Memoirs of an Insane Freshman Girl

Chapter 1: My First Boyfriend

Chapter 1: My First Boyfriend

Our Song is the slamming screen door/sneakin' out late, tapping on your window/when you're on the phone and you talk real slow/cause it's late and your mama don't know/our song is the way you laugh/the first date "man, I didn't kiss her, but I should have/and when I got home...before I said amen/asking God if he could play it again. I sprinted across my bedroom from the warmth of my floral comforter and fuzzy Tinkerbell blanket and snatched my hot pink cell phone from my book-laden dresser. Recognizing the oh-so familiar number immediately, I snapped my phone open and sang into the phone, "I was walking up the front porch steps after everything that day had gone all wrong or been trampled on and lost and thrown away. Got to the hallway, well on my way to my lovin' bed. I almost didn't notice all the roses and the note that said..."

The voice sang right back, continuing the song, "Our song is the slamming screen door. Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window. When you're on the phone and you talk real slow cause it's late and your mama don't know. Our song is the way you laugh. The first date "man, I didn't kiss him, but I should have. And when I got home...before I said amen, asking God if he could play it again."

I giggled listening to his voice trying to sing my all-time favorite Taylor Swift song. I couldn't help it; he was too hysterical. Before he could launch into the next verse, I giggle-screamed into the phone, "Okay, baby! You can stop now!" Thankfully, he stopped and spared my ears and all those of St. Louis the great and painful agony. Giggling yet again, I whispered into the phone, "Baby, what do you want?" It must be noted that I'm not one of those giggling, gossiping, fake blonde-haired chicks with overly lined eyes who spend way too much time at the mall buying useless things like sixty pairs of shoes or twenty different lip glosses and whispering about the new it guy's abs.

My obscene giggling can be justified because it's really not my fault. It's really not. Blame it all on Chris (a.k.a.: baby, my boyfriend). We met last semester, the beginning of both our freshmen years of high school, in a keyboarding class where he watched in awe as I typed eighty words a minute while I subsequently laughed at his inability to multitask (a.k.a.: type and flirt with me at the same time). I quickly became a master at this, never actually looking at my keyboard or the screen, only talking to him while my fingers moved furiously across the keys like keyboarding was going out of style. I instantly fell for his golden eyes (no joke, they really were gold-colored) and dorky head of blonde hair. There was no denying it; he was a dork, but that was one of the things I loved about him. Another thing was that he made me laugh. Any time of the day, he could always be found telling a joke or doing something dorky that just made everyone else laugh.

He wasn't perfect; I think that's what attracted me to him the most. You see, I had very high standards; I wasn't just settling for the first boy who threw himself at my feet (and I must say, while none of them had literally done so, I could assume many would be willing). I wasn't what I would call popular, but I quickly found out that the boys that went to our school found me attractive, to say the least. In middle school, I wasn't really sought after by the male species. I wasn't what you'd call ugly, but I wasn't drop-dead gorgeous. I was pretty enough, and I mostly hung out with a few of my close friends. I was perfectly content, and then all of the sudden, come high school, I was the new hot "it girl", if it must be said.

To the say the least, I was shocked. I wasn't quite used to guys writing phone numbers on my hands and smiling that revolting "you're hot" smile at me. Even though the attention was nice, I didn't want that. I didn't want random guys who didn't know me to come up to me and ask me out. It quickly became apparent that the only boy I wanted was the dorky one who sat next to me in keyboarding (my all-time favorite class, obviously not for my love of typing, but for my love of flirting with my blonde-haired boy), our fingers simultaneously typing at the keyboard.

It started out with harmless, verbal flirting, and it soon turned into him stealing my purse; so, I would have a reason to touch him while flirtatiously attempting to retrieve it while really drawing out the moment as long as possible. We quickly began talking to each other outside of school on facebook.com and soon after, texting each other late at night, prying into the depths of each others' minds. I started a game of twenty questions one night where he could ask me anything he wanted, and I would have to answer honestly and likewise vise versa. I learned everything about him from his biggest secret to his love of strawberries. We never ended at twenty questions, but I prolonged the game to asking him questions all the time.

Personally, I am the queen of randomness. For one question, I would ask him where he wants to live and then the next, I would ask if he likes kiwis. Our conversations are best known for being completely random and strange, to say the least. Actually, on more than one occasion, when we were texting, we carried on two completely unrelated conversations at the same time. With my randomness and questionable sanity and his relentless wearing of his dorky orange coat, we were perfect for each other.

He was a football player, but it can't be denied that he was a shrimp of a boy. His height barely reached 5'6", which towered over my measly 5'2", and he was incredibly skinny considering how much he ate on a daily basis. I always thought he would be crushed beneath the other football players, and I always worried about him getting hurt. I was also an athlete; I ran cross country that fall and more than once, ran by the football field to see him practice. It couldn't be denied; I was obsessed.

It must be noted that we didn't get together as soon as we met each other; this process took a grueling, long five months. Of course, we both knew we liked each other, but he was a bum, and while it may have seemed impossible for him to be shy because he was so obviously not when he was telling jokes, he really was shy about having a girlfriend, namely me. He wasn't one of those look-at-me-I'm-so-cool-because-I-scored-that-girl-and-I-want-to-show-her-off-just-to-make-other-guys-jealous types. In fact, few people even knew we were together until the last several months of our relationship. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll backtrack to August 13, 2007, my first day of my high school career and my life with Chris.

*Of course, it must be noted that the first part of this story is purely fictional.  I do not believe Chris would have ever sung Taylor Swift to me.  If I had asked him to, I believe he would have sung a song of some other country artist.  Make a note that like me, Chris liked country music—at least until the summer after we broke up when he realized that all country songs are sad and about love.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.*