Caught, eager, perfume

Something caught in my throat when the phone rang and I saw that it was him. I had asked him to call, I wanted to hear his voice again after all these years. I wanted a glimpse into that which I was so eager to leave behind.

"Hi," I said. He knew I would know it was him. Who doesn't have Caller ID these days?

"Hey, how are you?"

"I'm good - how are you?"

"Just fine, Shannon. I am so glad to hear your voice, and know that you are ok."

Am I ok? I wonder. I guess "OK" is relative. I am very ok in that I am healthy, stable, cared for, and have achieved many of the things I set out to achieve. I am not very ok in that I am a grown woman desperate to uncover her own past and figure out what is holding me back from doing that thing, those two things, that I most desperately want to do.

"Yeah, hey, I'm fine. Your text last night said you had a dream about me. What was that all about?"

Really, is there anything more delicious than a long-lost ex almost-lover, your first love, in fact, that randomly has a dream about you?

"Well, you were in a house, a 2 story house at the beach, and it had a lot of porches, and someone else was there, someone you didn't know, and, well, it was a bad situation and I was just really worried."

Huh.

"I was at the beach, and in a 2 story house with a lot of porches, but I knew everyone that was there. What a weird dream, and weird coincidence."

I wondered why he dreamt of me. Was he unhappy? Was his marriage stale and boring, his wife shrewish and demanding, his job unfulfilling and his youth wasted? Had he smelled my perfume on another woman, seen a woman who looked like the girl I had been might have grown into, and without even realizing it was happening, begun a process in his mind which ended in a danger dream about me, his very own first love?

He said he wanted to see me, have dinner, catch up.

I need that. There is a hole inside me, a void that opened up when I realized he was gone from me, when the I realized that the promises of a young man can't be depended on. Life changes too fast when you are young. There is too much out there to be felt, done, experienced, learned. How could I have placed so much of my trust in the words he said when he kissed me, the plans we made when he was trying to convince me to sleep with him? I was foolish, and young, and so ready to believe anything he told me. I loved him fully, with the fresh, naive heart of a young woman, in a way that I have never been able to love anyone else.

He taught me what love looked like, felt like, meant. He also taught me what it felt like to have my heart shattered into a million little pieces. It has been years, and my heart is still not the same. Somehow I think he holds the key, the key to this thing that thwarts my dreams. My questions need answers and my heart needs healing. I am not an overly dramatic person, but he shaped the way I see love, he set the standard for the love I need.

He was the first person to properly kiss me. I was 15. He was 16. It was a magic like no other. He was the first person to touch my breasts, to make my nipples harden. He was the first person to slide his hand under my skirt, into my panties, into me. He was the first person I said no to, the first person I could have, should have, but did not sleep with.

Dinner 17 years later doesn't seem like that big a deal, does it?