My boyfriend (commonly referred to on this blog as DB) and I went to high school together. We did not date in high school; we were not high school sweethearts. We weren’t even friends. In fact, I could probably count on two hands the amount of words we exchanged in four years of roaming the same hallways. I did, however, have a huge crush on him. I was the cheerleader and he was the bad boy. The bad boy that was in most of my classes. The bad boy that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. The bad boy that I used to giggle about with my girlfriends and the same bad boy that wouldn’t give me the time of day. DB was my high school fantasy.
After high school I can honestly say I didn’t even so much as hear his name mentioned, unless it was me bringing him up during a drunken night of reminiscing with my best friends. It was as if he had ceased to exist.
A few years back, I was in Manhattan and had just caught the subway in a last ditch attempt to get on the last train to Jersey before rush hour. (I try desperately to avoid stressful, crowded places because I feel like I don’t move fast enough for most people’s liking. But I digress.) As I sat down to catch my breath I looked to my left and about three feet away there he was. DB. And he was looking back at me. We recognized each other instantly, and I remember wondering whether the smile on his face was a result of him seeing me after all these years, or if he had caught the smile from me since I know I was grinning ear-to-ear. (Or, of course, if it was an instinctual reaction to my inherent sexiness; aren’t I oh-so-modest?)
After a bit of awkwardness we got to talking, and not only did I miss the train I had been so desperate to catch, I sat in the middle of Penn Station during rush hour and had a beer with my high school fantasy. How things progressed from there is material for another blog post, but needless to say it all went well.
A month or so later I was having martinis with some girlfriends when someone decided to ask what each of our Most Romantic Moments Ever was. I think it was my friend Perm that brought it up; she was getting married soon and all, I Want To Talk About Love And Shit. Anyway, in the middle of her story I started laughing so loudly that everyone stopped talking and looked at me. I was laughing, I told them, because I thought it was both funny and sad that I did not have a Most Romantic Story to share. Little did I know that my story would happen just the very next evening.
That next night it was raining and cold. DB came to visit and we were trying to watch movies on the couch, but the rain was pelting louder and louder against the windows in my living room, and it was getting harder to hear the television. DB gave me a look, a look that you give someone right before you’re about to tickle them or chase them, a kind of “I’m Gonna Get You!” look. I shrieked and turned toward the door, which is when DB grabbed me by the waist, turned me toward him and kissed me. He picked me up and carried me barefoot down the stairs outside to the cold, wet rain. He ran me into the middle of the street and kissed me, that good (really good) kind of kiss. Think The Notebook, or Gone With the Wind-style. A grab-your-face-and-tear-your-shirt kind of kiss. And he stood there with me in his arms barefoot as we both got drenched and he kissed me like it was his very last kiss. It was at that second that knew that I was having my very own Most Romantic Moment Ever, and I couldn’t wait to share it with my friends. I felt giddy for the rest of the night.
A couple of weeks ago, DB and I were talking about when we first started dating. I brought up this moment, this moment that girls fantasize about and laugh about and gossip about, and told him for the first time that I thought that moment was the Most Romantic Moment of My Life.
He didn’t remember it. AT ALL. Seriously, he had no recollection. I’m not even kidding.
Gotta love the difference between men and women, for if I had brought up the first time I did a striptease for him, you bet your ass he’d remember every move.
Great story and love that he didn’t remember