To be perfectly honest, I am not even sure that there are words in the English language that can properly characterize what I’m feeling at this exact moment in time. There’s a heavy feeling in my chest, but not because something is stressing me out and “weighing” me down. It feels more like my heart is so large that my chest is having issues adjusting to its new size, which is approximately three times larger than it was a month ago, making me very Grinchesque. My stomach is doing cartwheels all throughout my middle, but not because I’m nervous or home to some debilitating stomach condition. My excitement is what is causing my stomach to flip and jump like a gymnast on cocaine. Normally, I would detest any kind of uncomfortable sensations originating in my stomach, but this one I fully welcome.
I spent about an hour and a half driving around with Oli, having another one of our in-depth and eclectic conversations, spanning numerous topics as always. After a rather distressing conversation about a friend of ours who thinks that it is entirely reasonable to use overdraft charges on his back account like credit, we began talking about our respective love interests. For Oli, a sweetheart of a girl named Meredith; for myself, Dawson.
It is beyond amazing how these two lovely beings came into our lives. I must point out that I hate being cliché, but the saying “love comes when you least expect it” completely comes into play here. It’s as if Fate decided that we did not believe in it enough and smacked us in our faces with two people that are the epitomes of Oli’s and my dreams.
“What’s that? You don’t think you’ll ever find love? You don’t think that you’ll ever be happy? Well, BAM. TAKE THAT BITCHES. Oli, a cute girl who loves anime, is actually intelligent and well-adjusted, and has red hair. Ty, a gorgeous female-to-male transsexual with a smile to die for and who loves making fun of people just as much as you do. What now, beezies?”
Once again, Fate bitch slapped us like the sluts we are.
I met Dawson a few weeks after Oli met Meredith. Dawson and Meredith both come to us at a point in our young, melodramatic lives where we (especially me) thought that we would never find someone that would completely sweep us off of our feet. Oli was taken with Meredith almost immediately, and her feelings spawned a sort of envy that was generated from my own desire to feel requited love toward another person. While I was completely wallowing in my own self pity, I posted a thread on a lovely little roleplaying site of which Dawson and I are members telling the rest of the Internet community just how wonderfully my life failed. It was then that Dawson seemed to magically crawl out of the shadows and posted, bringing my attention to him immediately. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Oh, this is all just silly Internet love?” Well, I may have met him on the Internet, yes, but when I found out that he lived only half an hour away from me, well. Coincidence, right?
It did not take long for me to realize that this boy was, in laymen’s terms, astounding. The more that I spoke with him the more excited I was to speak with him again and again. The sound of his voice sent shivers through my spine and put a smile on my face so large that within minutes my cheeks would be aching. The best part about it all was that he felt the same way, which is far more than I ever could have expected.
Now, in a previous entry I made mention of Dawson being gay, which he is. But like me, it seems that he has the capacity to fall in love with whomever he falls in love with, no matter the person’s sex or gender. When I told him that my sex is female but my gender is not (yes, there is a difference, just ask any psychology or anthropology professor), he seemed to understand completely and, in the end, not care at all.
However, I digress. The defining moment of our budding relationship came Thursday, when we made an official date to go see a documentary called Spirit of the Marathon which was only playing on the 24th of January. Due to Dawson’s love of running and his desire to be among the elite marathon runners (we’re talking Kenyan status here, which means running 26.2 miles in just over two hours), he was dying to see this documentary. And me? Well, I was just so ecstatic to be seeing him that we could have gone to see something ridiculously half-witted as Meet the Spartans and I wouldn’t have cared. The documentary was actually very good, even if you’re not a runner. If you ever get the chance to watch it, do. I digress once again, however. Back to point.
The drive down to Dawson’s house was more than nerve wracking. I was jittery and my bottom lip had become a permanent chew toy in an attempt to pacify the rabid rottweiler that was my anticipation. I spent the drive listening to She Wants Revenge and DJ Inphinity to try and distract myself, but as we all know body and mind don’t always necessarily agree, and while my mind was concentrating on the lyrics or the amazing beats my body could only think of Dawson.
When I finally reached his home I sat in the car for about five minutes, just trying to prepare myself for seeing the boy that I had been thinking about practically non-stop for the past month. Somehow, I managed to muster up enough balls to ring the doorbell and smiled pleasantly when Dawson’s uncle opened the door. The uncle called for Dawson, who came to greet me and offered me a smile prettier that I could have ever imagined it. The 5′2″ seventeen year old runner with the olive skin and gray-green eyes immediately made me want to die (in the Shakespearean fashion, mind you [kudos to all of you who actually understand that reference]), but all I could offer him was the shiest of smiles.
Dawson led me back to his bedroom. I sat down on the edge of his bed while he placed himself in his desk chair and pointed to a white vase on his bedside table. The vase was filled with a bouquet of lovely bright red tulips. “Those are for you.”
“You remembered that I hate roses.” I tried to hide the smile on my face but I know that I did not succeed.
“Of course.”
For the next fifteen minutes or so, the two of us simply talked. Most of the time I was looking down at the floor with a large, goofy grin on my face, pulling my beanie down in front of my eyes simply because looking at him filled me with such an embarrassing giddiness that attempting (and failing) to cover it was the only thing that I could think to do. I was wondering obsessively what he was thinking when he saw me. Was I too chubby? Too tall? Was my hair too long? Did my unfortunately female appearance turn him off too much?
“Do you want to go for a walk before the movie?” he asked me. I nodded. It was freezing outside and I had forgotten my jacket, but I didn’t care all that much. I like walking, and I like him (“like” being an understatement), so what was there to complain about?
For the first bit of the walk, we simply walked side by side, Dawson looking straight ahead while I was looking forward, my head lowered at a slight downward angle, watching as the sidewalk passed beneath my feet. I do not remember what we talked about now, perhaps everything, but I do remember when I made mention of something being small. Whatever it was, it is gone from my memory, but what followed is so clear I do not think that it will ever leave my head. When I spoke of something being small, out of habit I lifted my right hand and made the motion with my thumb and forefinger that signifies littleness. Dawson looked at me and grinned, pulling my arm down. I thought that he would drop it but instead, he intertwined his gloved fingers with my naked ones and we did not let go of one another for the next four hours.
His hand, smaller than mine and calloused from weight lifting (I found that out after we got to the theater and he removed his gloves), felt so natural in my own. The glee that bubbled and frothed inside of me was stronger than any emotion I had ever felt. Fuck that sounds weird. Bubbling and frothing glee. I really need to word my sentences differently. Or buy a thesaurus or… something.
We watched the documentary in a theater filled with–I would presume–runners, and then walked back to his house in the dark and the rain. I was so cold on the walk back to his home; my teeth were chattering and Dawson could probably feel me shivering beside him. He said that he knew of a way to make me warm, and I knew that he was going to force me to run. After I had told him NOT to run, the boy dropped my hand and sprinted, making me chase after him.
“You’re an asshole,” I said when he finally stopped running and I caught up with him. “But I have to admit, I’m definitely not cold anymore.”
He laughed. “I told you.”
We ate chicken and rice back at his house and I met Dawson’s father and sister. After we had finished eating and Dawson had ceased his discussion with his father about their Internet issues, we once again moved into Dawson’s room where he turned on the TV (both of us have it on at all times, more for the sound or simple movements on the screen or the need to waste electricity than for our liking for television) and pulled out his huge binder filled with papers pertaining to his new job as a tour guide at the haunted house near his home. We sat down beside one another on his bed and he skimmed through the binder, barely reading anything and laughing at the simplicity and common sense subjects of the items highlighted in the binder. I watched him, speaking with him as he flipped the pages, growing anxious. Eventually, I turned his head towards mine and kissed his chapped lips.
Now, for me to say that I usually take the initiative in any relationship is simply a lie. I never do. I’m shy and insecure, and I usually wait for the other person to make a move before I do anything. However, with Dawson, I wasn’t scared. I did not feel intimidated by him, nor was I so worried by his perception of me at that point that I could not get over my fear of rejection. It was the first time in my life that I was the aggressor, that I had made the first move and, to be perfectly blunt, I couldn’t be happier that I let myself be carried away by my desires.
He kissed me back, and the way that he kissed me told me not to worry. It told me that I shouldn’t give myself ulcers fixating on how he felt about me, because what he felt, whatever it was, was real, and I could trust everything that he did from that point. Not that I doubted him in the first place, really. I was more doubting my own ability to entrance him; which, thankfully, was not an issue.
Because it was dark, storming, and I simply wanted to spend more time with Dawson, I spent the night at his house. We didn’t end up falling asleep until maybe four or five o’clock in the morning. I was curled up next to him, my face buried in the curve of his neck because I am a notorious sleep cuddler. We woke up around 8h00 or 9h00 in the morning and did not leave for breakfast until perhaps 11h30 or so. When I had to leave for home at 2 o’clock, saying goodbye to him was so difficult that I could barely bring myself to do so. Dawson walked me to my car and I kissed him one last time, clutching my tulips and looking at him as I slipped into my commonplace little Honda. He was still standing on the sidewalk as I pulled away from the curb, watching me until I turned onto another street and we could no longer see one another.
The whole point of this ridiculously long entry, which is 2161 words long as of right now, is not only to record my first date and wonderful experience with Dawson, but to also mention how Oli and I have completely been engulfed by these feelings of budding love that seem so foreign and yet so magnificent to the both of us. I have loved before, but only in a sick sort of obsessive way, a love that was neither healthy nor rewarding. Not like the emotions that I am feeling now. In the car tonight we discussed our feelings for Meredith and Dawson respectively and tried to think of something that we each could do for our others on Valentine’s Day that wasn’t completely corny and ridiculous. Both Dawson and I hate Valentine’s Day, but I’m still going to do something for him because, well, I’m a loser like that.
Oli came up with a fabulous idea for Meredith, and hopefully that comes to fruition. Dawson, because he is a boy after all, is a little more difficult I think. I thought that it would be a fun idea to make something similar to one of those identifiers that one gets and pins to his/her shirt when (s)he has signed up for a marathon with the numbers, name of the race, et cetera on it, and have the identifying number be something incredibly cheesy like the date of when Dawson and I met. I could make it pretty, original, get it laminated and whatnot, and if he likes it he can put it up on his wall with his real numbers. Then I can buy him something ludicrous and ornate that he doesn’t need, just because I can.
Oh. I’m such a sap.
More than anything in the world, I want to make him happy and I want to see him smile. And fuck, it feels absolutely AMAZING to want to make another person as happy as he makes you. I would not trade this feeling for anything.
