The Last Dance
(Reading Time: 06:17) His name was Tom. And he was perfect.I was in sixth grade and he was in eighth grade. The first time I saw him he was wearing dark jeans, an orange Abercrombie & Fitch sweater and his blond hair was spiked. Before him, there was only Spot Conlin.
Tom was so cool. He was so popular. He was so cute.
My first middle school dance, knowing I had a crush on him, he danced with me. I was wearing khaki cargo pants, tennis shoes and a black sleeveless Roxy hoody with a white t-shirt underneath. I finally had contacts, but still had my braces.
We danced to Lonestar and the cafeteria was empty for 3 minutes.
When I got home, my shirt smelled like his cologne. I didn't wash it for weeks.
Every dance that year, he saved one dance for me.
He signed my yearbook and gave me his number. I want to look at that again.
The next year, he went to high school and with my mouth free of braces, I met my first boyfriend at the regional spelling bee. We were scolded for talking and his hands were huge. Manly. I was wearing a long khaki skirt and an American Eagle button up, tied just at the waist with a tank top underneath.
His name was Jordan and he was eliminated on the word, "porpoise."
I found his name and school in the program book and eventually found his family in the phone book. It didn't matter; he had already contacted my school and called me first. After a few months, he broke up with me. At 14, 20 miles is long distance.
I later found out Tom was jealous. We started talking on the phone. My house had an extra phone line for dial-up, and I would sit between the side of my bed and the wall and talk to him, for hours. Laughing, telling stories. It was only a few times but I can still hear his voice.
He had now entered his skater phase. His hair was black and he tried very hard to skateboard. We bought the new Blink 182 CD the day it came out and talked about it on the phone.
Only in the past few years did I realize what, Take of Your Pants and Jacket, meant.
My dad heard the bonus track on that cd, broke it in half and threw it down the stairs.
That summer, we walked downtown to Hallmark where he helped me pick out a birthday card for me friend. We went and ate Chicken o'Rings at a local hotdog place. And he walked me home.
The shortcut to my house was through the cemetery. He was wearing a purple Volcom shirt that day. I was wearing jeans, tighter jeans, and a red sleeveless Roxy t-shirt, sans undershirt, with knock off Doc Marten sandals. We saw a bee and he fake pushed me and ran.
I laughed and laughed.
I took him to my favorite spot. I used to sit there and read, sit there and write, or sit there and think. With a perfect view of the lake, it was my favorite place in the world. Cemeteries still bring me peace.
We sat there and our foreheads touched. And our fingers started to intertwine. I couldn't breathe. Seriously. Could. Not. Breathe. I looked down just to take a break from him eyes. That was the first time I noticed I had hair on my big toe.
We kissed. And we kissed. It wasn't my first kiss. But it was magic. His tongue, his hand in my hand, his head, his face.
We didn't really talk after that. In my excitement I told too many friends. Or I told the wrong friends. I still make that mistake, but when something feels so right, it only feels right to shout it out, arms open.
After that, I practiced discretion and kept that crush close to me.
I made it to high school and started seeing him again in the hallway. He always made my stomach hurt, in the best way. He knew I liked him and made it a point to always smile. It seemed almost uncool to still like him, so it felt like our secret.
He was in a band for a while. They wrote a song named after me. I will never know who wrote the lyrics. He left the band, but still hung around with them. I wrote an article about their band for the town paper. The day after publication, he found me after school in the lobby and read me the message written on his hand, "Great article."
The days before winter break, my parents caught me drunk. I drank vodka in the hot tub with my neighbor. When they got home the water was 85 degrees.
As part of my punishment I wasn't allowed to use the phone or computer but I snuck downstairs before we left for vacation. I logged onto Yahoo Messenger and there was a message from Tom. He liked me. He wanted to get to know me again. He wanted to hang out during winter break. He didn't expect me to feel the same way but wanted to start seeing each other, to talk on the phone. I had it memorized for a very long time. Now, I only remember the last words. "I just wanted to, you know, ask..."
He liked me.
I flew. My heart flew, my stomach dropped and the world made sense.
I didn't respond - I wanted to play it cool and decided to wait until after my vacation.
Part of me was also afraid it was a joke or a setup. It was too perfect.
My parents may have also been walking down the stairs...
Either way, it doesn't matter. I didn't respond. And I didn't call.
I wrote down the message and brought it with me.
It is still somewhere in my parents' basement, in my box of special things.
We got home from our trip and I was so tan and so excited to see him, and for him to see me, tan. I felt beautiful.
There were so many missed calls from my friends. So many. There were voicemails - "call me."
I called my best friend. She asked about my vacation. I felt guilty when I said it was wonderful since they were stuck in snow and I was free in the sun. I told her I couldn't wait to see Tom because I just felt pretty.
"You didn't hear?...Tom's dead."
Fuck off, I told her.
It felt terrible saying that.
But it was true.
He died in a car accident days two days before I got back.
I didn't cry. I barely knew him. But he was so important to me.
My friends went to the visitation together. I only wanted to be with my mom.
She held my hand and cried as I stared. She never approved of that crush. But I will never forget her being there. My pain was her pain. She grieved for his parents. She grieved for me.
The trifold poster in the funeral home had my article on it. It had the set-list with my Song. I wanted to cry. I think I cried. But it didn't feel right to cry. Nor right to hug his family. He was my crush. I barely knew him.
I think about him often. Usually when I can't sleep. Or when my heart hurts. He was perfect. He was my first love. He was my first loss.
Have a Gr8 summer via cantfindwaldo
I realize this story is a total fucking clich?. But it's my clich? and I lived it, so I'm gonna share it. Here goes:
I was 13 years old. It was the second day of 7th grade. I was in social studies watching an educational film on the Magna Carta and doodling in my notebook (it was a picture of a basset hound on water skis-in my mind a TOTALLY BRILLIANT masterpiece of anthropomorphic art, thankyouverymuch). The bell rang, and through the clamor of students rushing to get out the door, I heard a voice behind me say, "Hey. You're a really good drawer." I turned around to find the owner of the voice. Who was this refined, cultured individual, this avid supporter of the visual arts, this animal water sport doodle aficionado?
I'll tell you who. THE MOST ATTRACTIVE GODDAMN INDIVIDUAL I HAD EVER LAID EYES ON.
Neurons fired. Lightning struck. Somewhere in the far reaches of the universe, a gas giant exploded. Every animal on earth sensed an imminent major weather event. A bearded, crazy-haired scientist in a parka conducting research near the North Pole picked up some strange readings on his lab instruments. And I became a woman right there on the fucking spot.
"I'm serious," he said. "You're really good."
And that's when the relentless pain began. I was a hopeless nerd. I was a head taller than every single person in my grade. I owned a mouse pad with R2-D2 on it. I was (probably rightfully) convinced that this dude would want nothing to do with my frizzy hair, awkward, curve-less body and my vast collection of books about unicorns. So I never talked to him. Ever.
But I thought about him constantly. I cried about him. I roller-bladed past his house (because it was the 90s and that was the only way to get anywhere duh) in hopes that I might see him. I listened to some shitty Smashing Pumpkins song over and over because I heard him on the bus telling somebody he liked it. It was a terrible situation all around.
Then at the end of the year I worked up my courage to give him my yearbook to sign. In my fantasy he would hand it back to me and his message would read: You are stunning. I want to 1) kiss you on the mouth 2) do all the sex stuff 3) marry you and make attractive, intelligent, artistic, musical genius superhero babies 4) play Nintendo with you forever until we grow old and can no longer hold the controllers anymore because of arthritis.
What did he actually write? THIS:
Hi Katie [Katie is not my name. Not even close.]
Have a Gr8 summer.
Piece.
So, yeah... I then promptly moved on with my life.
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