The Boyfriend List, Pt. 4
4. King Raymond, Part II
I'm starting to think that the best, most romantic moments only catch you once you've surrendered all your faulty expectations.
It happened one December evening. King Raymond and I were talking on the phone when he said it. There were small circumstances that forced him to say it (a single wrong text, actually) but they were big enough for the boy least likely to to man up and finally be honest with me.
"Yes. I like you. I've liked you for a long time."
Picture this: you're a fifteen-year-old girl and you've only ever been crazy about one particular guy. You've had a boyfriend and all but the feelings you've harbored for that one guy never quite disappeared, not even while you were in a 'relationship'. And one day, he turns the story around by confessing. Want to know what that feels like? Like Moses parting the Red Sea. Like a real, honest-to-God miracle.
Let me just say that when the guy you've liked for two years finally reciprocates all of your secret feelings, nothing in the world will be able to prepare you for the emotional euphoria you are bound to experience.
I don't remember everything with great precision but if there is one moment I could bottle and set on my bedside forever, that, I suppose, would be it. And even though I can't entirely recapture what I felt, I know, with certainty, that in saying those words, he opened up a gateway of good possibilities.
And it was different from Marcus because it didn't feel like a game. I didn't feel like we were two hormone-driven teenagers looking to gain closeness. We were already close. We already had everything. By placing this particular card on the table, he was setting us up for potential loss.
But the fifteen-year-old me fell in love with the honesty of that moment. He didn't say it because he had an agenda. He said it just to say it. There is something so beautiful and real about that.
After that fateful night, we didn't automatically become an item. We hung out, we talked on the phone, we taught in Sunday School, we stayed the same. We traveled to the mountains together, got bat crap on our clothes and shared our first hug. I went to prom with him and we danced our first (and only) slow dance. There was a moment in the car when we passed through a village road and all the lights turned on simultaneously, like something out of a Disney movie.
Yes, there was a heightened awareness of I-like-you-you-like-me but we didn't do anything with it other than simply enjoy it.
Sometimes he would say things that made my heart dance. Sometimes he would make very nice sketches of me. Sometimes we'd chat on YM (Yahoo Messenger) and he'd place a status where he knew I would see it. And he'd never have to say it but I always knew it was for me.
It was sweet. It was wonderfully, innocently sweet. The problem, however, was that I had no idea what would happen next. I had come from a relationship where everything went accordingly. He asked me out, I said yes, we dated and I eventually became his girlfriend. With King Raymond (doesn't the name spoil everything? HAHAHA. I love it.), I didn't know what he was waiting for or if he even wanted me to be his girlfriend at all. I wasn't rushing for something to happen but I was also unsure if anything was even going to happen at all.
Things stayed this way. For a while. And, to be honest, emotional limbo wasn't so bad. Until another boy came into my life.
(to be cont'd.)
I'm starting to think that the best, most romantic moments only catch you once you've surrendered all your faulty expectations.
It happened one December evening. King Raymond and I were talking on the phone when he said it. There were small circumstances that forced him to say it (a single wrong text, actually) but they were big enough for the boy least likely to to man up and finally be honest with me.
"Yes. I like you. I've liked you for a long time."
Picture this: you're a fifteen-year-old girl and you've only ever been crazy about one particular guy. You've had a boyfriend and all but the feelings you've harbored for that one guy never quite disappeared, not even while you were in a 'relationship'. And one day, he turns the story around by confessing. Want to know what that feels like? Like Moses parting the Red Sea. Like a real, honest-to-God miracle.
Let me just say that when the guy you've liked for two years finally reciprocates all of your secret feelings, nothing in the world will be able to prepare you for the emotional euphoria you are bound to experience.
I don't remember everything with great precision but if there is one moment I could bottle and set on my bedside forever, that, I suppose, would be it. And even though I can't entirely recapture what I felt, I know, with certainty, that in saying those words, he opened up a gateway of good possibilities.
And it was different from Marcus because it didn't feel like a game. I didn't feel like we were two hormone-driven teenagers looking to gain closeness. We were already close. We already had everything. By placing this particular card on the table, he was setting us up for potential loss.
But the fifteen-year-old me fell in love with the honesty of that moment. He didn't say it because he had an agenda. He said it just to say it. There is something so beautiful and real about that.
After that fateful night, we didn't automatically become an item. We hung out, we talked on the phone, we taught in Sunday School, we stayed the same. We traveled to the mountains together, got bat crap on our clothes and shared our first hug. I went to prom with him and we danced our first (and only) slow dance. There was a moment in the car when we passed through a village road and all the lights turned on simultaneously, like something out of a Disney movie.
Yes, there was a heightened awareness of I-like-you-you-like-me but we didn't do anything with it other than simply enjoy it.
Sometimes he would say things that made my heart dance. Sometimes he would make very nice sketches of me. Sometimes we'd chat on YM (Yahoo Messenger) and he'd place a status where he knew I would see it. And he'd never have to say it but I always knew it was for me.
It was sweet. It was wonderfully, innocently sweet. The problem, however, was that I had no idea what would happen next. I had come from a relationship where everything went accordingly. He asked me out, I said yes, we dated and I eventually became his girlfriend. With King Raymond (doesn't the name spoil everything? HAHAHA. I love it.), I didn't know what he was waiting for or if he even wanted me to be his girlfriend at all. I wasn't rushing for something to happen but I was also unsure if anything was even going to happen at all.
Things stayed this way. For a while. And, to be honest, emotional limbo wasn't so bad. Until another boy came into my life.
(to be cont'd.)