A Love Story: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Love is a strong word, and I'm not really sure most of us know what we're talking about when we use it. Plenty of people, myself included, think they know what real love is. Now, I'm not talking about love like when a parent loves a child or when you absolutely love that restaurant down the road-- no. I mean the thing that everyone seems to want so badly. Love. Between two people-- man and woman, man and man, woman and woman, or whathaveyou, it doesn't matter to me who you love. Well, anyways, the bottom line is, I thought I was in love. Maybe I was, but a lot of stuff happened and things changed and then I just wasn't in love. Maybe I came to some dawning realization that I wasn't in love and never had been, or maybe it was that I really had been in love, but I had fallen out of love unexpectedly. Who can tell for sure? Doesn't matter. This is a love story-- or something along those lines. I guess I'll start at the beginning-- can't think of a better place for a proper story to start.

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High school had been a long, rough journey. I started out as one of those kids that got picked on, and it was awful. Bullying really sucks, but that's a topic for another time. Right, so, anyways, high school had sucked big time. But I was done with it all. I had graduated and I was moving on to bigger and better things. College. I hadn't gotten into my dream school, but Haskel University was a good school, and they had offered me scholarships, so I was going to go there. I lived in a quiet little town growing up, and Haskel was smack dab in the middle of the city. It was an adventure I was more than ready to embark on.

Driving down to Haskel took forever. Ten hours in a car with your mother? Man... Actually, I would probably do it again-- I love my mom. Right, back to Haskel. Anyways, it was buzzing with activity when we got there. I was going to be living in a freshman dorm, I would have a roommate I had never met. For someone from a quiet little podunk town, this was possibly the most exciting thing to have ever happened to me. Ever.

Move in went smoothly for the most part. Met my roommate (who has the same name as me-- what are the odds?!) and unpacked and all that good stuff. Later that night, once everyone had moved into the building, our floor had a meeting. All the kids who had just moved in were all in one room. The RA's led the meeting, and, oh God, was it cheesy. We all had to introduce ourselves and stuff like that. I hated it. Oh, but my RA shared a name with me and my roomie-- thought that was kinda funny. Anyway, the most important part of the floor meeting was him. Sitting across the circle was this one guy. He practically exuded confidence, and that was part of what made him so damn attractive. I couldn't stop staring-- until I realized I was staring and stopped. (Later, I would find out that he hated me upon first sight and had sworn he would never get with me, but we'll get to that).

Being the shy kid I was, I didn't talk to him at all, really. Actually, I didn't talk to him at all for the first semester. I watched him, though-- and now that I'm saying that, it sounds kind of creepy. It wasn't creepy like that, I swear. I just mean that, like, I would watch him when he walked past my door or would slow down for a second when I passed his. But talk to him? Ha. No. That was outside my comfort zone. Kind of. It was finals week of the first semester-- we were all swamped with projects and exams and the like, but we could feel the end drawing closer and closer. I have no clue whose idea it was, but someone in his group of friends decided to make a cake for a particularly awful professor. One of our mutual friends decided I was going to be a part of it, so I was dragged down to the kitchen in the common area.

The group must have been at least seven people-- maybe even ten or twelve. Anyways, we all crammed into the little dorm kitchen and made a cake. It was pretty...butchered by the end, but we had fun. That was the first night I really talked to him, got to know him, hang out with him. It was great.

When we got back from winter break, we were basically friends. No one knew that I had a thing for him-- not yet. Some time went by, we had a class together and made some jokes and blah blah blah bonding. You know how it goes. It was either late winter or early spring when he and one of our mutual friends (not the one who dragged me to the cake thing in the first place) started dating. I was crushed, but I hid it well. Well, long story short, they broke up after a fairly short time together. After that, I got close to him. Really close. I had had a really bad day and he was there, comforting me and all that stuff that really good friends and partners do. We spent a lot of time together after that. A LOT of time. He was teaching me how to give a "proper" back massage and I watched him raid in World of Warcraft. We would talk and hang out. Our friends were all friends, so it was easy to all hang out together.

Eventually, when things felt like they were kind of starting to get "real," I talked to my friend-- the one he had dated-- and explained all about my feelings and all that. Basically, I was asking if it was it was okay if I started dating him (if it came to that). I got a yes and a good luck.

One of my other friends-- one of his friends as well-- told me one night that he was an asshole, but if I wanted to still date him, I should. I never thought of him as an asshole, so I just ignored it and continued on my happy path.

Lo and behold, we started dating about a week before the end of the semester. It was mid-week when we went on our first date-- or what we would consider our first date later. It must have been about two or three in the morning. Maybe even later. Anyways, there was a construction site right next to the dorm-- a new dorm building. It was maybe half done at that point or something like that. Whatever the case, he had been venturing up to the roof of this building (it was twenty stories high) with friends for the better part of the past month. He had promised me a trip up there, but had failed to invite me anytime he'd brought people up since my expressing interest. So this night, he called me and told me we were going up. I dressed in whatever dark clothing I could find-- black pants, black sneakers, black tee under a black hoodie-- and went out to greet him. We walked around the block talking for a bit-- had to make sure the coast was clear and all that fancy stuff. Once he was sure, we moved between the buildings to where the fence didn't quite come together.

He helped me through the fence and there we were, standing at the foot of the building. I could feel my heart racing in my chest. This was one of the most exciting things I had ever done in my entire life. We quietly made our way through the door and into the stairwell. I don't remember much of the climb up, but at one point we cut across the building to the other side where there was another stairwell. I don't know how I managed to make it up twenty flights of stairs, but I did. Maybe it was the excitement. Anyways, we get to the top and it's sort of drizzling-- romantic, right? We look out at the skyline and he shows me all the cool places up there. I think he was trying to show off, but he climbed up on top of this thing that was up there. It was a maintenance closet or something-- maybe for the elevators? I have no idea, honestly. Anyways, he was afraid of heights and got stuck up there for a bit. It was kind of funny from where I was. But that's not the important part. He got down eventually and we stood at the landing of of metal steps that seemed to lead nowhere, really. Now, this is where it gets really good. I can't even remember the words he said-- I was completely swept off my feet. That was where we kissed for the first time. There, on the roof of an unfinished building, in the spring rain, looking out at the city skyline. How could it be anything other than perfect?

That was how it started. From that point, we were dating. Things could only get better from there...right?