate her salon school in March, and I'm assuming she still did, but getting caught up with moving and my birthday, I didn't hear about it. She also somewhat recently deleted her Facebook, and as I only have her number now, I don't know what she's up to these days. Kinda sad about that, because she was the only person aside from family that lived here that really acted like she cared about me, but what can you do. 
  •  Turned 21 (notice the change in the blog title!!!) in March, and I've since been enjoying an occasional drink here and there. My first alcoholic drink, on my birthday at the restaurant we went to, was a glass of Sangria, which I enjoyed so much that I drank my mom's afterwards as well. Got a little tipsy, and got my first hangover the day afterwards (hit me like a ton of bricks, good lord). I've also learned I enjoy mixed drinks, that I should not mix alcohols and that I should stay away from margaritas for a while because tequila is the devil. (Learned that two weeks ago at a Mexican restaurant, drank all of my Sangria and then thought it was a brilliant idea to drink the rest of my mom's margarita right afterwards. Threw it all up in the restaurant bathroom literally 5 minutes after finishing it. Not my brightest moment. But it tasted like a slushie! I thought I'd be fine!) So yeah, still learning. I didn't have any experience drinking in high school like most people so it might take me a while to get used to it and build up my tolerance.
  • Started a diet. Now, before anything else, I want to clarify: I'm not doing it to lose weight. I've been eating a crap ton of fast food and other processed food the past 5 months or so, and I need to detox. I'd started feeling truly awful and so unhealthy because of it, so I decided to start a reasonable diet. I started this diet, the paleo diet, at the beginning of this month, so it's literally super recent. Some days I really enjoy it, others I want to put my fist through a window and then eat an entire block of cheese. But thankfully, I gave myself Saturday and Sunday to eat all the junk I want, and during my diet days I allow myself greek yogurt and hummus because I would miss them way too much.
So. Some interesting changes there, right? 

As for the job issue: still an issue. As of my last entry, I applied for 7 jobs. I was hired for none of them. Quite amazing, actually. At this point, if I keep going like this, I could set a world record or something. 

However, there are two more that I want to apply for, and one that's been offered to me. If the 2 I apply for don't hire me, then I'll probably take the one that was offered, which was from my dad's friend to be a dog/house sitter for him. Not too bad. At least I would get paid. 

Also, I intend on starting registration for school as soon as possible. I miss school. I miss it so much. I miss being a student, I miss regularly doing something with my time. I miss learning things in class. I miss having miniature goals for myself. I miss having at least a determinable future. School provides that.

And I'm anxious to start towards my theater major. I'm so excited to try new things, and take new classes, and just...do things. I miss that.

So I have to take a placement test, I'm thinking within the next few weeks. As soon as possible. Then I meet with a counselor to help me choose classes. Then I sign up for classes. Then I apply for financial aid. And then it happens. Then I start school.

I can't even put into words how ready I am. I might feel a little less enthusiastic once I start really getting a good amount of homework, but at least I'll be doing something. I've seen the alternative now, and I didn't like it. I'm ready now. So ready.

And the biggest, most recent change of all...I'm not ready to write about yet.

It deserves its own, probably long and ranting, entry. And I need a little more time to think it over. Because, hoo boy. Emphasis on 'boy'.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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Trains and Goodbyes.}
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 | 7:37 PM | 1Comment

Internet, the trip was, in a word, AWESOME.

The resort we went to was in a little ski town in the mountains, and let me just say, it was gorgeous up there. Absolutely gorgeous. And when I say it was in the mountains, it was way way in the mountains. Due to traffic and an added pit stop (at Starbucks for the bathroom, and at McD's for fries because we were all STARVING.), it took about 3 hours to drive there.

But every second up there was amazing. I'd never been to that part of my state before, and it was great to be able to see how beautiful it was up there. We were so high up, that the very highest mountain peaks there still had snow on the their tops.

Which, of course, meant that it was much cooler than I was used to this time of year, and stupid me, I only packed one hoodie and one long pair of pants (the pants being white. White. Don't ask me please, I have no idea.) So while I was up there, I bought this pair of large fleece men's pajama pants from a thrift store (it was called Thrift Store. Gotta love small towns!)

They're black and white, and they have fly fishing patterns all over them, including compasses and fish and a guy holding a net, and they're ugly, but I love them for the reason that I'll always look at them and remember Best Friend Rose's 18th birthday trip.

Everybody up there is super athletic. Super super athletic. Almost everyone rides bicycles, and it's like the county-wide dress code is Nike and Adidas. And I do not recall seeing anyone even a little bit remotely overweight up there. None. It's like they all came out of the womb with 5% body fat.

We all stood out with our 'city clothes', and I guess our regular muscle mass index, and there were people staring at us all the time, but part of me liked it, because they were strangers, and we were strangers to them, and we could have been anything we wanted. Anything at all. It felt good.

We stayed in a condo, and me and BFR and I shared a room. It was a nice little condo, with cable and WiFi and a nice back porch with a great view.

...However, it was also directly next to a train track. So, every hour, it would chug on by, honking a honk that echoed throughout the entire area.
Which is kind of cute at first. Until you're trying to sleep at 3am and all of a sudden there's a wake-the-dead honk splitting your eardrums.

I swear, the entire first night we stayed, I got no sleep whatsoever. Every time the train would pass, I would have a near full blown panic attack because I wouldn't even hear it approaching that clearly until all of a sudden there would be this "CHOOOOOOOOO CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" and I would jump about half a foot off of my bed.

And not only THAT, but also on that first night, there was a friendly neighborhood bear searching for some food to eat in our dumpster. Only I didn't know it was a bear. Because the first thought you have when you hear a violent clanking and banging somewhere nearby at 3:30am is that a ghost/burglar/serial killer is coming to kill you.

So I was laying there wide awake in a strange bed, my heart pounding hard in my chest, terrorized by this train, and terrorized by this bear/ghost/burglar/killer. The end result was me getting 1 hour of actual sleep and getting out of bed as soon as the sun came up. The other nights were better, though. I ended up sleeping with my iPod earbuds in my ears, and they worked decidedly well as earplugs.

All day Saturday, we were riding the alpine slides (SO fun), playing mini golf, running through a maze, and jumping on one of those bungee trampoline things. Rosie and her nephew Adam (reference point) rode one of those round-spinning-defy gravity thingers, but I preferred to watch them shriek inside it and then laugh at them both when they came out all cross-eyed and cross-legged.

We also, incidentally, spent some time at the on-site hospital they had. It turned out, on our first ride down the alpine slide, Best Friend Rose's mom went way too fast, somehow wiped out and ended up dislocating her pinkie and breaking her ring finger. We were all shocked, because apparently it's difficult to get an injury on this particular ride, but somehow she'd managed to.

We all felt terrible for her, but she was a trooper and spent the rest of the day with us all with a partial cast and sling.

The trip had its sad moments too, however.

Very shortly before this trip, Best Friend Rose's oldest sister, Ashley (reference point) had decided that she was going to move to Texas. Soon. As in, she told everyone on Friday and then she was leaving on Monday soon. And granted, she's lived here all her life with Adam, so this came as a huge surprise.
Link
So, seeing as she had to move down there soon to get Adam to his new school, which started on Tuesday, they had to leave early, on Sunday, instead of Monday like us. Sunday was an emotional day for everyone. Basically, from breakfast on, it was nonstop tears.

Even from me, which surprised me, because even though I've felt close to Ashley and Adam, I didn't really think I'd cry. But after we all started talking about them leaving, like actually leaving, it hit me that they weren't just my best friend's family members, they were like my family too. And that I would miss them. A lot.

When it was time for them to leave, at first Adam refused to leave with his mom, begging not to leave, crying. Have you ever seen a 10 year old boy cry? I don't recommend it. Because it's heartbreaking. Truly heartbreaking.

So we all said our goodbyes by their car, all of us still crying. I tried very hard to hold it together, because I felt like I didn't deserve to be so sad. After all, I was close to them, but for Rosie, that was her family. Adam is practically her world. I've never seen her love any child like she loves Adam. And Rosie's mom was losing a daughter and a grandson.

But I could hardly look either of them in the face as I hugged them and said goodbye, because it hit me that I really was saying goodbye. And if there was anything I learned about this trip, Internet, it was that I'm awful at goodbyes.

After they left, the three of us settled in the condo living room and watched chick flicks for the rest of the day. And it was just what the doctor ordered.

The last day, it mostly consisted of running around and packing everything up, making sure to clean this and clean that. And I took pictures of everything, because I had finally grown fond of everything, and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget it. I even wanted to take a picture of the train by the end, but ironically, the one time I wanted to hear and see it again, it didn't show up.

So after all was said and done, we drove home, and left that small ski town behind.

It was a short trip, but it was great. I don't regret any second of it, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my summer.

And thanks to it, I can add a few more items to my list of firsts from this summer:
  • Rode a chairlift for the first time (I was a bit nervous at first, but it wasn't bad at all. Not even the height got to me, and I thought it would. It was actually kinda fun. Now to actually go skiing one of these days, to see if I can handle it with skis on!)
  • Listened to the same song on repeat for 5 hours straight (trying to block out train noise, of course.)
  • Flirted with a cute ride operator (medium length curly black hair in a ponytail, russet skin, and the greenest eyes I've ever seen in my life. So hot.)
  • Ate creamed chipped beef (normally anything mushy and foreign looking, I wouldn't touch with a 20 foot fork, but I've been trying to broaden my food horizons lately, so I tried it. SO GOOD. It looks like melted brains on toast, but it's SO good. Trust me.)
  • Watched someone get their middle finger pierced (Rosie got hers done. Me and Ashley watched it and cringed through it. Personally, I would never pierce any part of my hands as it would get in the way a lot--as proved by Rosie bumping and snagging hers every five seconds--but that's Rosie for you. I wouldn't put it past her to turn down a skydiving lesson one of these days.)
  • Went to a public place with pj's and no makeup (previously a fear of mine. Now that I've done this, I seriously feel INVINCIBLE. I got strange looks, of course, but nothing terrible happened. The world didn't end. No one unabashedly pointed and laughed. I didn't even feel gross. The truth? I felt awesome. Because I felt okay with looking like that, and it didn't even matter what they all thought of how I looked, because I felt great. And that's all that matters.)
Summer 2011 was great, Internet. In fact, it was the best summer I've had in my recent memory. And it was great because I took charge and made it great. Summers before, I just always stayed indoors, hardly ever did anything, because I just expected something great to just happen. But you have to make great things happen if you really want them to happen. Let's hope this is a precursor to how my Senior year will be.

Goodbye, Summer 2011. You were good to me.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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Hopeless Romantic's first date. Ever.}
Thursday, June 16, 2011 | 8:07 PM | 1Comment

Internet. You don't know how long I've been waiting to say those words. My first date.

It feels so foreign to say that/type that. Especially in relation to my personal life. But there it is. I'm sorry for the slight delay, as something else has been going on that's pretty related to this, but I'll get to that later.

So. Our date.

Best Friend Rose stayed over the night before, helping me agonize over the perfect outfit (and even lending me a sweater of her own, because I need to go shopping for cuter/more summery clothing). And her staying the night was also a part of this...well, plan that we had.
Yes. A plan. I'm talking a full-on cliche Disney Channel show type plan.

Now, BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT: It wasn't too dramatic. Or weird. Not really. It just involved BFR walking into the bookstore 10 minutes after me, walking around and looking at stuff out of the way and unnoticed, but also staying on location just in case the date went really awful and I needed a backup plan. Of course, I never ended up needing her, and we got to avoid any awkward lines like, 'Oh my god, Rose! I had NO idea that you'd be here! What a complete and totally unplanned coincidence!!"

Immature? Totally. Not even gonna pretend that it wasn't. But I have to admit, knowing Rosie was there helped alleviate my nervousness a little. It helped knowing that if it turned out to be a disaster, I wasn't completely alone and unarmed.

But, don't worry Internet. No convoluted Junior High-like plan next time. Cross my heart!

But anyway, onto the actual date:

I show up a few minutes later than he does, so I have to go find him. For a minute or two, I just stand there, looking lost and confused, and one of the guys working there just kind of looks at me like, 'Are you okay?'

So, I text Drew to ask him where he is in the store, and he tells me he's in Non-fiction. I glance around, and I find that non-fiction is just in the next room over. I try to calm my breathing, ignore the fact that my knees are quivering like leaves in a breeze, and enter the room.

I immediately see a boy sitting in a chair, in a red shirt, jeans and sneakers, reading a book in his lap. My heart leaps into my throat, and I grip my phone in my hand tightly as I start to approach him.
He's so engrossed in his book that he doesn't hear me walking towards him, so as I get closer, I swallow hard and force out a "hey" that I hope sounds nice and relaxed at the same time, all the while realizing that it'll be the very first time he hears my voice.

He looks up, maybe kind of taken aback, and then slowly closes his book and stands from his chair. "Hey," he says back.

I stop in front of him and grope for words for a few moments. I initiate a side hug, for reasons completely unknown to me because I hate side hugs, and the resulting one is really stiff and quick and kind of awful. "So, it's nice to finally meet you." I say, trying to still sound cool and collected even though I'm suddenly terrified because here I am, right in front of him, and I don't know what to say.

He smiles. "It's nice to finally meet you, too."

I smile wider, but it's like my cheeks can't take the exertion from smiling so much, and they start to hurt. After a somewhat awkward few moments, I throw my hands up. "So, should we take a look around?" I suggest.

"Sure," he says, and nods, and then starts to walk toward the door, and I follow.

We go to the fiction section first, and it's huge, so I say 'wow'. And he says something about them remodeling since he'd last been there. For a few moments I'm legitimately distracted by all the tall shelves of books around me, but then I come back to the present and realize that it's very quiet between us. I steal a quick glance at him, and he looks somewhat uneasy. I decide to say something, anything at all.

"Ohh, Stephen King!" I say, pointing to an entire shelf of his books. "They have a lot of his books."

"Yeah, they do." He agrees.

I say something about not reading a lot of his books, although I want to, and he says something about his Gunslinger series. While he's talking, he kind of trips over his words and stutters, and I notice distantly that the way he talks reminds me of Michael Cera.

So he wanders off to one of the other shelves, and I kind of stay where I am, wondering why he decided to walk away all of a sudden, and then my questions are answered when he comes back with the first book of the Gunslinger series. I take it, only really mildly interested in it, and ask him what it's about. He explains it all, and I nod slowly like I'm interested.

"Well then," I say, shrugging. "It sounds really interesting. I guess I'll have to get it!" And I look over and he looks pretty satisfied, so I decide I will get it after all.

After that, we continue looking, and a black cat jumps on top of the bookshelf next to us. I mention how I've always wanted a cat, and he tells me his family has 5 cats as well as 3 dogs and for him, a tarantula (Ew.) I respond jealously, saying that I wished I had that many pets, and he suggested that I could after I move out. And during this, I finally get the guts to look at him more directly, and I realize that he's cute. Like, really freaking cute.
Slight deliberate scruff, hazel eyes, long eyelashes, nice dirty blonde hair(meaning the color dirty blonde, not meaning that his hair was dirty, it was actually really clean. And you probably knew that, but I thought I'd clear that up anyway.), white teeth, and dimples when he smiles. He's so attractive to me and every time I look directly at him, and he looks at me back, it's like I'm intimidated by his sheer attractiveness, and I have to look away.

So we decide to head to the upper level after that, where they keep the older paperbacks, and we wander around looking. It gets quiet at times, but he doesn't seem as uneasy as before, and by then I'd begun to feel strangely...calm. It's like a got all of my nervous out within the first 5 minutes, and then after that it was like I wasn't even nervous at all. For some reason.

So we're looking and occasionally making comments, like me commenting about how they had about 1000 copies of a book called "Easy Spanish" and a car manual in Japanese.

The bookstore cats decided to join us (one was named Pages and the other was named Chapter. Isn't that the CUTEST thing you've ever heard?!) and we pet them and watch them for a while. He picks up a book and starts to read it, and apparently it's funny because he chuckles at it every now and then. I ask him what's so funny, but he won't tell me, so I just smile and shake my head.

By now we're getting along pretty well, and so we decide to go to non-fiction, where I found him first. We look at stuff, and after I pick up a Chicken Soup book, I tease him about how he should get a Marilyn Monroe biography. And then I tell him how it bugs me when celebrities get biographies written about them even when they're still alive. So then he tells me that he'll get a biography made about him now, just to piss me off. I laugh.

Fast forward through us looking at cookbooks (and me telling him I'm not a very good cook--but get this--he is.), me finding a dictionary/thesaurus/common misspellings book and keeping it to buy, and going to put back my Alfred Hitchcock short stories book, and we headed to look at the books at the front of the store.
As I stare at a shelf, he comes up behind me (and scares the crap out of me, by the way) to hand me a newer copy of the Stephen Kind book he found for me earlier. It's newer and sturdier and prettier than the other one, and so I decide to buy that one instead. He offers to take the old one back for me, and I thank him.

So then I spend about a thousand years looking at every book in that section, admittedly trying to stall a little. And during the last hour, we had one of the weirdest 10 minute awkward silences ever. I swear, it was that long. And I tried to seem engrossed in finding a book, but in reality I was poking and prodding my brain for something to say, anything, and I came up with nothing.

Finally, I said something about the Kite Runner, and I guess that just sparked conversation again, but that whole thing was weird.

Near the end, since I had already warned him that I had to leave around 12ish (my mom was providing the ride, and she had to be at work at like 1), he went ahead and paid for his one book. And when the time came for me to pay, as soon as I put my books on the counter, I realized with a horrifying chagrin that I had completely forgotten to bring my wallet.

I forgot to bring my wallet. To a bookstore.

But thank God, Drew had gone to wander someplace else, and he wasn't there to see. Completely red-faced, I told the cashier my situation, and he laughed it off, telling me that he could hold them for me until I could get my wallet from my mom's car. I thanked him, and went to go tell Drew my situation too. He laughed, but he didn't seem irritated or put off by it.

So we looked at children's books for like an entire fifteen minutes (got a bit awkward, considering there wasn't that many books in that section to look at in the first place, but not too bad) while I waited for a signal text from BFR to tell me that my mom was outside and that she was in the car. I finally excused myself and rushed out to the car to grab my purse (with my wallet in it) to pay for my things.

I pay for them, and then it was time to say goodbye.

We both walk slowly toward the entrance. I clap my hands together. "So," I try not to come off so eager. "This was fun."

He's looking down at me and smiling. "Yeah, it was. We should do it again."

I nod, trying not to look excited. He wants to see me again. "Yeah, definitely." I initiate another side hug, but this one was much better, more genuine instead of stiff. And he smells good. After we break the hug, I ask, "So, text you later?"

"Or course," he says.

So I (stupidly) say goodbye and walk out the door, and it's not until I'm halfway to my car that I realize we've done that say-goodbye-and-then-walk-in-the-same-direction thing. I turn and see him almost directly behind me, and I give this embarrassed sort of giggle, and he kind of does too. Then when we part ways, I wave, and he waves back.

And on the way home, I proceed to tell my mom and Best Friend Rose every single detail.

It was so not as bad as I expected it to go. In fact, it went pretty well. Despite forgetting my wallet and some awkward moments, I thought it went pretty dang swimmingly.

And Rose said whenever she saw us together, he was always smiling really big, and he kept staring at me. Which I can attest to, because whenever I'd be studiously looking at shelves of books, I'd suddenly feel him looking at me.

The whole rest of the day, I was so happy. I finally get why people who first start dating someone are so freakishly happy all the time, because that's what happened to me. It was like I was floating. I couldn't stop giggling.

Not to get ahead of myself here, Internet, but I haven't acted that way about a boy in a very long time. I'd almost forgotten what it'd felt like.

I guess all I can do is sit back and see where it goes from here.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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