Rambling Reboot

When I came home for fall break, he blind-sided me by breaking up with me. I was crushed. He broke my heart. I came back to college and did a lot of listening to sad music and weeping, but I had made some good friends, so I also did a lot of drinking and laughing and a bit of dating a guy that I wasn’t really attracted to. There was safety in dating someone I didn’t care about. He was a terrible kisser, and I felt nothing, and it made me laugh.

By mid-November, I’d ended it with Mr. Terrible Kisser, and I was feeling better. I was doing well in my classes, and while I was still sad, life was good. There was this senior guy that I’d met a few times because we traveled in the same circle of friends, but I hadn’t given him much thought. He was three years older than me, and hot, and if I thought about it at all, I would’ve considered him not in my league. We were friendly with each other, and as the semester wore on were spending more time in the same group of people hanging out, but he was just this hot senior, and whatever, I was still in love with the guy back home that broke my heart. When we saw him in an experimental theatre piece with his shirt unbuttoned, my roommate pointed out how hot he was. I agreed. I even felt it in my gut a little. But so what? I was still in love with the guy back home who broke my heart.

Exams are a stressful time, and there was lots of time hanging out and sort of studying but also sort of not. And somehow I ended up in a dorm room one night with the hot senior (let’s call him Jim, because again, that is his name) and another couple who were flirting with each other mercilessly. By now, I knew I had a crush. I had admitted it to myself. The guy back home wasn’t entering my thoughts so much. And somehow studying became me resting my head on his thigh. And somehow that became kissing. He was not a terrible kisser. He was a great kisser, and I felt a lot. (I don’t mean that in a smutty way, I just mean I had a lot of feelings. Smutty happened later.) 

So I spent a few days with my head floating above the clouds, but then the semester was over and it was time to go home for Christmas. I can’t remember saying goodbye to Jim anymore; that event is lost to the vagaries of my memory. I assume there was lots of kissing. We’d only been “hanging out” for three days, much of which was occupied with exams, and so we were still mostly just kissing. Okay, maybe there was a tiny bit of dry humping. 

I also don’t really remember the Christmas holidays that year. We probably went to Charleston like always. I did write Jim a letter which I agonized over (yes, a letter, it was 1991), and I’m sure I thought about him constantly. But I also was excited to be home, and to see high school friends, and as such, I organized a New Year’s Eve party at my house. A party that I magnanimously invited John to, because he wasn’t just my boyfriend back then, he was also an inseparable part of our friend unit. How could I not invite him? 

I don’t remember the party much. There was no alcohol, because we were good kids and my parents were paying attention. I guess we watched the ball drop and shouted Happy New Year! I was happy. I was surrounded by friends, and I’d missed them. And I was in love. But I looked at my ex, and in that moment I wasn’t sure who I was in love with. 

He had a lot to say to me that night, as midnight became one became two a.m. How the reason he’d broken up with me was because he’d kissed another girl at camp last summer, and she’d spun his head around. How it had been a terrible mistake. How leaving me had been a terrible mistake. How he still loved me, and wanted to get back together. It was intoxicating, being wanted like that. I didn’t even care about the other girl. He kissed me, and it was warm and comfortable, like a favorite blanket. Except sexy. We didn’t get back together, but we didn’t not get back together. He left, because he was still in high school and had a curfew. I went to bed, and somehow managed to sleep. 

He came over again in the cold light of the next afternoon, because we needed to talk. And we did talk, but for the life of me I don’t know what we said. I told him there was someone else that I’d been seeing, but that it was new and not serious. I told him I needed think, but I believe that in that moment, I was leaning toward getting back with him. He was my sexy warm blankie option. Then the phone rang.  

Remember kids, this was before cell phones. I recall walking to the kitchen to answer the phone, and picking it up and hearing Jim’s voice on the other end of the line. I think this was the second time he’d called me over break, maybe? He was trying not to be pushy, I learned later. Trying not to seem desperate. I know I told him that John was there at my house, and that we were talking. I’m sure (because he told me later) that this was crushing to hear, but he didn’t give that away on the phone. He was sweet, and understanding, and he said he’d see me back at school in a couple of days, and we hung up. 

I looked at the boy sitting in my living room. I thought about the man who’d called me on the phone. I was fucking confused, but I did not agree to get back together with the boy. I said I’d think about it. 

When I got back to school, and saw Jim, and kissed him, that was when I knew that things with John were definitely over. I’d like to say it was because I knew that Jim was THE ONE, and that John wasn’t. In reality, it was because Jim’s mouth was the one in close proximity to mine, and he was hot, and I was horny. And John was a boy back home who’d dumped me, and now I got to dump him back.