I stood outside Adam’s apartment building and waited, my body shivering in the cold. In my hands, I held what I hoped would convince him to let me sleep over: champagne, champagne flutes, and Godiva chocolates.
I took a deep breath and let it out, watching the air puff up, and soon fade away. I stepped inside, and saw a tall man with huge muscles standing outside the door next to his. I quickly walked over to his door, hoping he would open up. Please let me in. I thought.
The second I knocked, he opened the door. “Hey. Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, his arm making an archway between the doorway and the door. “Come on in.”
To get in, I had to squeeze my short self under his arm which caused me to be extremely close to him. My cheeks blazed with fire despite the bone-chilling weather.
I was deeply in love with this boy. That was all there was to it, on my part anyway. He, however, didn’t seem interested. I believed that the guy should make the first move, and we had known each other for years, and no move had been made.
I was laying the bags on the table, just as he shut the door and walked over to me. Before I could even get the bags untangled from my fingers, he was pulling the champagne out of the bag.
“Whoa, thanks Ella,” he said while looking up from the bottle, giving me a smile.
“No problem,” I replied. “Actually, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Ask it,” he said without looking up from the flute he was filling. When he got done pouring the champagne, he took a sip, and walked over to me. He looked up at me, fully attentive, and I wondered why I ever doubted he would let me stay over. Why I ever doubted he would let me in, even.
“Would you mind if I slept over tonight?” I asked. “I was going to go with Shane to his New Year’s Eve party, but we broke up. Leah is back at my dorm with her boyfriend, or I would go there. I really don’t know of anywhere else to go, or I wouldn’t trouble you—“ He laid his index finger to my lips and brought his face ending my rant-like apology and also sending a chill down my spine.
“Trouble me?” he questioned. “Ella, you are not a trouble, but the complete opposite,” he reassured me. Then, he smiled one of his classic “you-are-so-ridiculous” kind of smile that always made my heart flutter and my cheeks catch fire. It was then that I knew; I knew, that he knew. He knew I liked-- no loved-- him. He knew that all I fainted on the inside every time he shot me one of those adorable looks. And all he was doing about it was making me faint all the more so by casting the glances more often, just taunting me.
He poured me a glass of champagne and led me into his living room where Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve was on. He sat the flutes down on the coffee table beside the couch. He had a blanket that he clearly planned to lie down under and some pillows strewn out across the couch.
“You can go up to my room and get some pajamas,” he suggested.
“Oh, okay, “ I replied. I trudged up the stairs, feeling extremely nervous. I had never been in his room before. I anticipated a clean and orderly place that would put me to shame. I pictured his many accomplishments on the wall, just mocking my inferiority to him. But what I found was completely different.
He had a bulletin board full of pictures of him and his friends. There was dirty laundry on the floor, and his bed wasn’t made. A quick peek in his closet revealed that he didn’t organize his clothes either. He was normal, just like me. One day, I was going to have to quit thinking so much of him and so little of myself.
After searching through his dressers, I found a loose T-shirt and some flannel bottoms. I put them on, and studied myself in the mirror. I looked, in a word: ridiculous.
As I was leaving his bedroom, I noticed a picture of us on his bulletin board. He was standing really close to the camera, laughing, probably at something he just did. In the background, you could see me. Small, unnoticed, easy-to-please, blue-eyed, black-haired me. I was smiling, though not at the camera, but at him. I realized that this was the epitome of our friendship. Adam was out there, enjoying being the center of attention while I was in the background. The silent supporter. The silent lover.
“How do I look?” I asked upon reentering the living room.
“Beautiful,” he said. He had fixed me up a little spot on the couch in between him and the arm rest.
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for this. All of it,” I said as I walked over to my designated spot. It wasn’t as close as I would’ve liked, but it would do.
“No problem,” he said.
For what seemed like hours, we talked about everything, from finals to holidays to family. I kept getting wrapped up in the conversation that I would've forgotten that I was actually there if it weren't for the occasional loud commercials and the crashes heard from next door. Suddenly, we came upon the inevitable topic of Shane.
“So, why did you two break up?” he nonchalantly asked.
“Because he wanted to see somebody else,” I tried to reply in a tone that mimicked his. Talking about relationships with him made me really uncomfortable.
“What about you? Did you want to see somebody else?” he asked as he turned to look at me.
Yeah, I did. Actually I want to see you. I want to date you and hug you and kiss you and have you. “No,” I lied.
To get the spotlight off of me, I decided to ask him about who he wanted to date. “How about you? You got any girls that you like?”
Just like in middle school, he replied, “Yeah, but I can’t tell you.”
“Oh, just tell me. Maybe I could hook you two up.” Aha. Saying this should totally show him that I’m not really interested, so that he can quit teasing me with his smiles.
“Nah,” he blushed. The most perfect guy in the world is embarrassed! AH! “I don’t know if she feels the same way.”
“Well you know us girls. We tell each other everything. Maybe I’ve heard something,” I prodded.
“Nope.”
“How about you describe her to me, and I’ll guess,” I suggested.
“Ok,” he turned to face me. I pulled my legs up on the couch and sat Indian style facing him also. “She lives in your dorm.”
I thought of all the girls in my small dorm of Reilly House. “Ok.”
He leaned closer to me. It was me he liked. No, it couldn’t be. I hoped it was though.
He leaned even closer. Now, I could smell his cologne. I could smell his breath. I wondered quickly what he smelled of me.
He took my head in his hands and grabbed my hair. “She has the darkest hair I’ve ever seen.”
As he came closer still, he tucked the leg closest to me up under his body. He stared into my eyes with an intense expression. “She has the most beautiful ice blue eyes.”
That was when my heart stopped beating. I could feel it, inside my ribcage, still there, but lifeless. It stopped beating. My lungs stopped contracting, too. I couldn’t breathe. Yet, here I was, with the most amazing guy in the world about to kiss me, and I was still alive. Amazing.
And finally, the moment I had been waiting for, he kissed me. I was suddenly in a daze. So what if my heart stopped beating? So what if I wasn’t breathing? I didn’t notice. I was just enjoying the moment.
He pulled away, and I was about to try and formulate a response that would make him kiss me some more, when I heard a loud knock on the door.
