the smalex smalman experience

this weekend i've totally isolated myself. not that that's a bad thing. and not really that i had much of a choice. i did smoke some green out of my cool new one hit wonder cigarette looking thing and listen to records and sat on a pillow on my floor. i don't remember the last time i actually enjoyed staying home for an entire weekend without feeling like a huge loser with no friends. but i studied, i wrote, i cooked, i cleaned. it's been good. and i also decided to do a creative non fiction piece about my ex boyfriend experience. i wasn't so sure, though. it might be damaging to talk about how smitten and in love i was and to bring back all those traumatic experiences. but then i thought, i'm over this. and i've been over it for a while. and in the back of my mind "what better way to make everyone realize who he really is?" so here's an exerpt of what i have so far. enjoy!

The first time I met him I was at my friend Stephen’s house. Stephen had an older sister, Heather, who was even more intimidating than she was beautiful, and needless to say I did my best to avoid her. He was one of Heather’s close friends, and somehow we all ended up hanging out together in their maid’s room, which seemed to be neutral ground to the siblings and their acquaintances. There were no official introductions, which is how most social gatherings go when you’re fifteen. You just watch to see whose head turns when a name is called and then there’s always the awkwardness of knowing when it’s appropriate to call them by their name, since you never formally exchanged them. His best friend pointed out the prominent tattoo between his shoulder blades which spelled out in a beautiful cursive current, Foo Fighters lyrics I recognized that read “If everything could ever feel this real forever, If anything could ever be this good again” and below it, the name of a woman and numbers that I assumed to be birth and death dates.
“Who’s Lori?”
“My mom.”
In his tone there was a trace of longing and a dash of pain that I seemed to have been the only one to take notice of. The first night I met him was also the first night he slept in my bed. Despite whatever his intentions may have been, I stayed a virgin for another two years. The strange thing was, despite the impression I was given, he didn’t even try to kiss me. While I was lying there so eagerly, propped up on one elbow half listening to him speak- which he had been doing for twenty minutes- and half mesmerized by how absolutely beautiful he was, lying on his back staring at the ceiling so entranced in his own story. Flustered and all too eager, I inclined my torso down to him and pressed my lips to his, which were surprised at first and then quickly became comfortable with the shape of mine. My impulsivity astonished me. I’d never been one to make myself vulnerable.