Monday, 30 May 2011

• Fallin'

  

  I was sixteen when a certain boy asked me to go to the mall with him in mid-August. After getting dropped off near the mall by my father, under the pretense of studying for the SATs at Barnes and Noble, I greeted this boy with a long embrace. I had not seen him since my birthday days eight days earlier, which for an anxious teenage girl felt like forever.
  

  We locked fingers and walked around Barnes and Noble, settling in the children's section, reading each other our favorite stories by Shel Silverstein. We walked every corner of the mall, stopping at various food vendors to get free samples of pretzels and fries, window-shopping for cheap trinkets with which he could decorate his college dorm room.
  

  He was older than I, and even in the simple moments of flipping through a children's book together, or throwing pennies into the mall's water fountain, age did not create a gulf for us.

  Getting bored of walking around the same oval of clothing stores for the past two hours, he impulsively asked me, “Want to go for a drive?”

  “Sure. Where would we go?” I answered, scared that my father would try to pick me up from Barnes and Noble without telling me he left the house first.

  “I dunno. Anywhere.”

  “Let's do it.”

  This boy made me want to take risks.

  It was raining really hard by the time we walked out of the mall and towards his grandmother's car, a 1989 Buick big enough for six people. The car smelled like the summer sweat we left behind from the last time we shared a heated moment in the backseat.
  

  He backed out of the mall parking lot and started driving through our town—a quaint suburbia that never has disturbances. My heart was beating as fast as the windshield wipers were waving away the downpour. I held this boy's hand as he drove, using his other hand to maneuver us to the old places we used to live, taking wrong turns on purpose, pointing out cheap gas stations. Driving aimlessly because we could.

  Since my friend died in a car accident two years before this night, I had been terrified of being in cars. As the night went on, I grew more comfortable—an unusual feeling for me in a moving car—and did not panic. I felt safe... and happy.

  I knew I was truly happy, because when everything else was stripped away, it always came down to me and him wanting to be together. No matter what the circumstances were. After some really messy short-lived boyfriends, I finally was happy with someone who did not try to take advantage of me or think that my sex made me a weak person.
  

  He stopped the car in the empty parking lot of his elementary school and sat in silence for a while. I squeezed his hand and announced that I had something to tell him.

  “I'm in love with you.”

  He smiled at me and I understood the feelings were mutual. There was a feeling in my chest that felt like something had physically dropped inside me, like a weight being released, as if the next moment I could expect to fly up into the air and look at the world below me.
  

  It felt like some kind of infinity—like a forever was forming in my mind. I let go of my inhibitions and let myself not only love him, but let myself fall in love with him. It just worked; we just meshed together so well. We have been going out on and off since 2007, but to this day we are sixteen months strong!
  

  It hasn't been an easy journey, but I always remember that the fight is worth it, always remembering that "falling in love" feeling I had when I first realized how much I had invested in him that August night.

  Have you ever fallen in love? What made you realize that you were in love?

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