Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Big X, Part I: The Beginning

Brit Anon didn't miss the part where I wrote about the Big X because so far I have avoided writing much about him. So now, dear readers, you get to read all about him. And I fear this may turn into a multiple post odyssey (thanks for the spelling, Whit!). If you get bored and want to shoot yourselves, you know where to send your complaints.

I met the Big X when I was 18 years old. I used to like to tell the story of how we met because it all sounded very romantic. In light of how I felt at the end of things, it now sounds tragic to me, but here it is. The beginning's not about him but stick with me here; it all ties together.

When I was in the 7th grade, there was this boy, Billy, in my homeroom and study hall. I thought he was kind of cute but he hung around the wrong people. He was an outcast. I wasn't ultrapopular but I was somewhere in the middle. So one Friday in study hall, Billy asked me out in a note, and I said yes. Of course, in 7th grade, going out didn't mean much of anything.

Over the weekend I told my friends and they all told me how gross it was to go out with Billy and at that age those things mattered to me. So come Monday, I decided to write him a breaking-up note during English class. Well, Ryan, who sat in front of me, stole the note off my desk, read it, and passed it around the whole class, about 1/2 of which was in our study hall. So now half of the room was going to know I was breaking up with poor Billy.

The note said something to the effect of, "I don't want to go out with you anymore. Don't write back because I won't read it if you do." Billy wrote back and I went up to the front of the room and threw out the note without reading it. To this day I wonder what it said.

There were of course many boyfriends between the 7th grade and when I was 18 and starting college, but that fall of my freshman year of college, I had ended things with my summer bf and was single again. Well who but Billy should show up in the Lazer Tag arena where I worked. (What can I say? It was the 90's. Lazer Tag was hip.) Billy was hot. And he remembered me. And he wanted me.

He came in several times a week and did things like bring me flowers. I resisted for a bit because: 1. I still felt guilty for being mean to him when I was younger. 2. I wasn't feeling in the mood to be serious with anyone at that point. But finally I broke down and told him I'd go to a friend's Christmas party with him.

So we went and had a decent time and made out and stuff, and I told him I'd see him but I wasn't looking for anything serious right now. Then later that night I met the Big X. I felt like the minute I met him I knew we'd end up together but I didn't think it would be then because he was totally crushing on my friend Deanna. We got along wonderfully, though. He was so funny and I was so attracted to him. So we exchanged numbers and he drew me a map of how to get to his house because he actually lived only about a mile from me it turned out.

I figured I'd become friends with him and in time something would happen. I knew Deanna wasn't interested in him because she was head over heels for this other guy. So two nights later--Christmas night--I get a phone call from Billy. When I picked up he said, "Hey, it's me." He wanted me to come over and hang out for awhile so I agreed but then after thinking about it I really didn't want to spend the evening with him so I called him back and told him that I changed my mind and didn't want to come over after all.

Billy didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Turns out I thought it was him but really it was the Big X. So I stuttered through some excuses and explanations and hung up, then hightailed it over to the Big X's house because him I was willing to see. We talked for hours and then at one point we started kissing. I don't know who initiated it to this day, just that it started happening. We kissed and talked until the sun came out.

It all ended that first night wonderfully, with his step mother coming downstairs and finding my shoes in the living room and screaming to his father about what a whore I was, and me sitting in his bedroom waiting for her to stop and go away so I could slink out of the house and go home.

We saw each other just about every single day from then until last year. The beginning was wonderful. It was a whirlwind of clandestine kisses leading to groping leading to consummation. Within a week we decided to be exclusive and I had to call Billy and tell him that though I said I wasn't looking for anything serious, now here I was in a serious relationship and I couldn't see him anymore.

Billy hung around for months, convinced that the Big X was wrong for me and we'd never last and I'd come back to him. In hindsight, of course, I think I should have. But at the time all seemed perfect with my world.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm confused - part 2 better make it all clear, like in films that don't make sense