CHAPTER 3 – A NEW YEAR (continued)
These things might have
kept me on the margins of a few conversations, but these disparities were
nothing compared to the difference in transportation. Kids at our church had used BMWs and
Mercedes, brand-new Mazdas and Toyotas, or full custom pickups and SUVs. I drove (when I could get it) my dad’s brown
1983 Oldsmobile. Most of the time, I went
around like a beggar, asking people for rides.
I didn’t have to beg for rides from my youth group much,
because I was usually with my parents, but it was an everyday struggle at
school. Basketball was the last period
of the day, and we never got out in time to catch the bus, so I was stuck
without a way to get home. No one wanted
to commit to driving me home on a daily basis, so every afternoon contained the
humiliating quest to find a willing friend to take me home.
* *
* * *
“It sucks, Dad,” I said, as we talked about it on the way
home from a grocery store run on the last day of summer. “I know there’s nothing we can do about it,
but I feel like an idiot every day.”
I was trying hard not to sound like I was whining about
not having a car. It was just the
reality of the situation, and that was fine with me. But if there was one thing I loathed the
thought of doing, it was to bother someone with “me”—to subject someone to my
presence when they’d really rather I just go away. The worst part about the ride thing was that
people will help out of pity, and so I could never know who really didn’t mind
bringing me home and who was secretly annoyed by the imposition.
“I guess that’s
why I can’t call people,” I said, “It’s sort of the same thing. How do I know whether they really want to
talk or if they’re sitting on the other end, waving the phone around, silently
begging me to shut up and let them go?”
Dad thought for a moment, then cracked a small grin. “By ‘calling people,’ do you mean ‘calling
girls’?” he asked.
I stuttered for a moment before I answered. Dad didn’t usually so boldly charge into the
subject of girls like that. “No, I
really mean everyone, Dad. But
especially girls, I guess.”
Dad laughed a little.
“I know it’s tough to talk to girls.
Give yourself time.”
I shifted in my seat to turn toward him. “You know, it’s not that hard at school. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because there’s always something
going on around us to talk about or make a joke about or something. Maybe it’s just that I can see their real
reaction. I don’t know. It’s more natural.”
“You know, you don’t have to pressure yourself to do
anything more than that,” he said.
“You’re a long ways from really being ready to look for a wife.”
“Come on, Dad, I’m sixteen years old, and I’ve never even
been on a date! I feel like a loser.”
“You don’t have to prove yourself to anybody, son, and if
you start dating a girl just to prove something to yourself, you’re doing it
for the wrong reasons.”
I wanted to object, but Dad wasn’t direct like this very
often, so I sat there and listened in a sort of a stunned silence.
“And you’ll be looking for the wrong things. It’ll make you feel good about yourself if
you can get a girl that everyone thinks is beautiful to go out with you, but
then your relationship is about how pretty she is. She’s going to be worried about how she looks
all the time, and she’ll always be looking for you to tell her how beautiful
she is. You don’t want ‘the prettiest
girl in school’ as your girlfriend.”
But it really didn’t matter what my dad told me. I did
want the prettiest girl in school as my girlfriend, because there was nothing I
wanted more than to be around Nicole Ellis as much as possible.
* *
* * *
The school year always began with “home room,” which were
the “classes” (they were really just alphabetical groupings with other kids
from our grade) we had for state testing and official things like getting our
schedules. I knew I was going to have
basketball to end the day, but the rest of the schedule was a crapshoot. You didn’t want something really important
first period before you woke up.
I had a second issue on my mind as well as I looked at my
schedule. For most subjects, we could
choose whether to take the “regular” level or an “advanced” level. Although most of my teachers were
disappointed I didn’t go for all advanced levels, I liked to pick and
choose. If I liked a subject or mastered
it fairly easily, I didn’t mind working hard at it. But other subjects were tedious enough
without adding endless projects, reading assignments, and papers.
My sophomore year, I found that I had the same mix of
advanced and regular classes as Nicole, as well as the same elective (Spanish)
and a varsity sports period (basketball for me, cheerleading for her) to finish
the day. Consequently, we had a lot of
classes together last year. So when it
came time to choose classes for our junior year, I used what little influence I
had as a friend to convince her to go ahead with Spanish II and to stick with
advanced math (both because I thought she should and because I wanted her in my
classes).
So as I looked at
my schedule that morning, I silently hoped that I would have every class with
her until we parted ways for our sports.
I arrived in first period (advanced history), and, alas,
it was not to be. I ended up sitting
behind another cheerleader named Shannon, who was the girlfriend of one of my
teammates, but was friendly and fun to be around, too.
Second period came, and there was Nicole, with an open
seat next to her. She made eye contact
and smiled, seeming to invite me to come sit by her. I wasn’t nervous around her at school any
more. In this setting, we were
friends—good friends, even. But as we
stopped our short greeting and class began, my heart started to ache. The words of the Letter started running
through my mind again.
“So how many classes do you have with her?” Roger asked
me. It was the weekend now, and we were
hanging out in his room the night before he was leaving to go back to
school. I had been telling him about how
Nicole and I had been laughing together in Spanish class about our teacher.
“Only two.” My
synchronized schedule plot had failed, but we did sit next to each other in
both classes.
“Let me ask you something…” Roger’s voice became softer and he looked
straight at me. I dreaded what was
coming. He hadn’t mentioned the Letter
since he skidded the envelope across the table to me the day it was
returned. “What was in that letter you
wrote to her, anyway?”
“It was just a really stupid love letter,” I
mumbled. “God saved my life when he made
me write down the wrong address.”
“What did it say?”
I was a little annoyed.
Why did Roger need to know? But I never really hid much from my brother. I wanted to make a joke about it, but I
couldn’t come up with anything funny to say.
Finally, with a sigh and a shrug, I said, “I guess I told her how I feel
about her and asked her out.”
“What did you say about that?”
“I said we could go to Astroworld and an Astros game.”
“No… about how you feel.
What did you say in the letter?”
“That’s the worst part.
I told her that I love her. She
would be totally weirded out if she…”
Roger interrupted: “Why did you say that? You don’t love
her!”
“What do you know about it?” I was getting irritated. “How can you say I don’t love her?”
“You don’t even really know her! You’ve just been obsessed with…”
“It’s different than before!” I raised my voice to interrupt him, then
slumped back into his couch and stared at the ceiling. “I’ve spent a lot of time with her in class
over the last year. We’ve talked, and…”
“There’s a difference between making someone laugh in
class and really knowing someone, for one thing,” Roger interjected. “And there’s a huge difference between loving
someone and having the hots for her.”
“But it’s not just that,” I said, grasping for the words
to describe what I felt. “I don’t just
have the ‘hots’ for her, because I don’t really think of her like that… I mean,
I do… but it’s different.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, it’s not like I just want her, you know?” I
said. “I guess you could say I think
she’s ‘hot,’ but that’s not all I
feel about her. I care about her, you
know? I’m attracted to her physically,
but it’s not like I just want to have sex with her or anything like
that... I mean… the thought of actually having sex with anyone
terrifies me. I just want to be with
her, to care for her, to hold her. What
is that if that’s not love?”
“I don’t know, man.” Roger was silent for a couple of
minutes as we both stared into space.
“But she hasn’t let you into her life to do anything but laugh at the
Spanish teacher together.”
I sat up and looked at him. “I know, but I want more than that.”
Roger looked at me.
“Hey, I’m not saying that you don’t feel something special for her. I think you do. But you don’t love her. Not yet.”
He paused rubbed his fingers in his hair like he always did when he was
thinking. “I’ve been thinking about this
since I knew you wrote the letter.”
As much as I hated it that anyone knew about the letter,
there was a sense of relief to hear someone else give thoughts about the thing
that had tortured me for weeks.
“I think when you love someone,” he continued, “it’s less
about what you feel as much as it is about what you give. I can’t see how she’s given you a chance to
really give her anything she really needs or wants.”
I want her to want
ME, I protested inwardly. I want to give her ME.
“I
don’t know if you can love somebody if you’re not part of her life.”
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