Memoirs of a Late Bloomer

Do you remember your first crush?

Mine was named James. Or at least that’s what I told the other girls when we were huddled around the lunch table. They’d giggle and pass judgment. Usually they’d say something like “ew” or “oh my god, he’s so hot.” It was always one or the other and never somewhere in between. 

James was a blonde boy with chapped lips and freckled cheeks. He sat behind me in Latin class and sometimes he poked me on the back when he needed to borrow a pencil. He was nice…I guess. But he wasn’t my crush. 

I didn’t understand what that was, if I’m being honest. I would see my friends draw hearts in their notebooks and marry their first name with a boy’s last. Why? As far as I could tell, boys were loud and always smelled like they just left gym class.

At fourteen, this became white noise in the background of my life. Boys, boys boys. It was a constant hum that I noticed in the books I read, songs I heard, and conversations I had. I found that if I gave a random name the girls were usually sated enough to move onto their own tales. 

Further questions made me anxious. I didn’t need them to learn that I was as familiar with boys as fish are with land. And then one day…it happened. I was labeled that dreaded word. 

Virgin. 

You see, they knew I had no idea what I was talking about. Turns out boys don’t say “milady” or “wench” like they do in Lord of the Rings. As soul crushing as that revelation was, the term ‘virgin’ felt even more heartrending. They said it like a curse, like I was a failure. I felt like I should pack my things and leave town, but that required money and I wouldn’t start my first job until the summer. 

They also weren’t wrong. I was a virgin. And that was bad? 

***

What about your prom? Do you remember?

The ego of a seventeen year old is more fragile than a bubble close to bursting. I was no exception. I still remember the buzz in the air and the chatter at lockers. Prom proposals were a spectacle I couldn’t escape. 

I wasn’t jealous of the girls that were asked. Not exactly. I wanted to be normal. I wanted to care and I knew it should bother me that I didn’t. I was jealous that they seemed to understand the role they were meant to play. 

The earliest prom-posal I witnessed was a whole six months before the actual dance. Tom Larizzo lathered Katie Hutchinson’s car with sticky notes that all read the same thing: “PROM?” She said yes. I remember wondering how long it would take to remove all of the notes from her car. 

Fast forward two weeks before prom and no one had asked me. My first reaction was prideful anger, but it was swiftly replaced with relief. I wouldn’t have to trade in my sweatpants and hoodie for a dress. 

***

Do you remember your first date? 

I went to the movies with a man named Patrick when I was twenty-one. We saw the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie and he tried to ‘comfort me’ when Jack Sparrow was injured. His hand was slick with sweat as it gripped my shoulder and he had a mole on his nose that reminded me of a beetle in the low light of the theater. It moved closer to me as his head dipped. 

“Excuse me, I have to use the restroom,” I said in a panicked whisper. I didn’t, of course, but who can enjoy Jack Sparrow with a head blocking the view? I escaped to the entrance ramp and remained in the shadows until the credits rolled. Then I dodged Patrick and headed for my car, thoroughly disappointed with the film. 

***

I was twenty-six when I met Marcus. Oh, Marcus. We were in the same graduate program for writing. During one specific workshop he shared an original poem about a paperclip to a perplexed classroom. The professor explained that the required assignment had been to write about the political climate from the point of view of God. 

Marcus shrugged and smiled. He said he didn’t pay attention to politics because the whole thing confused him. The professor sighed and urged him to adhere to the next assignment’s guidelines. 

The desks were placed in a perfect circle and Marcus was directly opposite me on the other side. I caught him staring during another student’s presentation. My heart fluttered. The sensation jolted me and my foot hit the bottom of my desk. The noise garnered the attention of the students around me and I felt my cheeks warm. 

When I looked up again Marcus was fixated on the student still reading, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips. 

We continued like this for a startling number of weeks. Marcus would greet me on the stairs leading up to the classroom. Sometimes he would compliment my work, other times he would just smile. I would choke on my tongue and often managed a jerky nod. 

My hands became sweatier than Patrick’s when Marcus looked at me and my brain sent my body conflicting messages. 

Run away! Touch his cheek! See if he’s looking! Duck below the desk! 

This was the new ceaseless cacophony in my ears. It was like the dial of a radio had been turned and suddenly I was hearing everything clearly. Was this what everyone else heard?

I cornered Marcus on the last day of the workshop. He’d paused in the quad outside to tie his shoe when I stepped in front of him. His mop of brown curls shifted back as he peered up. The same brown colored eyes met mine. 

“Hi,” He said.

“Hi,” I replied. 

He remained on one knee. His shoelaces frozen in bunny ear loops waiting to circle the tree. 

“Would you want–”

“I think you’re really–”

“Oh sorry, you go first,” I said. 

He smiled, “That’s okay. What were you saying?”

“Would you want to go on a date with me?” 

“When?”

I hadn’t thought that far ahead. 

“Tonight?” He asked.

“Tonight?” I echoed. 

He nodded and stood slowly, dropping his shoelaces without tying them. 

“Tonight sounds great,” I smiled. 

Marcus’s skin was the color of caramel and he had dimples that my fingers itched to touch. We stood so closely that his chin nearly met the top of my head. 

I wondered what his last name was. 

***

Do you remember the last time you were happy? 

My best friend is named Abby and she has three kids and a pomeranian. She warned me not to get serious with Marcus. 

Her trepidation is inspired by her ex-husband, Stewart, who took the house and furniture when they divorced last May. 

Abby was a grade below me in highschool. She’d married her sweetheart at eighteen and promptly took up smoking. No correlation, she once asserted. 

“Men are liars and the best thing you’ve ever done was avoid them.”

“I never avoided them.”

“Oh, Please! You avoid them like the plague. We’ve had bets going for years that you’re gay.”

“I’m not gay.” 

“Sure. Look, all I’m saying is to take things slow, babe. When I met Stewart I thought that was it for me and look at how that turned out.” She said this as she folded laundry on her kitchen table. It folded out from the wall and cut her studio apartment space like a scythe.

When I left later that night, with two fresh nips on my hand from the Pomeranian, I thought about Marcus. 

Had he ever heard the white noise? Did he notice the world around him or only when it was pointed out?