first date

I arrived early. I always arrive early. I’m afraid of being late. I want to be dependable. I want to be trusted and appreciated. I always arrive early. Even in secret rendezvous, I arrive early. It’s a parking lot away from home. It’s a parking lot near her home and near mine. Our plan is to meet and ride together. I’ll drive. I’ll drive so that she can sit in her seat. It’s her seat. Other people sit there and some more than others, but this is her seat. I’d spent the day convincing myself to come and now I’m here and I’m waiting and I’m a wreck. It was a long day. It was a long journey for me today to get to tonight but I made it. So many pros and cons and so much inner turmoil but here I am. I’m waiting for her and I’m early. I’m always early.

I don’t sit still. I don’t quietly listen to music. I fidget. I buy water in the store to relieve my guilt of using the lot for my nefarious plotting. I fidget. She arrives. She’s early. She knows that I was early too.

I’m always early.

I don’t notice her vehicle, I can only see her. I’m lost in thought and awe as she gets out of her vehicle. I wanted to open the door for her. I wanted to be a gentleman. I was too slow. Pink shirt, light blue jeans, tennis shoes. Her lips shine like that afternoon they sparkled and I didn’t get caught watching.

She’s wearing earrings. Hoops. Hoops hang and sparkle from her ears and I remember her lips.

They’re shining. I’m allowed to look tonight. Maybe she wants me to look. Maybe I’m just her friend. I can be her friend. She’s my best friend. I won’t touch her. I won’t do anything to jeopardize what I have with my best friend.

It was a strange ride. Despite it being dark, I wasn’t sure if we were safe. I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. It was an anxious ride. We spoke. Short phrases. Mumbles. Small talk. I was nervous. It wasn’t until we’d made half our voyage that I realized she was nervous too. I relaxed in that small bit of shared misery. And then we spoke. Words that mattered. Thoughts and feelings with purpose. She’s my best friend and a tiny part of me believes that tonight things will change forever.

She’s so beautiful. Tonight, she’s more beautiful. Tonight we’re terrible and we’re together and I don’t care. I hate everything else around me. She’s so beautiful. There’s some confusion regarding our destination. I got us lost. “It’s an adventure,” she tells me. She’s so beautiful.

We arrive. We had left with plenty of time. We had “getting lost time.” And we’re still early. I’m always early. The theater is old and reminds me of a place that doesn’t exist. It reminds me of another time. If this theater is of the mind, then together we’re all that matters here.

Tickets.

Popcorn.

Soda.

It doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t look real. She came.

We climb the stairs to a small room with a small screen. Smaller than the digital monstrosity we’re used to back home. Smaller than the corporate franchises pumping gallons of cola and buckets of buttered corn. It’s smaller than we’re used to. I can’t breathe. I’m out of shape and I’ve walked a lot of steps. I have a cold and I’m struggling to breathe. There’s no one there. We’re early. I’m nervous and I can’t breathe.

Center of the room, we pick two chairs. The arm rests don’t move. I want them to move but I’m glad they don’t move. I have to keep my hands off her. I can’t touch her. I want to touch her. I never want to stop touching her. Why did I come?

We talk. With every passing word and breath I feel more daring, more confident, more ridiculous and foolish. I share with her something I wrote while thinking about her one day. Her lips sparkled that day too. I’m afraid to share it at first. I don’t want to scare her. I’m afraid of what it will look like. I want her to know what she means to me. I want her to know that she’s special and not just to me, but to the whole world. She reads. She fights tears. I’m glad that I’ve shared and I know she’s not afraid. She seems different now. Or maybe she’s just more of what she’s been. She’s validated. She’s relieved.

She knows. I haven’t said it. I won’t yet say it, but she knows. I look at her and she knows.

Fear grips me. She reads it again. I’m scared again. I’m happy but afraid and she reads it a third time. I take it from her, put it back in my pocket. She looks at me. I love when she looks at me. She’s still looking at me. I don’t want her to stop, I’m locked. Anxiety reaches past my fear and reminds me of reality. I look away.

Coward.

I call myself a coward in my mind and I look away.

It’s getting dark. There’s still no one else here. The previews begin. I don’t remember them. I don’t look at them. We’re all alone here. The theater of the mind is empty save for us. My hand is warm now. On a cool night in an old theater of the mind, my hand is warm. The fear subsides, my anxiety washes away. My hand is warm now. There’s pressure. I look. The space between each of my fingers is filled with one of her fingers. I stare. She’s holding my hand and I’m safe. The rest of the room dissolves into a blurry combination of light and sound coming from the theater effects. None of it makes sense. I don’t care. None of that matters. She’s so beautiful. She’s holding my hand and I’m safe.

She’s watching me stare. From the corner of my eye I can see she’s watching me stare. Her grip tightens around my fingers and silently tells me that the world is indeed the magical and safe place I thought it was as a child. She pulls my arm to her and her arms wrap around it, securing it to her body.

I’m warm.

I’m disarmed again. Stumbling for security, I try to speak. Whatever is said is nonsense. She speaks.

“Arm good.”

She’s taken my hand and my arm and she’s left me vulnerable. I’ve attacked for less. But I don’t. The fear returns. It starts slow and builds like the steam in a kettle. A million reasons to run away. I have one million reasons to run away. Circumstances. Others. Sadness. Pain. Children. Fear. We’re going to get caught. Stop touching her. Run away. Talk!

I speak.

I tell her I’m happy and afraid. I tell her a lot. Words pour from me for a long time. I make the same point with different words for a long time. My point is we need to wait. We need to be sensible. She hears me over and over again and she touches my face. She likes when I talk. But she’s not liking what I say. I don’t like what I say. She’s touching me. The nonsensical light and sound fragments from the movie are gone now. I’m lost in her touch. I take her hand and hold it to my face. She speaks.

With few words she dismisses what I considered to be my profound point. “Please choose me,” she says and I’m aware of how transparent I am. She knows that at the root of my long winded speech is my fear of change, of uncertainty, and of what’s to come. “Please choose me.”

It echoes in my mind. I close my eyes to find the words dancing around my mind. “Please choose me.” I open my eyes and see her face. She’s so beautiful. Her face now exists as an imprint and background to the rest of my world. In all things from now on, I wish to do for you and because of you. I choose you. I chose you.

I’m still trying to speak, trying to make sense of all this. I’m trying to escape. I’m trying to justify reveling in a moment of happiness. I hate myself so much that it’s hard for me to allow a moment of peaceful reward. She must have sensed it. She must have sensed my foundation’s crumble. She attacks my fear again and puts her arms around my neck. There’s more pressure. Her head moves towards mine. She pulls me to her. I panic in the moment between now and what’s to come. I panic. I’m afraid.

In that moment, my insecurities intensify like a flashing hazard light at the edge of a cliff. They flash bright at the end of a road I know well, but beyond which, I have no idea. In that moment I am speeding past my comfort. I am speeding beyond what I know well. I am speeding to that edge. The flashing light grows as I approach, begging my sensibility to stop.

In that moment I make a weak and strangled effort to resist but it does me no good. She has me. I want her to have me. I’ve always wanted her to have me. She kisses me while I try to make words. She kisses me. Her lips are soft, her breath is sweet. The fear subsides and I am lost. The flashing light is gone, I’ve passed it. There’s a wonderful and terrible uncertainty ahead now, but I’m not alone. She’s kissing me. I can’t go back. She’s kissing me. I kiss her. I can never go back.

I forget to breathe and I don’t care. I could fade away in this moment and know my life had meaning.

She’s still kissing me. My lungs burn and I pull away, drawing in air. I look at her. Her eyes are still closed. Her mouth moves as if I were still there. She’s in a trance. She’s so beautiful.

I touch her face and my hands shake. I hope she doesn’t notice my hands shaking, but my hands stop shaking when her face moves with my hands. She’s still in a trance. She’s lost in my touch. After a few moments or maybe an eternity her eyes open. She smiles. She’s smiling at me as I touch her face and I’m reduced to a primal form of what I used to be. I’m stripped of sarcasm, cynicism and objections.

She’s stripped me of my defenses and I am hers. I stare into her eyes, having forgotten all that I so pitifully had used to restrain myself before. She’s so beautiful.

I feel relieved, stronger. I feel daring and foolish. I recognize what reality will bring and mention it again, though with less fear and more caring. She’s aware but she’s free and she speaks again. She speaks simply with a fiery calm. She reduces my pragmatism to ashes with her fiery calm.

“No rules tonight.”

I accept. My apprehension dissolves early this time. I surprise myself. No objections, no fear, no reality.

No rules tonight. I agree. We kiss again and again and I agree. No rules tonight. I’m not afraid for now.

It was at this moment that she wanted me to meet her between freedom and celebration and I made it and I was early.

I’m always early.