My Second First Date
How often are we the only real thing standing in our way?
My first date was to the cinema. I was 13, and try as I might so much time has passed that I can’t remember his name, where on earth we met to begin with, or any of the circumstances that found me sitting next to him in front of a darkened movie screen, feeling petrified.
I’m embarrassed to say I had brought a friend with me, she was my best friend and always the leader of our double act. Which in all honesty might explain a lot about the decisions that lead me there.
But regardless there I was, acutely aware of his every movement, his breathing, the subtle looks he kept giving me as I faced rigidly forward, the brushes of his arm.
I love film. I mean I love, love film. I disappear into the world being created for me and my real self is happily suspended in the chair for as long as it takes for the story to unfold. That Saturday I did not like not being able to disappear. I hated the intensity of trying to guess what another person wanted from the moment, from me.
I don’t remember the film but I remember his lips as we stood outside afterward. Large and wet they covered mine. It was my first kiss as well as my first date and other than feeling like he was trying to consume me (not in a good way), all I wanted to…
