EM May Topic - Captivated
Cole was the first boy I ever loved. We were those kind of high school sweethearts that people talk about 30 years later, high school reunions having come and gone while you wait to see how many of you are still alive for the 50th one.
I don't even really remember the day we met. We'd been at the same school for years, only missing a year here and there. He was that much older than me, so he advanced to junior high and then high school before me, leaving just a small gap. I guess we'd never really noticed each other until I was almost a sophomore, and he was getting ready to start his junior year. He injured his left arm at football camp, snapping the bones like dry spaghetti (or so his mom said) and so he was stuck at home all summer while all his boys were still at camp. For my part, I spent the majority of the summer laying out by our newly installed in ground pool, reading Us Magazine and drinking smoothies out of my mother's daquiri glasses as if it were the real deal.
We had some friends in common. A borderline of his class's melding with mine where appropriate. And that was it. It was instant. He started coming over, and laying in the lounge chair next to mine. Instead of magazines, he read Hemingway. The first day, he was re-reading Hills Like White Elephants, and kept pointing out all of the symbolism hidden beneath the depths of the subterfuge, hinting that the American was trying to convince Jig to have an abortion. Hell if I knew what a white elephant was supposed to symbolize, but everything he said made sense. So much sense.
By the end of the summer, we were taking turns, reading The Garden of Eden out loud to each other. I'd never even heard of it, 'till I met him. Some posthumous work that had rocked the boats in the 1980's due to the fact that it's about this couple that goes on vacation and they both fall in love with a woman they meet. It's unfinished, even though it mostly alludes to the end. We still made up our own though. Not that I really even paid much attention as we were reading. I was so captivated by him. The way his mouth shaped to fit the words Hemingway had written. The way his dark hair fell into his eyes in these little fragments he'd wait to brush away until he was done with the passage he was on. He was beautiful. And the only reason he even read Kerouac, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, etc. was because his dad was some English professor who made him. Hemingway was the only one he really ended up enjoying.
Ironically, the white elephant ended up being not just a literary theme but a warning. Foreshadowing, I guess. Eventually, it took more to defend me and to believe me, than he was getting back by being my boyfriend.
One day, I realized that, and I turned around and burned the copy of The Old Man and the Sea that he'd given me.
Lauren Santini
Original Character/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
529 Words
I don't even really remember the day we met. We'd been at the same school for years, only missing a year here and there. He was that much older than me, so he advanced to junior high and then high school before me, leaving just a small gap. I guess we'd never really noticed each other until I was almost a sophomore, and he was getting ready to start his junior year. He injured his left arm at football camp, snapping the bones like dry spaghetti (or so his mom said) and so he was stuck at home all summer while all his boys were still at camp. For my part, I spent the majority of the summer laying out by our newly installed in ground pool, reading Us Magazine and drinking smoothies out of my mother's daquiri glasses as if it were the real deal.
We had some friends in common. A borderline of his class's melding with mine where appropriate. And that was it. It was instant. He started coming over, and laying in the lounge chair next to mine. Instead of magazines, he read Hemingway. The first day, he was re-reading Hills Like White Elephants, and kept pointing out all of the symbolism hidden beneath the depths of the subterfuge, hinting that the American was trying to convince Jig to have an abortion. Hell if I knew what a white elephant was supposed to symbolize, but everything he said made sense. So much sense.
By the end of the summer, we were taking turns, reading The Garden of Eden out loud to each other. I'd never even heard of it, 'till I met him. Some posthumous work that had rocked the boats in the 1980's due to the fact that it's about this couple that goes on vacation and they both fall in love with a woman they meet. It's unfinished, even though it mostly alludes to the end. We still made up our own though. Not that I really even paid much attention as we were reading. I was so captivated by him. The way his mouth shaped to fit the words Hemingway had written. The way his dark hair fell into his eyes in these little fragments he'd wait to brush away until he was done with the passage he was on. He was beautiful. And the only reason he even read Kerouac, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, etc. was because his dad was some English professor who made him. Hemingway was the only one he really ended up enjoying.
Ironically, the white elephant ended up being not just a literary theme but a warning. Foreshadowing, I guess. Eventually, it took more to defend me and to believe me, than he was getting back by being my boyfriend.
One day, I realized that, and I turned around and burned the copy of The Old Man and the Sea that he'd given me.
Lauren Santini
Original Character/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
529 Words