Someone else picked up the line (her sister or mother probably), so I asked, “Puwede pong kausapin si Jackie?” which meant, “Could I please speak with Jackie?” in Tagalog. The person on the other end of the line told me to wait and got Jackie to pick up the phone.
We talked for some time, mostly about what unfolded the day before. I told her that I had a great time at her birthday party. She told me that she too had a good time.
Out of the blue, she then asked me, “So which one of my friends did you think was the cutest?” I do not know why she asked that question of me. Maybe it was to elicit the response that I gave her. I wonder if she actually expected me to say a certain person’s name, and if I did, I wonder how she would have reacted.
Truthfully, I responded by telling her that she was the one whom I thought had the “cutest” look. Of course, the way I meant it did not only pertain to her looks. I remember thinking about her friend Charmane and how she looked that night at the party. I thought she was pretty, yes, but I did not know her enough to say that she was the cutest, per se.
If one were to ask my friend Justin about who he thought was prettiest at the party, he would have said Jackie, also. He was practically asking me on the ride home to hook him up with her. Actually, knowing Justin, he probably did ask me straight out. Once he met her, he automatically had an attraction towards her. Joel probably did, too, but he did not mention anything. Either way, it was agreeable that my response to her question was correct by many standards.
It is probably quite apparent to her that I still liked her. Of course, I was not hiding that fact, especially that night. I never hid that from her, like I wrote before. And, it seemed that she was not hiding much from me either…
She told me that when we were saying our goodbyes the night before, on her driveway, she actually wanted to say goodbye to me a different way. Not with a hug, but with a kiss on the cheek. That may not seem much, but at sixteen and meeting for the first time, that would have been a big deal if it happened. All I could respond with was, “Oh,” and some silence. Being reminded that she liked me back made me like her even more. My heart was weak for that kind of thing. My emotions were sensitive to any slight stimulation.
Adrienne had no knowledge of these things. At times, I am sorry to say, I forgot about her while I was interacting with Jackie. But when I talked with Adrienne, I was immediately brought back to her kind sweetness, her good nature, and her other lovable characteristics.
I called Jackie more often after that, but at the same time, there was finally a visible change in my demeanor that was caused by the situation in which I had put myself. For the rest of the following school week, I remained quieter than I usually was. It was not because I was so happy that I could only think of the two girls that I liked and apparently felt the same way about me in return. It was because I was so confused that I liked two girls who also liked me back.
I was thinking that I had to choose one. I could not go on making connections with two different people at the same time. First, it was unethical and immoral. Second, it was unhealthy. I had to choose to either stay with Adrienne, who I liked very much, or to stop what I had with her and try something out with Jackie. Then, there was a third option of doing nothing, and even a fourth option of ending up with no one.
How could I make that kind of decision? Fortunately, the decision was made for me this time.
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When I was 16, my friend Jeff introduced me to the two girls who lived on either side of his house after school one day. He told me the next day that they thought I was cute and invited me to hang out with them that weekend.
I went over, and we all hung out for a while (and some other people, too). We ended up heading over to the house next door where this girl Laura lived. Eventually everyone left but us, and she lit her fireplace. We were sitting there, and then we turned to each other, and this sight I remember clearly:
She closed her eyes, and leaned towards me, her mouth slightly open. It seemed I instinctively knew what to do, even though I'd never kissed a girl.
It was wonderful.
Before I left her house that night, she did tell me one thing: her friend Erica (Jeff's other neighbor) was the one who really seemed to like me and the one I was supposed to end up with. The funny thing is, when I first met Laura and Erica, Erica is the one I thought more attractive.
That night, though, Laura and I clicked, and I felt a little guilty when I found out the situation with Erica.
When I was 19, I met a girl named Anne. Anne had a boyfriend who was going to school about 3 hours from where we lived.
From the night we met, we talked and talked. And talked. It didn't hurt that she was gorgeous, and cute, and liked the same kind of punk rock and ska music that I did.
We would sit up on my bed all night and just share our hearts. A little cuddling went on, too.
One night, we were laying side-by-side on my twin dorm room bed, and she propped herself up on her elbow and leaned over, putting her lips on mine.
I laid there like stone. After a minute she moved away. I said I wanted to kiss her. Badly. But it wouldn't be fair to her boyfriend. I told her to make sure it was what she wanted.
The next day I remember walking around town with my heart about to crack through my sternum and drag me home to call her. When I finally did talk to her later that night, she told me she wanted to stay with her boyfriend. As much as that kind of sucked for me, I agreed with her decision.
A month or two later, she pretty quickly and deftly distanced herself from me, without giving me warning or reason.
I didn't really understand until three years later, when a good (female) friend of mine told me she thought my girlfriend was jealous of our friendship and that we should distance ourselves. I was hurt some by this, but agreed.
It was two years after that when I found out that, at the time, my friend had been secretly wanting me to break up with that girl to date her instead.
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