A story of a girl and a boy
He picked her up at her on-campus apartment, just like he had the last couple Saturday nights. The weather was turning cold, but the destination was a quick dinner together and then a trip to a local club, but not for dancing, they were going to listen to an R&B band, just like they had the last few Saturday’s. She was a drummer, played all through High School and even went to drum line camps in the summers. He just loved live music.
They had met 7 years earlier, freshman year of High School. At first she seemed distant and uninterested in him. But suddenly she was mad at him for something he did and she didn’t talk to him for a week, and he realized she had to be at the very least somewhat interested in him. Over the next few years, between classes together and even summer jobs together, they grew a great friendship, but nothing more. They both ended up trying their luck in the dating pool with other people, and even though both of them went very late before picking Senior Prom dates, they went with other people.
A great pizza place close to where they grew up was the dining destination tonight. There was easy flowing conversation, as always, acknowledging a few people they knew, and before you knew it was time to leave and head back almost to campus, a sleazy dive of a bar called “Whiskey Junction”. You know the type of place where they check your ID by the light of the cigarette machine.
During the summer between graduating from High School and going off to the different colleges they were attending in the fall, they were together often. They’d hang with the same group of friends, when they weren’t getting together they’d do something on their own, they were still working together. They spent the last few nights before he headed off to college two hours away together, talking and talking, knowing they’d miss each other, but nothing more. They hadn’t as much as even held hands over this summer.
It was about half way between the pizza place and Whiskey Junction when she said “I’m not feeling well tonight. Please take me home”. Being a gentleman of course that is what he would do, knowing there will always be another live band playing in a sleazy bar somewhere some other weekend. When he got to her place, he parked and walked her to her door, wanting to make sure she safely made it inside.
They wrote each other letters during those first few months of freshman year in college, this being back in the day before the Internet. He had her picture on his desk, wondered what he should get her for her birthday in October, and then over Thanksgiving break he went to her parent’s house, where she was spending break, to watch movies. After the movie ended, he didn’t go home, for the first time in his life he was kissing a girl. He parted that night thinking there was a change in his life. It didn’t last long. The next letter he received talked about how they couldn’t have a long distance relationship, and the next time he visited, she was dating one of his best friends from High School. That was a difficult drive home, since he found out about it when visiting her at her dorm room.
When he got her to the door, she asked if he could come in and stay awhile. Being a gentleman he did, making sure she was able to get situated in her basement room of the house she shared with 3 other students, all of them out for the night. Once he felt he had her nicely in her bed and comfortable, he was ready to leave. Don’t go yet she asked, stay with me for a while longer. Having no other plans tonight he did just that, sitting next to her on her bed, letting her head rest on his shoulder while they talked like they used to, all those years before.
They had stopped writing each other. Her relationship with his friend didn’t last very long, and both of them next found long-term relationships, even attending a former co-workers wedding with dates in tow. They both lost their virginities in these relationships, the strict Catholic upbringing they shared now losing its grip as they went out into the world. Her relationship lasted longer, his ended and he even had a second relationship start and end in the time hers lasted. He transferred schools in this time, ending up at the same school as her, the 45,000 student large University of Minnesota campus, and occasionally ran into her. He even called her parents house to find her on campus number to wish her a happy birthday in October. The next week they started going to see live bands together.
Time has forgotten who started kissing who, but it seems the years apart and the hurt feelings over previous missteps didn’t matter one bit. They were again those two recent high school grads with years of built up sexual tension between them, this time with mind-sets that wouldn’t let “No sex before marriage” stop them. He went to remove her top and was told that she wasn’t going to stop him. It became clear to him, she wasn’t sick at all, she had this planned out. It wasn’t long before they were both naked and he was watching her walk across her bedroom to a mug on her shelf to get a condom.
They hooked up three time between early November and the following January, but there wasn’t any magic in their lovemaking. Class work piled up for both of them, they would see each other a couple times before she graduated and took a job out East, he would soon find another relationship and end up marrying that girl, she would follow suit a few years later.
Brian AKA Whip 007 1/8/2012
i heart love stories.
ReplyDeleteeven if there isn't a happily ever after.
xo
oh. and LOVE the song!!!