| | As I was packing to move back home, I came across something I had hidden from myself at the beginning of the year. It was a comfort item, something I knew I shouldn't keep around, but something I couldn't get rid of. It was a memory. I stared, amazed that I had forgotten about it. Amazed that I still had it. Amazed that it had been right there, in my room, the whole year. All the times I'd needed comfort, and it was right there all along. And so the memories flooded in, swirled around, and took me back to a better time.
The first time I met him, I was 15. So young and careless, naive and melodramatic. I was dating another guy, that I'd met 2 weeks before. We were at a high school football game, and it was drizzling and cold. He was my "boyfriend's" best friend. Completely off limits, and yet all I could think was, "I want that boy." I was drawn to him in a way that I still can't explain. He was with a girl and my best friend wisely told me, "Don't go there, you're happy, he looks happy, just stick with what you have." and so I did. But that night, as I sat shivering and my boyfriend stayed warm in his jacket...this boy came up and offered me his hoodie. I didn't know him, we hadn't really spoken, but he was offering me his jacket. He was going to suffer through the cold so that I wouldn't have to. All that night I huddled up in this bright red, worn and tattered, Old Navy hoodie.
Over the next few months, this boy and I spoke only occasionally. Saw each other only when I went places with my boyfriend. He saw how my boyfriend treated me, and he told me I deserved better. Our friendship slowly grew over brief meeting and occasional phone conversations, the details of which I can't even remember. He told me one night that he often wondered whether or not he loved me. [Yes, it was most likely a line, but that didn't matter at the time]. We gave dating a try, but we were so young and so confused, and so we parted ways. I turned 16, but I was still just as young and careless, naive and melodramatic. Months and months passed, and through everything this boy was always at the back of my mind. If I ever let myself think of him, I knew I was already too wrapped up, emotionally invested, and all together infatuated to even think of letting him go. So I didn't allow myself to think of him. Until I did. And when I did, I devoted myself, unconditionally. It took almost a year of "not the right time" speeches, gallons of tears, and day after day of feeling like I was always going to be "the other girl". I had already decided that if I had to be the other girl for the rest of my life, it was better than not having him. [Pathetic, yes. But I was 16]. A solid year of not being able to get him off my mind, and finally, on his birthday, things fell in sync. He had a bonfire, with all his friends, and he stayed by my side the entire night. It was finally the right time and I wasn't the other girl. And once again, to keep me warm, he gave me that tattered old red hoodie, which I wore with pride. From that day on, I considered it my hoodie. And even now, as I'm 8 months away from being 20 years old, I still think of him daily. It has been nearly two years since we parted ways, and he's still always on the back of my mind. And as I came across that thing that I had hidden, that tattered, stained, red Old Navy hoodie, I felt that undescribable, unexplainable draw that I felt that very first day, almost 4 years ago. And I remember why I hid it from myself, and also why I couldn't get rid of it. Because I love him and I always will. Because he was my first love, and so far my only love. And that old red hoodie reminds me of better times that I never want to forget.
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| | Posted 5/4/2009 2:52 PM - 9 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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