Than to Have Never Loved at All

He was Thoughtful

My feelings about the One-Acts were a clustered mess. I wanted to write them, but I didn't want to. It was probably because the prompt still sucked, but I had a weird hope that maybe if I tweaked it just right...

What I really wanted was to write it with Nat. Working with Keegan was hard. He couldn't read my mind like Nat could, he thought in colors and idea instead of concrete thoughts and he was no good at dialog which was one of Nat's strengths. He listened well at least, even though I didn't have much to say.

What he brought to the table was a vision for a queer story, even if it changed every time we met. By our third meeting I'd coached Keegan through the general beats of a story and was just waiting for him to put something on paper. We need characters and motivation, and any kind of dialog whatsoever. We pulled at our hair and ate through plates of fries at a local diner.

We didn't really need a clear beginning and an end, we needed the emotion that would drive a character forward.

I certainly didn't have it, and I was starting to wonder if Keegan didn't have it either.

We talked a lot about love stories and Finn and Clinton. Keegan knew Finn from AP bio, and I was dating Clinton.

A week ago, I couldn't have told you what a couple was, but now I had to be an expert. Clinton and I were a capital C Couple. We held hands in the hallway, and we went to the movies on Thursdays. I kept notes in my phone to reference for future One-Act writing, and also to keep track of all the thing I needed to do in a relationship.

I had to remind myself to walk to class with Clinton, to sit with him at lunch, and to hold his hand often enough to make our relationship seem real. More importantly, I had to remember to text him when my default setting was to text Finn and Nat or not text anyone at all. He texted a lot. I spent dinners trying to think of something to send him, because that's what I was supposed to do. Other couples spent hours texting, so I should.

Clinton sent me sweet texts between almost every class and, when he had service at his home in the middle of nowhere, texts all evening.

Luckily, I had help in Lei, who cooed over the sweet texts and told me what to send back. She was sometimes right. Generally, I was confused, but that was what dating was, so I tried to remember to write him back, and spontaneously say sweet things. I googled a list of cutesy names. He didn't like honey, bear, or pumpkin. Neither did I.

And he was thoughtful. God Clinton was thoughtful. On our one week anniversary he got me a box of my favorite snack crackers and a bouquet of flowers. On our second official date, he let me pay for a shared dessert. He was sweet but actively didn't treat me like property, or something that needed to be protected. I was starting to think that by complete accident I had ended up with the best possible boyfriend.

Of course, the regularly scheduled program of my life wasn't completely upended by having a boyfriend. Every Tuesday I would meet up with the Alternative Dance Committee at the library. Other days I spent time with Lei, and tried to FaceTime Nat, though her answered calls were getting fewer and farther between. I did homework with Finn on Saturdays and tried to reel in his spiraling depression. He and his mom were toying with the possibility of upping his Zoloft again. The winter creeping in wasn't helping.

Which made it harder that three weeks into my relationship with Clinton, my time spent hanging out with Finn was starting to dwindle. We didn't walk to every class together anymore, and I rode home from school with Clinton, which meant I missed afternoon bus rides with him. It had never occurred to me how much time went into a romantic relationship and how much time I spent with Finn without really thinking about it. He was like a having a third arm. Sure, Nat ditched us whenever she fell in love with the flavor of the week, but because there were three of us there was always someone to hang out with. Finn and I had been together forever.