No Rain, No Flowers

Chapter 3 Crossing the Line

It's what happened every single year. At such an early age, I had become jaded, bitter even. Funnily enough, it wasn't my premature relationship with Chris that made me so upset. It was Christian. I knew he would move on in his life and just forget about me. Accepting this wasn't painless. It was just something I had to do to try and move on with my life. It didn't stop me from pining away over him. I told Cleo everything that happened when we got back, and she couldn't believe he'd kissed me. I couldn't believe it either, but it was something I just had to forget about. I hoped that by telling Christian about Chris, he would see that I was ready for a relationship. Christian just didn't like me. It was time to just get over it.

Sixth grade came and I was blessed enough to not be the fat awkward chick I was the previous years of school. I made friends, even had a boyfriend or two. My first boyfriend was a boy named Mike Mineo. He was a little shorter than I was and had a bit of an outdated mullet haircut. I still thought he was cute, and he made me laugh. He was on the chubbier side which I loved because he reminded me of a Teddy Bear. I experienced my very first real kiss with him during an assembly where all the lights went out for about a minute. It was awful. Four quick jabs of his tongue and it was over. I don't completely blame him, he was nervous about getting caught or the lights coming back on. We were together over winter break and I remember he gave me a necklace, but it was backwards. It was a two-piece necklace with a heart and a key. He gave me the heart and kept the key. Poor clueless boys. Either way, I wore that heart proudly.

On New Year's Eve, Cleo, Jamie and I were at the house watching my niece, Erin. The grown ups were all out at a party, including Christian and Hank from next door. We laid Erin down for the night at around 8:30. We did what we always did and called boys, this time, I spent a lot of time on the phone with Mike. At the stroke of midnight, I told him I loved him. Did I love him? Not a chance. Did I feel like after a few months of dating that we should have been saying that to each other? Especially after he tried to give me the key to his heart. He returned the sentiment. Mike and I were still on the phone at 1:15 am when my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and Christian came boasting into the house drunk, except my Dad, who was the designated driver. "Mike, I gotta go..." I told him. "Ok. I love you, goodnight and Happy New Year's." he said. I smiled. "I love you too." Even though I was pretty sure I was just saying it, it felt good to have someone who wasn't my family say it to me.

Christian was standing in the doorway of the room watching me on the phone. "Love?" he barked. "You're what? Like 10? What the hell do you know about love?" Lee threw his arm sloppily around Christian's neck. "Ha! It's silly isn't it?" my brother said. "Let's go get more beer...." They left the house and everyone else went to bed, leaving Jamie, Cleo and I sitting around the old barrel table and chairs in our game room. For Christmas I'd gotten a CD player and three CDs plus I picked up a couple more at Sam Goodies during a trip to the mall to return things that didn't work out for Christmas. I got SWV, Eddie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and Tina Turner.

From the mall, I got Madonna's Take a Bow single, and my brother bought me Green Day, and Offspring. Cleo brought her CDs over as well and we took turns playing DJ on my CD player. Lee and Christian came in with a case of beer and a carton of cigarettes and joined our party. Still drunk and very beligerant, Lee handed me his lit cigarette. "Here... Try it..." I always looked up to my brother. Like he was the absolute coolest guy in the world and I just wanted him to think I was a little cool. So, I took the cigarette and took a drag. It tasted God awful. Then Scott handed me his beer. "Drink..." he said. I took a swig of his beer and that was even worse than the cigarette. Jamie and Cleo both declined the cigarette but took the beer when he offered it to them. Christian just kept staring me down. "So, you love this guy?" he slurred at me. "She doesn't know what that is yet..." My brother answered for me. Christian's eyes burned into mine. I didn't like him like this. He was mean. Every word he said dripped with hatred. A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts, I reminded myself. I couldn't handle how he was acting so I did my best to start acting tired and ready for bed. After about a half hour of stalling, they left our room and took their beer and cigarette party upstairs to the kitchen. It was a very long time until I saw Christian again after that.