Love Can Tame A Beast

Old Friends and New Lovers

Taylor and I have now been hanging out for a month, and I only realized I had feelings about 2 weeks ago. I called Benson and told him I needed him to come over right away. "I'll be right over." I heard the knock on my door and ran down the stairs and pulled him inside. "Tonight's the night, I'm gonna tell Taylor how I feel" I said to him in excitement. I have never been the dress to impress kind of person, I've never had a reason to impress anyone, but I guess this is just another one of the many effects she has on me. "All these dresses are so obsolete, you can not wear these. I think we need to go shopping!" Benson said with much enthusiasm in his voice. I asked my mom for some money and she handed me $50 for a new dress and some food, and with that Benson and I were on our way to Stow Creek Mall. We walked around for two hours and nothing seemed to interest me. Then we passed a window and something caught my eye. We walked into the archaic store so I could get a full view. The beautiful pastel pink, teacup length dress was just what I was looking for. I got my size and paid.

We had $20 left for food so we got some Chinese food, but as we were eating I started to get an ambiguous feeling. I started to wonder if confessing my feelings was a good idea. I started to fidget with my napkin disintegrating it into my palm. "What's wrong"..."Desiray?"..."Hello Earth to Desiray." I looked up and noticed that Benson was trying to get my attention. "I don't know what's going on with me, my heart is racing, my hands are trembling, am I dying!" Benson snickered, "Were you thinking of Taylor?" I shook my head no, only to hear him snicker again. "Don't even try to lie to me, I've known you for 9 years, plus you get so impaired everytime you think of her." I started to relax and then the thought started to go wild in my head, "what if she doesn't like me?, What if this whole time she's only been nice to me because she's my mentor?" "I seriously doubt it, I see the way you look at her, and the way she looks at you." Whenever Benson tells me it will all be okay I can do nothing but agree with him. I smiled in gratitude as we got up to head back to my house so we could start getting me ready to make the biggest leap in any relationship I've ever had.

While waiting for Taylor I started to feel rather famine, then I saw the glare of headlights through my bedroom window. I turned around in excitement to see that Benson had abscond from my house, "Oh well I'll just call him later." As I headed down the stairs the doorbell rang, "I'll get it mom." I slowly opened the door and there she was looking like an angel sent from above standing under my porch light. She was wearing a black mini skirt with a white blouse, and a coif sitting on top of her head of loose curls. I yelled goodbye to my mom and we left. The walk was rather quiet until Taylor broke the silence, "you look beautiful Desiray." At that moment I was glad it was dark out so she couldn't see the redness in my cheeks. When we got to the restaurant we took our seats in the back with bolster cushions.

"I'm glad you agreed to go out with me tonight" I said to her, scared to make too much eye contact. "Is everything okay?" she asked me. I looked up from my menu and into her eyes, "yes, but I do need to tell you something" I took a deep breath . Taylor I..." I was midway through my sentence when I was cut off by our waitress. She was looking at her notepad when she asked for our orders, the question caught me off guard when I heard her voice. As I looked up I knew tonight's events were about to take a turn. The waitress and I stared at each other for a moment when Taylor broke the silence. "Desiray, are you alright?" I shook my head yes in response. "Well, well, well if it isn't Desiray Grant herself. Are you going to be rude or are you going to introduce me to your little friend" the waitress said, I stayed silent.

"Hi I'm Margot" she introduced herself, "I'm old friends with Desiray." "We are not friends" I finally said. I looked at Taylor with an apologetic look. "Does she know?" Margot asked. "Does she know the real Desiray, the one that was in juvie for seven months. The one that used to sell drugs, the one that I got to know quite well as my roommate for five of those seven months." She was cut off before she could say anything else. Taylor looked at me with a warm smile as she reached out for my hand. "Do you wanna get out of here?" she asked me with the same sweet voice she always has. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze and stood up. I looked at Margot, took a deep breath, and said "I am not going to waste my time on you, not tonight" in a calm voice. After that Taylor and I left.

We walked up to Crofton Park and sat on the benches. She must have seen the sorrow in my eyes because before I could say anything she told me everything would be okay. "You don't need to apologize to me or explain yourself. I know you aren't that girl anymore, you're something so much better" she told me without breaking eye contact. That was the moment I knew I loved her. I loved this girl and I was not going to mess this up. "Taylor I need to tell you something, the reason I really wanted to have dinner with you" I pause for a moment. "Taylor I..." I couldn't finish what I was going to say because I was interrupted by Taylors lips that were now gently pressed against my own. After a few seconds we pulled apart with my eyes still closed, scared to open my eyes, scared to see that I was imagining all of this. I finally opened my eyes to see Taylor sitting there biting her lip and looking down at the ground. Then something caught my eye, and it must've caught hers as well because she looked up from the ground as a beautiful shooting star soared across the night sky. "Make a wish Desiray" Taylor said, still looking at the sky. I grabbed her hand and she looked at me with that angelic smile of hers, "I already have everything I could wish for."

As I walked home it started to snow, but inside my heart was beaming like a ray of sunshine. I have never felt this way before, sure I've kissed people before, but this time was different. This time it meant something to me, it wasn't just some random girl I met at a party who was too drunk to remember it the next morning. When I reached my house Benson was sitting on my porch swing next to a plate of my moms famous Mississippi Mud brownies. The smile stayed on my face as I grabbed a brownie and took a seat next to the boy who was wrapped in a blanket, rocking slightly on the swing. "Tell me everything", he said before I could even take a bite of my dessert. I told him everything with the smile never leaving my face. He was shocked when he heard me bring up Margot, but even more so went I told him about the kiss.

Benson ended up spending the night because it was too late for him to walk home and it was snowing too heavily to drive. We talked about the events that took place earlier that night multiple times, we stayed up all night talking, eating popcorn, and watching a movie about a zombie and human falling in love called Warm Bodies. I guess you could say I almost feel like that's how my relationship with Taylor is. Nobody would expect us to end up together, but when we are together it makes perfect sense to us. The next morning I woke up to see Benson was no longer in my room. I turned my clock and it read 1:27 pm, "I slept in so late!" I hate sleeping in, it seems like such a waste of a day that who knows could be the best day ever, although I don't know if anything could top off last night. My thoughts are interrupted when I hear laughter from outside. I look out my window to see Benson and Taylor building a snowman in my front yard.

I quickly got dressed and grabbed my winter boots from my closest, when I opened the front door I was greeted by a snowball that hit me right on my lower right calve. The snow storm passed and left us with a beautifully thick blanket of white powder. I laughed and picked up snow to strike Benson back, but when I looked up he was nowhere to be seen. The next thing I knew I was flying face first into the snow. Benson was next to me turning a bright red from laughter. Taylor walked over to us to help me up, and embraced me with a hug, and kissed me. The kind of kiss that made everything feel warm inside despite the frigid wind blowing in the air. Then and there it felt like we were the only two people, as the sun hit her eyes just right, and the snow sat on her long eyelashes. I knew from here on everything was going to be okay as long as Taylor was by my side.

THE END