Good Morning, Sunshine – prt. 10 April 24, 2008

I did call him back–no worries. And it wasn’t awkward, it was…fun. We just talked. A lot about New York because he was going to go to school there. But I’m glad we did that on the phone, because it did kind of hurt. I missed the noise and the bustle of the city. The shopping, the art shows, the fashion capital–I even missed broadway. But it was still nice; talking with him. It kind of felt like home; like I was with my dad eating breakfast. And I don’t mean that creepy, I just mean in was comfortable and somehow familiar. Besides, dad was the only guy in my life to compare him to. And I did. And it came out good!

But, anyway, we spent a lot of time together that next week. He didn’t kiss me again, or even grab my hand. He was surprising. Whenever I expected a kiss, he wouldn’t give it. In a moment where he should of held my hand, he doesn’t. And I think a lot of it’s on purpose. Like he’s toying with me–in a good way–and making sure I stick around for him and not just for the kissing or whatever. But he was a good kisser and I sometimes just wanted to tell him to get over himself and kiss me again. But I didn’t. And he didn’t, though his eyes always twinkled mischieviously.

Annie thought it was the funniestt thing; to watch us. She wouldn’t bother us when he was over or when we sat together at school, but she would always watch with a smile and would fall into these awkward fit of giggles. And afterwards she’d be on me for details and gushing about how cute we were. I just laughed. And I did like it–all of it. And evweryone else seemed to like it or at least be fine with it. Half the school would watch our every move. Annie had let all her friends know about “us” and that just spread. I had never seen something explode through a group of people so fast. It’s like everyone knew and everyone was talking about it.

I discovered that week that jason had been number one on the school’s Hottest Bachelors list–yeah, they had one–but, by late monday he’d been taken off and we started climbing the Cutest Couples list. See, they had this whole non-official school site. Mostly loaded with gossip. It was ridiculously funny to look at. Annie worshipped it and always told me when something happened that she thought I should or would care about. I was number one on the Luckiest list. i thought it was because of Jason, but the anonymous comments said otherwise. They all talked about my clothes and hair and money and history. It was really weird. But cool; to be so popular without having to really do anything. And they had pictures–I don’t know where they got them. I printed the one they had of Jason and me. Which made me feel retarded, but it was cute. And I realized I liked being liked. And knowing I didn’t have to guard Jason from other girls was nice. The whole school seemed to be seriously happy for us–isn’t that weird?

Well, except Todd. He seemed to despise seeing us together. I gues I was stealing his brother away and he didn’t like it. But, whatever. He didn’t hang out with Annie again. He at least recognized her presence, which was actually enough for her. She was happy to just get a nod-of-the-head or a “wassup” as he walked down the hall. In fact, she told me he’d been kind of annoying on the date. Slightly zoned. But she hadn’t mind cuz, according to her, “Hello! He’s so hot!”. Still, it weird to go to Jason’s house with him because Todd would just stare icily at us. It really made it uncomfortable and even jason would tell him to bug off.

I went to his house for dinner one night and his mom was total ’stepford’ catalogue material. And I mean that in the nicest way. She was really sweet and even put my cook to shame with her homemade lasagna. But she was…prefect. In a realistic way. Unlike my NY friends mom’s who pretended everything was good but really they just played around with guys and got mani-pedi’s. But Jason’s mom was all smiles. She greeted me with a hug–wearing an apron and an oven mitt–and told me jason hadn’t been exagerating when he called me beautiful. That made jason blush and me laugh. Then she told me to hurry and make myself comfortable and sit down and ‘the husband’ should be home in a few and ‘Oh, you are just lovely’ and ‘Please call me karen’. It really made me laugh–it was so…unexpected. And when his dad came home it was even more surprising. He walked in and I could tell he was tired, but both Jason and Todd stood up and gave him a hug and I stood up because I didn’t know what else to do. He looked at me with a warm smile and said “So this is the girl who’s captured my son? Well, i think he’s the one who got the prize.” I just smiled as Jason came to my side. And that’s when he grabbed my hand–of all the times to do it; right in front of his dad! But he just smiled and winked jokingly at me. Then Karen came back in and started laughing and talking and telling Todd to hurry and go get Mary from next door. Mary was their little sister. She was seven and just as adorable as Jason. But I didn’t tell her that. We sat around at the dinner table and, as usual, someone brought up my clothes. It wasn’t even a big deal–just some DVF coso dress. But karen just had to tell me she loved it–that I was gorgeous. Everyone laughed. that’s how the whole evening went. laughing and joking. Mostly they just talked, and I listened. The parents told me stories about Jason and Todd. One was about jason convincing Todd to go to school as a girl on the first day. Todd didn’t think it was funny, but everyone else was laughing. Especially when they said the whole school fell for it. It was only when Mary yawned that the dinner ended. It was about nine. But before mary went off with her mom, she leaned over to me and asked seriously, “Do you love jason?” Awkward. I blushed like never before and would not look anyone in the eye. but no one else seemed uncomfortable. Karen pulled mary into her arms and said with a wink my way, “No, honey, loves yucky.”

Then Jason drove me home and finally kissed me. He whispered, “Love isn’t yucky to me.” and then I went inside and he drove off. It was all such a…culture shock, I just thought about it the rest of the night. It had been strangely fun and totally different than anything i had or could have imagined. But I liked it. And I was starting to see that jason was as random as his family–but in a good way.

The day after, jason couldn’t give me a ride, I rode the bus. And I was walking down to class and he suddenly appears next to me, grabs my hand, and kisses me on the cheek. I was surrounded by all of Annie’s friends. That was really awkward. I had no idea what to do, but he didn’t give me a chance to do anything. He just ran back down the hall. None of the girls said anything, they just stared and giggled under their breath. Annie would nudge me constantly and giggle and do this weird little dance, like she was happy for me. It was all so weird. But, I guess I was getting used to it. Because the next monday at lunch, I quickly sat down next to him and kissed him. But I did it on the lips–in front of his friends. And his brother. And I got a grasp as to why he did things so randomly and unexpected–it was fun. And it tasted better; or at least sweeter. There was always that split second where the other was too surprised to do anything, and that was the best part. So we started to constantly try and surprise each other. No one else seemed to appreciate that.

We were dropped a level in the stats. The anonymous voters said we were annoying. Someone even said that–and I quote–we were “so nasty; no one likes PDA–get a room and stop slobbering all over eachother and the entire school.” Which I thought was funny, but Annie just started screaming about how stupid jealous people were. That’s when i found out you had to pay $25 to become a member and participate in votes. And in order to even find the person to pay, you had to become connected to the “anonymous”, who no one really knew. But that was one thing I didn’t care about. I could have been at the bottom of that list and still gone after those kisses. Annie was right; they were just jealous. or they should be. Because those kisses were good–stolen or not.