I remember it quite clearly actually.
It had been at first sight, we were both smitten
I was nestled on top of the fridge in my red pj shorts and a tank top eating week old fried rice when I saw two tan feet attached to long surfer legs, swim trunks, and the coolest tank top I'd ever seen. It was a mirage of floral print and gold chains and random things and somehow looked cool. Without thinking I yelled out the front door "hey, I like you shirt!"
He skidded to a stop on his skateboard. He walked toward my cottage and I saw his face for the first time. Our eyes locked and we both smiled. His curly blonde hair shone with the sunlight hitting behind him and his piercing blue eyes beamed at mine. A goofy smile stretched along his bearded face as he leaned against the doorframe. "Hi, there"
"Hi! I like your shirt!"
"Thanks! Whutcha doing up there cutie?"
"Eating rice"
"cool"
I heard some noise as two other guys walked up to where the first guy was standing. One was about 6'2 and more white Ray Ban glasses, the other had big gauges and stood almost a foot over the others.
"Hi! I'm Summer!'
"I'm Zach and this is Austin and this is John." Said the blonde pointing first to the tall one with the gauges and then to the one with the white glasses. I repeated their names in my head and scanned their faces in the hope of making sure I wouldn't forget. When I scanned the blonde's face I got goosebumps.
Dang, he's cute. I'm going to love this whole college thing.
My memory has some holes in it of course but I remember the most important stuff. Like how later that day we decided to drive an hour to Venice Beach on a whim. And how Austin and Zach playfully tossed me around and mildly fought over me. All of us unknowing of all that the year would entail amongst the four of us. I remember thinking a guy had stolen my phone when he bumped into me and Austin had my back when I went to interrogate the creepy guy. I remember I was wearing an off-white t-shirt with sunglasses on it and light blue shorts with sailboats. My golden blonde hair reached the top of my butt and I felt pretty safe walking around with my three giant guys. We were there to get John a longboard; wood and hot pink to match his hipster personality. It was the too cool hipster, the desert boy, and my favorite, the dirty hippy. The too cool hipster would later leave our little group of friends and join the insta-obsessed clan. Moving on to the important stuff. How it happened. Maybe it started in Venice when we were in the backseat singing along to tunes and he got a little too close and gave me a peck of a kiss without my consent. I wasn't too bothered because of how cute he was, oh, how ignorant of me.
That night we skateboarded around the campus together and acted like we were some cute couple out of a cliché movie. We talked and talked about our lives and basically unloaded everything about ourselves to each other in a single night. He walked me to my door at the end and handed me the skateboard he had been letting me borrow for the night and said "you keep it, practice, and we can skate together."
He gave me a fucking skateboard! Not just anyone but a vintage long board with strips of color that was left in the wood from years of use. He was too cool. He was like a character in one of my stories. He really seemed to fit every nook and cranny. Every little requirement, he met. The littlest preferences, he matched. It was almost as if I had dreamt him up and he was now my living breathing perfect boy character. Well, almost perfect. Some minor details didn't quite match up. Okay maybe major details. He was perfect in matching the little things. But when it came out the big stuff, he missed the mark by a long shot.
But that isn't really the point of this story.
How it all started. It really started the night devastation hit. I was laying in my fluffy white bed in my cherry covered pants and a t-shirt when I heard a knock on my door. It was my RA, she said there was a very sad young man standing at the door. Me and my moisturized face and bra-less-ness shuffled my way to the door. Standing there was a broken child trapped in a man's body. He stood there with his shoulders low, barely standing, with a look of despair in his eyes. He had obviously just woken up because he was still in sweats and his shirt was on backwards like he had put it on in a cloud of confusion.
"My friend died. I got woken up by a phone call. It was a drunk driver."
Tears began to well up in his eyes. I knew exactly what to do. He was like me. When in pain, you need water, salt water. So I grabbed his hand and guided him across the grass to the boy's cottage. Some of the RA's were out and had heard the news. I knocked on the door and called for John to come out. John had a car. We sat Zach down on the porch and began to pray for him and when we were done we made our way to the car, Zach, John, and I. We drove almost two hours to find the right beach. We sat on the shore and listened as Zach talked about his friend. How he knew him, how they had spent years and years of just the two of them doing crazy wild things, getting into all sorts of trouble together. As he spoke I noticed his shoulder beginning to raise and his eyes glued to the waves.
"Wanna go for a swim?" I said gently
He grabbed my hand and we walked down to the water. John stayed on the sand and lied down to sleep. We had woken him up in the dead of night and made him drive hours away, the boy was exhausted.
We dunked under the waves, pajamas and all, under the full moon that lit the silver ocean around us. It was a beautiful night. A night to mend the heart and carry the soul. That is where it all began. That moment, in the warm water with the picture perfect boy. The night I was able to know him in a way where I could fully care for him the way he needed and wanted to be cared for. This was the foundation of our very short, very passionate, crash and burn relationship.
When we drove back we put down the back seats and me and Zach laid down as John drove the long way back to campus. He nuzzled under my neck and drooled all over me. But I didn't mind. I didn't mind in the same way I didn't mind when I had 4 chicken-pox and calamine lotion covered babies in my barely twin sized bed in Haiti while in the heat of August. For the same way I loved that experience, I loved holding Zach in my arms as he cried himself to sleep, covered in sand and salty water.
He was my favorite human then. I loved being around him. I never wanted to leave his presence. And he never wanted to leave mine. But, if you who is reading this knows anything about me, I am not one to stay in a state of dependence like that. But that wasn't the reason things ended.
Things ended because I woke from my dream and realized I needed the big things to fit just as much and even more so than the little things. I needed more than the picture-perfect boy with the curly blonde hair and the dream of living the life I dreamt of living. I needed more. I needed a lot more. So in just three short weeks, we went from that moment in the back of the John's car, to climbing trees and wrestling in the grass, to kissing on rooftops, and finally to sitting down on a bench and having the hard long talk of apologies and goodbyes.
He really was my favorite human. The way he would skate around effortlessly while playing his ukulele. The way white shirts always looked so good on him and the way he would puff up his cheeks every time he kissed me. Or the way he would grab me by the waist and throw me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing. The tickle fights we would have on the front lawn. The paint fights. The real fights. The way he would fall asleep on my floor with his arm wrapped around me as I drew doodles all over him. The way he would show up at my door and lean in the door frame calling down the hallway toward me because visiting hours were ridiculous. I loved how on days when I felt the ugliest he would call me the most beautiful. The way he would grab my cheeks and eskimo kiss me with his nose and tell me I was just the cutest thing he'd ever seen.
I loved daydreaming with him. We would lay somewhere beautiful and talk ideas of how it would be if we were to get married and live in a little shack in Laguna beach with our little blonde babies. I would make art and he would teach art at an elementary school. We had so quickly assumed that we were each other's match. Everything seemed to fit. Yet, it wasn't exactly right. There was still something missing. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was the same feeling I always get when I know something that is direct information from God. It just wasn't...it. It was so close, but not exactly it.
I loved him. I really did. But I wanted more than he could give me. Life wasn't as simple as we had been imagining it to be. And I knew that. He didn't. And I broke his heart because of it. I'll probably always remember him as who he was when we were together, not as he is today, the partying stoner with the queen campus bully as a girlfriend. As least that's what I've heard. I don't know for sure. I think about him a lot though. My usual prayer is, "Lord, make him a pastor." He would be such a great pastor. So many things about him would be perfect if he would only allow God to use him for it. I still pray for him. I still think of him. I still love him. But I will never return to him. And that is good.
