Who do I trust

The date

The inside of the car smelled like heaven on earth and it looked clean like it's owner, I initially looked back when we got in the minivan and the backseat on the right hand side had his laptop bag and an assignment on top of it, a math book and a calculator well stacked on each other, "Sorry for the mess, I was doing my assignment here while waiting for you to show up in the bus stop" Christian said with a smile, in the meantime a pop song was playing in a soft tune in his car, "That's not a mess at all, everything is well packed, you're neat" I responded trying to flirt with him, but the car was clearly clean, my flirting efforts were going to waste, I was pouring water on the back of a duck, "tell me you are joking" Christian said while giving out a friendly laughter, "Well, let's get going before the traffic catches up with us" he continued on as we got out of the institution and drove down Avenue road, we made conversation getting to know each other along the way until we reached some Italian restaurant, "Here we are" Christian said as he parked the car in the almost packed parking lot, we were lucky the parking space left was close to the entrance, otherwise we would have had to circle around the lot looking for a space. We got out of the car and Christian asked "Have you ever been in an Italian restaurant?", "Now to think of it, I have never been in one, mom and dad love Chinese food so we always order in or go out on dinner when dad is around" I responded, "wow I was starting to open up more, I must really like this guy" I said to myself, "If the parking lot is this full, the food must be mouth watering" I said rhetorically as we got into the restaurant and were immediately attended by a waitress and designated a table on the far corner that was meant for two people "This is my favourite restaurant, I'm always here you know" said Christian as he picked up the menu, "You don't say" I responded trying to make him talk more about himself, "i usually order number 4 as a starter, let's order it, trust me if you don't like it, you might as well bail out from this date" Christian said in a charming but persuasive manner, "okay, let me take you up on your offer, plus I wanted an excuse to bail out" I responded and we both laughed out the joke, we ordered, ate, conversed and found out that we had so much in common except for the Information Systems module, the food was really good, Christian wasn't lying about it, reading novels was mentioned in our conversation and we both were deeply into reading, Christian had this idea after eating to go to a library around the complex to finishing up the date.

We didn't even finish our food, I love food and felt bad for not finishing it, but it is not lady like to finish all the food you are given...wait we didn't even eat our dessert.

Christian grabbed me by my wrist in a non-aggressive manner but in a romantic sense like I usually see it in the movies, "let's head to the library right now, they close up around 5p.m." said Christian as he gave me a warm smile and looked at me with cute puppy eyes behind those eye glasses, it was already 4p.m. at the time so we left our meal charge on the bill as we raced out "I can race you to the car" I said to Christian, I don't even know where that came from and as soon as I said that Christian started racing to the car in the parking lot, "You are cheating, we haven't even started yet" I shouted as Christian looked back and replied "Let's see if you can catch me" I ran as fast as I could but to be honest I didn't stand any chance with someone who had a head start, he was leaning on the car as I came in running "guess I beat you to it" he said while giggling. "Well, you cheated" I replied as I was gasping and trying to catch my breath, "Get in the car, I have some water " said Christian as we both got into the car and he gave me a bottle of water to quench, "Off we go" he said as we headed to the library that was only a block away, we conversed about our favourite authors and book genres that we love, Christian was more into science fiction as he mentioned a lot of works by Rick Riordan and J.K Rowling but I was more into poetry and loved the work by Seamus Heaney, Rudy Francisco and Rupi kaur. We had the same interest in the philosopher 'Karl Marx', it was a 5 minutes drive to the library and we made it there by 16:34, and went to the dark romance novel section where we sat facing opposite to each other on the reading desks, we conversed about relationships, why people fall in and out of love. Christian was the most smooth guy I ever met, he was able to make me open up and give meaningful compliments, we were reprimanded countless number of times for noise making as we would giggle and fall in each other's sweet words, "We are about to close" said the library attended as it was now 16:58, Christian stood up and walked up to me and said "come here" I got closer to him and he kissed me in a way I have never been kissed before, to be honest...that was my first kiss, I have never been kissed before, but if you asked me, his lips felt like a pillowcase on my face when I'm feeling sleepy, they felt like a drop of water after 3 days walking in a desert without liquid, they felt like the sharp but tranquil sensation of warm waters when taking a shower, I will never forget that day.

We started exchanging texts every day and night, It felt like teenage love fever, Christian was my first boyfriend and I would see him everyday at campus, we had morning dates where we went to the nearest Stabucks to purchase coffee, I swear the workers there already knew us by names, in lunch we would eat my lunch box with snacks that Christian would come along with, we sat under this tree behind the library where I was seated the day we went to our first date and drown in each others words and eyes, I swear we could spend eternity in each others presence.

We even started sitting closer to each other in the Information Systems class, I even knew all his friends after he had introduced me, there was John who was the most talkative on the group, Jason, Peter and William.

I even got to meet Christian's friends companions who all were here studying on the same campus as us, before that I had started reading up articles and watching YouTube channels on how to move from being an introvert into making friends and being an interesting person to be around, since I had started dating Christian I knew I would meet a lot of people in his circle, so I had to be able to effectively communicate with them and create friends.

We usually went out as a group on Fridays after a long week of studying to the nearest dance club and cool off, Peter and his girlfriend weren't around on those endeavours most of the time because Peter used to help his father out on the weekends in connection to the family business, so he had to be up and sober to do that, I think I was the only one in the group who hardly touched alcohol and everyone accepted that and despite not touching alcohol and getting intoxicated I still managed to have fun most of the time.

I got to become close friends with Sarah and Olivia, we had so much in common, we all loved reading, poetry and movies.

We would hangout on Saturdays after the long Friday nights to socialize without the boys around, mom and dad were so happy that I had made friends and stopped staying indoors, to think of it the only close friend I ever had was Jessica, they were glad that I was out and seeing the world but they always wanted me to be safe at all times, they didn't know about Christian yet but they had their suspicions that I am dating some boy from school, we started dating around July and now it was approaching the December holidays and I thought I should introduce Christian to my parents when they are both around, so I prepared myself on how I was going to deliver the news to my parents when I was alone in my room, "mom, dad, this is Christian my boy-...this is too formal" I said to myself as I saw looking at my reflection on the mirror practicing what I was going to say to mom and dad, I learnt this technique back in high school when I had to do an oral presentation so I thought it would work now. "Okay" I said while sighing and took a deep breath after "Mom and dad, I have developed into a young woman now as you both can see and I have not only developed physically but also emotionally and mentally, with that being said I would love for you to meet the boy who has my heart, I would love you both to meet Christian, he is my boyfriend" as soon as I finished saying that I had someone giggling behind me and clapping their hands, when I turned back it was mom leaning to my door as she said "Well, that's how I wish I told my parents about my first boyfriend, of course they wouldn't hear it so I didn't tell them until my brother did, tell me about this Christian my baby" as she walked in and I was still stunned that she heard me, she was holding a laundry basket, I guess she came to my room to collect my laundry but overheard me and decided to eavesdrop, well...I was pretty close to my mom since childhood so I could literally tell her anything but I had never before told her about boys, she sat on my bed and gently tapped it twice as a friendly gesture, "come sit here with me" she said with a smile "oh, I see...is this how you made new friends? Is it because of Christian?" She said in an inquisitive tone, I approached my bed with glee, my heart pounding with happiness and my mouth was full of words, I started babbling non-stop about how much of a good guy Christian really is and how our first date was, mom was happy for me and liked Christian from what I was telling her. "So you want to invite Christian over for the Christmas Eve dinner to meet us?" Mom said with a smile "Yes mom, please talk to dad for me" I responded with my puppy eyes, mom laughed it off and said "I will talk to him, in the meantime clean up your room" as she took my laundry and went out, I was so excited that I jumped up and down on my bed and texted Christian 'You might be eating dinner with me and my family on Christmas Eve' and I also told Sarah and Olivia about what had just happened over text...all I had to do now was to wait for dad to come back home and wait for mom to ask him.