helplessromanticist

I stared intently at the clock as the digital numbers counted upwards.  The time was 5:03 and it was just 12 minutes away from the time I was to pick up Emily for the Starbucks social we go to ever second and fourth Thursday.  All of a sudden, it hit me.  I really did want to kiss her last night.  What should I do? Should I make some lame, cheezy, romantic speech about how much of a fool I was for not planting my lips on hers as soon as I grabbed her right before taking her right there on the front porch?  Should I wait things out and see how the night progresses? So many different ideas shot through my mind that when I realized what was happening, it was already 5:18 and I was officially behind schedule.  I threw on my shoes and sprinted for the car, barely stopping to lock the door to my friend’s apartment behind me.  After getting caught in a bit of traffic and showing up almost 10 minutes late, I hopped out of the car, composed myself, and began my “cool” walk up to the front door.  Before I had a chance to go up the single step to the front door, it opened and I saw Emily’s smile for a brief second before she flung her arms around my neck and pulled me close.  With the added step, she was about my height.  As her head approached mine, I felt her plant a kiss on my cheek.  I reciprocated and held her tightly in my arms.  It was a little while before I saw her face again, but in time we pulled back and looked into each other’s smiling faces while simultaneously signing “how are you?” We giggled and I apologized and motioned for her to go first.
“How are you? How was your day?” She signed to me with one hand while digging her key out of her purse with the other.
“It was good… I didn’t really do anything, I got gas for the car and went to lunch with my friend… That was about it…” I slowly looked her up and down.  It was probably close to, if not over, 90 degrees outside and she had on long blue jeans and a red, button up, plaid shirt buttoned up half way with a black tank top underneath.  She was gorgeous, but I had to ask “It’s really warm out, are you sure you’re not overdressed…?”
She chuckled a bit and looked down at what she was wearing.  “No, I should be fine.  I get cold easily and it might get colder at night.”  She locked the door and hopped off the step to be right next to me.  I slipped my arm around her and I felt her hand slide around my side and then move up my back til it was right in the middle.  I pulled her closer into a sort of side hug as we walked to the car and she told me about her day.

We got in the car and it seemed that all the anxiety was gone, there was only Emily.  We chatted on the drive to Starbucks about family, preferred times of arrival (I apologized for being late, that’s how that conversation started), and other random topics.  Upon arriving at Starbucks, I thought back to all the times I saw her there and asked if she wanted something to drink only getting a “water’s fine” response.  In order to keep up “tradition” I asked her: “Do you want anything to drink?”
“Hmm… Get me the same thing you gave me last time.” She replied with a small smile.  The last time that I was there, I had ordered myself a Captain Crunch frappuchino and insisted she try it because it didn’t have any coffee in it (She doesn’t like coffee).  She surprised herself by liking it.
“Ok” I said with a beaming smile back at her.  “I’ll try something new for myself so you can try something new, ok?”
She beamed back at me.  “Sure!” She signed.  We poured over the secret menu I had saved in my phone and both decided that I should get the Cinnamon roll Frappuchino.  I ordered the drinks and handed her hers while also offering her a sip of mine (which she liked better).  We found seats next to each other and began chatting with the people around us and with each other.  Many times, the conversations with the other people would lull at the same time and we would fall back onto each other for amusement.  We joked back and forth and to me, the rest of the people started to sort of melt away.  As time went on, we were joined by my friend Colleen who had met Emily before and knew that we were dating.  Colleen had come over to us and began the basic chit chat and to my surprise, many times, Emily would finish sentences for me or answer questions for me (getting everything right, I might add) and I would do the same for her.
“You work at Cost Plus World Market right?” Colleen asked me.
As I began to sign “no” Emily answered in my stead.  “No, he works at _____.  He works mostly on the weekends and I work on weekdays.” She gave me a sympathetic look and put her hand on my leg.  I put my hand on hers and squeezed it a bit and smiled at her.  The rest of the conversation went a lot like that.  I would answer questions for Emily and she would answer questions for me.  It was quite endearing if you think about it.  As the night wore on, Emily would keep joking with me and putting her hand on my leg, causing me to hold onto her hand while we smiled at each other.  We wound up holding hands for the rest of the night while signing with our free hands.

We began chatting among ourselves and she had told me about a couple guys who had been stalking her at work.  I gallantly told her to point them out to me the next time she saw them if I was there.  She smiled at me and told me that she would.  She then asked about my grandfather who has been very ill as of late with just a few days to a couple weeks left to live.  I explained the story with my left hand while she took my right in both of hers.  I rubbed my thumb against her cold palms as I felt them warming up from my touch.  I would look her in the eyes and see a look of sadness and sympathy on her face.  I would often smile back and tell her that it was nothing to worry about yet and that I’m not too worried, just living day to day.  The conversation turned to the weather and the air conditioning being on full blast and how cold Emily was getting.  I told her to sit closer to me and instead she gave me a hug to see how warm I really was.  She was shocked at how warm she got from just a few seconds.  Throughout the night, the baristas would walk around and give us free samples of food and pastries and by the end of the event, each of us had eaten a sample of a random pastry, had a bag of their new “lemon loaf” and a cake pop.  As soon as Emily received her cake pop she got all excited because it was pink colored and she joked about how she planned to bring it to work and brag to everyone else who didn’t have one.  I endearingly looked at her and told her to take mine so she could brag more.  She smiled and insisted that she didn’t want it and of course I insisted right back that she take it.  Emily squeezed my hand a little bit an smiled at me, finally accepting my gift to her.  Soon after that, it was time to go.  We both stood up and I collected all the things on the table, leaving her hands free to sign and say bye to people while I did the same with my one free hand.  That is, when it wasn’t draped around Emily’s torso.  I went to hold the door open for her as I felt the blast of heat from the outside hit me.  Emily stepped out too, crossing her arms firmly across her chest in attempt to beat the cold.  I draped my arm around her as soon as she stepped outside and held her close, trying to warm her up faster.  We got back to the car and I set everything down and insisted again that she take the cake pop and that all the food was hers.
“Are you sure?” She asked me, pulling one of the cake pops wrapped neatly in a bag.  “It’s all pink and delicious looking… Are you suuuuure you don’t want to eat it?”  She had the goofiest smile on her face and was giggling through it.
“Yes.” I signed back with a smile.  “I’m sure.  It’s yours, bring it to work and show it off to everyone.”
Emily’s gaze softened along with her smile and she said “ok” putting the cake pop back in the center console with the rest of the food items.  I slowly stretched my arm out to pull her in closer to me and we came in for what looked like a hug, but as I felt her lips press against my cheek, I pulled back and she came into me and we were kissing.  I felt her soft lips against mine and her tongue flick against my own as we barely slowed down to breathe.  I felt her hands come up on the side of my neck, pulling my head towards her own.  While I had one arm around her, the other was holding the seatbelt which I quickly released to bring it around to hold her waist.  We kissed for what felt like blissful eternity until she pulled me closer to her, our cheeks moving past each other and I kissed her cheek down to her neck and collarbone where I gently kissed her over and over again, hearing her breathing heavily in my ear.  I moved her hair gently out of the way with one hand while I held her as close as I could with the other.  I kissed up her neck once more until I reached her cheek and was back again at her lips.  We kissed without pause nor second thought and our heads moved in perfect sync and nothing else seemed to matter except the two of us, right there, right then.  Every so often, she would pull me closer to her, begging me to kiss her neck again but I was gentle with it each time,  I didn’t want to be sending her home with any hickeys after all.  I don’t know how much time had passed, but eventually we stopped.  Both breathing heavily and smiling like idiots.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time…” I signed to her.
“Really?” She asked me, raising one eyebrow.  “How long?”
“Hmm…” I said, trying to think.  It was at this time that I realized that I was incapable of thought… I was surprised i was signing at all.  “I don’t know… just… a really long time.”  I reached out my arm to put my hand on her cheek and she pressed her cheek up against my hand and lightly kissed my palm.  I slowly stroked her cheek with my thumb and smiled at her.
“I wish you could just kiss me all night til I fall asleep.” She said to me slowly with a sly smile.
“I wish I could.  I don’t really want to go home anymore…” I told her.  I was planning on driving back home shortly after I dropped her off at home.  I pushed my hand back to hold the back of her neck and went back in for another few kisses before she said “We need to go.”  I agreed and we were off.  After we pulled out of the parking lot, I reached my right hand over and put it on top of her left and she intertwined her fingers with mine and held it tight, rubbing the top of my hand and my forearm with her right.

“I’ve never kissed a hearing boy before…” She told me with a small smile.
“Really?” I asked, receiving a small head shake in response.  “Well, how’d I do?”
Emily’s smile widened.  “Good.” She signed. I smiled back.  “Have you ever kissed another Deaf girl?” She asked me.
“No… Just you.” I said.  “I don’t have many opportunities to meet many Deaf girls.”
Emily simply said “oh” and her smile stayed and she kept rubbing my arm.  We chatted about past relationships and soon it became time to tell my story.  I paused for a while and Emily was afraid that she had offended me, offering that it was ok if I didn’t explain.  I assured her that I have no trouble talking about it, but it’s difficult to figure out where to begin.  I started at the end and told her my story, getting the same reactions that I got from everyone else who had ever heard it.  When Emily heard that Talitha was 19 as well, she asked me “Are you afraid that we would be similar since I’m 19 too?” With an added slight frown.
“No.” I said with a smile. “Definitely not.  She……”
“was screwed up?” Emily finished with a smile.
“Yes.” I said, grinning at her, “exactly.  You’re already 50 times better than she was.”  The next red light that we hit, she tugged at my arm til I was close enough for her to kiss and we made out until the light turned green.  Around this time, I thought I had gotten lost.  What had really happened was that I hadn’t gone far enough.  We drove around for about half an hour, finding time to steal kisses from each other at every red light until we found somewhere familiar to get us back.  The conversations didn’t stop though.
“Guess how long ago was the last time I kissed someone.” Emily requested.
“I don’t know… how long?” I asked.
“5 years.” She told me.
“Really?” I said incredulously.  “5 years? wow, that’s a long time…”
“What about you?” She asked.
“About nine months… Since I had broken up with my ex.”
“oh…” she said.  She began talking about a boy she dated for a couple months when she was 13 years old and it had taken her a whole year to get over him.  Apparently the guy was a bit of a player and it broke her heart and she left him.  I guess that bodes well for me.    I apologized profusely for making her so late and after many times saying “it’s fine, it’s fine” She threw me off by answering “It’s ok.  It gives me more time to make out with you.” I smiled at her and snuck in a kiss.  “Don’t worry about it, honey” She signed to me.  I looked at her adoringly.  Was she seriously giving me a cutesy nickname?  I honestly didn’t mind it though.  However, Honey is the name of her friend’s dog and of course I had to make a joke.
“Great,” I said.  “I have the same name as the dog…” I smiled at her as she laughed and pulled my arm towards her again for another kiss.

We drove and chatted until we finally arrived at her house.  I stole one last batch of kisses from Emily before she got out of the car, almost forgetting all the food she was given.  We waved bye to each other and I watched her slip into the house before backing down the drive.  I drove the rest of the way back to Chloe’s apartment slowly.  I couldn’t stop thinking about Emily and her kisses.  I wanted so bad to be able to keep her with me and kiss her all night long without falter.  I got back to Chloe’s place and began telling her about my amazing night while skipping over some minor details before I heard my ipod ding with a notification.

“I feel like I want to just kiss you forever…” Emily sent me with the obligatory “good night and sweet dreams.”
I smiled down at my ipod and Chloe immediately knew who it was as I typed out my response: “I miss you already… I wish I could just take you home with me and kiss you until we both fell asleep.  Good night beautiful.  Sweet dreams.” I added the romantically obligatory smile at the end and put down my ipod because I knew that my dear, sweet Emily was already asleep.

The drive home was a blur and all I remember doing was paying attention to the sparse red lights ahead of me and thinking about kissing Emily.  I remembered every detail precisely.  The way her skin smelled, the taste of her frapuchino on her breath, the coldness of her tongue against mine.  The smoothness of her skin under my fingers, the feeling of her cold little hands against my face as they got warmer with each passing second.  As I drove, I could almost feel the distance between us getting greater and greater to an almost unbearable level.  But I know that I will see her again soon.  I will do everything in my power that I can to make sure that I keep seeing this girl because for once in my life I’m getting the classic, movie-esque romance that I’ve always wanted.  I don’t think I’ve been this completely happy and content in a long time.

When I was with Talitha, everything just sort of happened.  I was never presented with the opportunity to nervously inquire for a date or going to see a movie where I furtively slip my arm around her shoulders, and when the time came for our first kiss, it was already practiced so many times secretly (and creepily, i might add) on her cheek that when the time came to move a couple inches to the left, it was no problem.  Tonight, however… Tonight was Emily’s and my second date.

“What time should I pick you up tomorrow?” As I typed the words into facebook chat, I could feel the butterflies starting to flutter and the anticipation building in my chest.  “Six is a good time…” I thought to myself.  The plan was: We were going to go see a movie together, “Now You See Me.” No further plans were made beyond the movie and I wasn’t sure if things would be allowed to progress further.  I anticipated a 6:00 pick up time because it seemed appropriate: I pick her up at 6, we get to the movies, find our seats, and wait for the film to begin at 6:30ish, get out by 8:30, have her home by 9.  The idealistic version of a succinct “movie date”.  I must reiterate that I had no idea where Emily and I stood on relationship grounds.  Just that I liked her a great deal more than I liked some other people, but love isn’t a one way street.  I patiently waited for her reply of when she wanted to be picked up.
“3:30?” she replied with a smile. I stared blankly at the screen for a few seconds registering what just happened.  This was a whole two and a half hours earlier than I had expected… whatever would we do…?!

“Ok!” I sent, with a smile of my own.  “I’ll see you tomorrow at 3:30!” We said our good nights and she logged off.  I was otherwise distracted for the rest of the evening to contemplate further on how the “hang out” was going to go.

The next morning, I woke up and continued with the business that I was doing the previous night until my mother excused me at 11.  Two hours earlier than I had planned.  I didn’t know what to do with myself for two hours, this was unheard of… I threw on my favorite pair of long, somewhat skinny jeans and tossed my overnight bag in the car.  I was on my way to see the most important girl in my life right now.  I drove for nearly two hours screaming songs that I had heard so many times before arriving finally in Sacramento.  I kicked around for my excess two hours at stores and my friend’s apartment, waiting patiently for 3:15 to come around so I could go pick Emily up.  Sure enough, the moment came and I sprang from the apartment and made it to my car in record time.  I pulled up to Emily’s house right as my clock  ticked over to 3:30.  I felt the butterflies and anticipation building in my stomach as I walked up the driveway to her door.  When I got there though, I stopped.  There were two doorbells.  I had never seen two doorbells before.  I eeny-meeny-miny-moe’d my way between the two, ultimately landing on the left one and I pressed it for a brief moment.  Did I need to press it multiple times to make the lights in her house flash or does it do that on its own? I didn’t hear a doorbell, does that one actually work? Why should it work? They’re deaf, it wouldn’t matter…  As the questions had just reached its peak in my head, I heard the barking of two dogs begin to approach the door.  Something must’ve attracted their attention.  I heard the bolt click in the door and it slowly opened, revealing Emily’s perfect features.
“Hi” I waved at her. She smiled back.  “I was confused by your doorbells…” I signed.
She laughed at me.  “One is for the hearing doorbell and the other is for a flashing light.”
“Oh…” I signed.  “I pressed the hearing one…”
She smiled at me.  “I know.  The dogs start barking and running around when they hear it.”
“Oh, so both work?” I signed with a smile with slight disbelief.
She laughed again and simply signed “yeah.”
The car ride to the theater was filled with conversation, as per the norm.  Talk about work, our days, what else we’d been up to and forgot to talk to each other about, etc.  We got to the theater and I bought the tickets with no objection from her, and dropped about a total of 9 dollars on videogame tokens.  She really wanted to play some videogames.  We chatted and played some games, she won most of them although I didn’t make it easy for her.  When it was time for the movie to start, we got her closed captioning device and made our way to the theater.  We chatted through a majority of the trailers and patiently waited for the film to start.  When it started, I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I wanted to wrap my arm around her, but I didn’t A) want to ruin our friendship in any way or B) Do something stupid and cheezy like yawn and put my arm around her.  I looked at her many times through the movie to check her body language and see if I could decipher what she wanted me to do… and ultimately failing.  She had the brilliant idea of putting the captioning device in a cup holder in the row in front of us and it didn’t get in either of our ways while we watched the movie.  About halfway through the movie, the captioning device began to fall and I went to try to fix it while moving it to another cup holder because there was someone sitting right next to it and I didn’t want to bother her.  In the process, I pushed some button and changed the captions for the movie and spent a few minutes trying to get it back.  Emily was sitting next to me laughing at me the whole time.  At one point, I could feel her rest her head against my arm as she watched me press buttons trying to bring the dialogue back.  I could feel her smile on my arm which, in turn, made me smile too.  After fixing the captions, I felt the AC really start to kick in and I believed it to be a sign of God.  I looked over at her and asked if she was cold.  She replied “A little”.  “Here” I signed, raising my arm up, allowing her to slide in next to me.
“You’re not cold?” She signed.
“No, I typically run a little warm.” I signed back with a small smile.
She smiled back.  “I see” She signed before snuggling closer into my side.  I wrapped my arm more tightly around her and began to move my thumb back and forth across her skin in an attempt to use the friction to warm her bare arms.  I could smell her scent mixed with the scent of her shampoo.  I couldn’t quite place the flavor, but I knew that I liked it.  At several points in the film, I felt her scoot closer to me and each time, I wrapped my arm around her a little bit tighter and I could hear a small, contented sigh escape her lips.

After the movie ended, she looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes and a smile that melted my heart and signed “Thank you for keeping me warm.”
“You’re welcome” I signed.  “Anytime.” I smiled back at her as she scooted her self up more in her seat and leaned her head against my shoulder.  I, in turn, leaned my head against hers and we sat like that for a while.  I could have sat like that forever, but I didn’t want her to get too bored.  “What do you want to do next?” I signed to her.
“We could play air hockey?” She said.
“Alright.  That sounds good to me.” I said with a small smile.  But we didn’t move.  We just sat there with her wrapped in my arms.  There wasn’t a thing in the world that could ruin that moment for me.  She looked up at me with her beautiful brown eyes again and I signed to her “Do you want to go?”
“Sure” She signed with a smile.  We both stood up and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and I felt her arm slip around my waist.  This was something totally foreign to me. Whenever I held Talitha, she would keep to herself and either cross her arms or keep her arms at her side.  Emily, however, was holding me as well.  I liked the feeling.  The butterflies in my stomach began to taper off and I was more calm now.  I felt confident and happy and… Peaceful.  We went out to the theater lobby and spent most of the time chatting.  I would look down at her under my right arm as she signed things to me and I would sign back using my left hand.  We wound up spending too much time chatting over the air hockey table that the time eventually ran out and we couldn’t play anymore.  She did beat me 4-1 though. While playing Air hockey, she told me about how her brother would win at everything and was very competitive.  I asked if her brother played Guitar Hero, which I am pretty good at myself.
“Yeah, he’s pretty good at it, we have it at home, I usually play the drums… So show me your skills!” She signed.
“Now?” I asked, glancing over at the Guitar Hero Arcade machine.
“Yeah, I showed you my driving skills and air hockey skills, so show me your guitar skills.” She encouraged me with a smile.
“Alright,” I chuckled.  The butterflies were coming back though.  The pressure was on and I had to impress her.  I selected one of the hardest (and one of my favorite songs) on expert, “Cliffs of Dover.”  The song started up and right before the first note hit the strike line, a gust of wind blew the scent of Emily’s hair at me and I almost completely lost my focus.  After missing the first  10 or 15 notes, I realized that I had to focus and buckled down, ultimately scoring the fifth highest score on the leader board.  Instead of putting my own, I typed in Emily’s name and told her that “If anyone asks, you can tell them now that you’re a guitar master.”  She protested a bit but ultimately accepted it and laughed as the countdown timer ticked to zero and nothing could be done.  I wrapped my arm around her once more and asked her what she wanted to do.  She slipped her arm around me again and looked thoughtfully at the various games before pointing at the pinball machines.  “Let’s go” I signed to her.  We each played a round of pinball which neither of us were very good at before realizing that we only had 3 coins left.  Emily pointed at Time Crisis 4.  I never even mentioned the game because I knew that it wasn’t her style.
“Are you sure you want to play this one?” I asked her with an incredulous look on my face.
“Sure.” She replied almost regretfully.
“I know that you don’t like shooting games and stuff…” I warned her.
“I’m sure you want to play it, so let’s play!” She said with a little excitement in her face.  We started the game and I explained how it works and we started.  She died very quickly though while I still had all 3 of my lives.  I finished off the level quickly and when we entered the second stage, I handed her the gun.
“You shoot, Ill do the rest.” I signed to her.  She gingerly took the plastic weapon from my hand and aimed it at the screen, resting her body against mine while I had my right foot on the pedal.  “Ready?” I signed receiving a nod in reply.  I stepped on the pedal and she began firing.  Each time I saw a red bullet headed our way or the reload banner across the screen, I ducked.  When I knew it was safe, I would pop back up and allow Emily to keep shooting.  She was doing a pretty good job too, I must say.  As she played, I used my right hand to steady my body as I slipped my left arm around her waist.  I felt her lean into me more and I could smell her shampoo again which made me smile.  Soon enough, we died and we were out of quarters.  We walked around the theater a bit more with just an hour left to spend with each other before she had to be home.  We wound up standing by a wall and chatting about nothing for a while.  She brought up how the changing of seasons tended to make her hands dry and uncomfortable and I asked her to show me.  She put up a pouty face and crossed her arms.
“Let me see!” I laughed. “They can’t be that bad.”
She smiled at me while trying to maintain her serious/pouting face.  I saw her fingers signing “no”.
I gave her my best “come on…” face and began tugging at her arm.  Ultimately she relented and I held her hand in mine.  “They feel fine… Hell, my hands are more dry than yours.” I signed to her with my right hand while my left hand held hers.  She squeezed my hand a little bit and I squeezed hers back.  I pulled her closer to me and she let go of my hand to wrap both her arms around me.  I wrapped my arms around her tightly and stuck my nose into her hair.  We held each other for at least a good minute before coming apart and deciding to sit down at some tables and continue talking.  Soon enough 8:50 came around and it was time to take her home.  We walked to the car with her under my arm while we chatted some more and drove back to her house without breaking a step.  When we got back to the car, I asked her when she wanted me to pick her up the next day for the starbucks social we planned on going to and she replied with “5:30”.  I smiled and said my “ok”s “good night”s and “sweet dreams”s before extending my arm out to pull her in for a hug.  As we got closer, I contemplated the kiss.  I really wanted it right then and there, but I faltered.  As our heads came closer together, I heard a familiar kissing sound and I felt her lips press against my cheek as it passed.  I turned my head quickly, somehow hoping to catch her lips again, but instead caught her cheek as well.  Every time I looked at Emily today, I just wanted to grab her and kiss her and never let her go, but each time, the confusion in my head and the butterflies in my stomach and the relentless pounding of my heart wouldn’t let me do so.  But here I was.  With the perfect opportunity and I missed… How did I miss? She got out of the car and we said our good nights again and waved at each other from opposite sides of the glass as though I was in prison.  As soon as she was out of sight, I reached my hand up and touched the spot where she kissed me.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, a mark? A remnant? A raised area? It was so gentle and so sweet of a kiss that I couldn’t help but pretend to freeze the moment in time as I sat in her driveway watching her walk inside.  I kept my fingers on that spot for a while as I backed out of the driveway and began driving away.  I didn’t want to let go of that spot as though I feared that if I did, the moment would stop being real.  I thought about what an idiot I was for not just kissing her on the lips like I had practiced so many times in my head.  Her lips felt so perfect on my cheek and I haven’t been this happy in a while.  I was elated, I just wanted to tell the world, but the world seems to frown on people who talk/text and drive.  I was making progress.  I finally know (approximately) where we stand.  I know what she feels like in my arms and I know that from what I can tell right now, she likes it there.  Today was a good day.

“Who is the first person you think of when you wake up in the morning?” Henry asked me over the phone.  I held the phone against my ear and I felt my demeanor change as confusion settled over my mind.  “Hello…?” He said.  
“Yeah… I’m still here… Hold on…” I said.  It was a valid question, often one that I would ask other people when they were in a similar conundrum to myself.  Who do I think about?  It’s not something that everyone asks themselves when they first wake up.  Hell, my first thought is “fuck… I’m awake…” I contemplated the question as my eyes flew around the room trying to imagine whose face I saw in the morning when I first realize consciousness.  
“I…” I began. “As horrible as it seems… I think…” I thought long and hard about what I was about to say because as much as I didn’t want it to be true, the more I realized that it probably was.  “It’s pretty shitty, believe me, I know…. But I honestly think that the first person I think about when I wake up, if anyone…. Is Talitha…” There was only silence on the other end of the line.  
“That’s not good.”
“I know…”
“That’s really not good, you remember how she fucked you over right?” 
“Yeah… Believe me, I remember better than anyone else…”
“Then why?” Henry asked.  Again, another valid question.  Why did I think about Talitha when I woke up in the morning?  Why did my thoughts drift to her face when lost in thoughts about the girl who had been absorbing all my focus as of late? 
“I think…” I began again.  “I think it’s my head trying to find the parallels between what I did wrong in that relationship and what I’m doing now with Emily… Like…” I paused, thinking. “Talitha kept saying that I never did anything wrong; and I sure as shit have no reason to believe that and so I’m left to decipher this all myself.  I don’t want to make the same mistakes as I did with Talitha with Emily.” I paused again, trying to make sense of everything on the fly.  “With Emily… I still don’t know if I…” Another pause. “I don’t know if I completely like her for her… you know?” 
“What do you mean?” 
“Well… For the first time in my life, I don’t have to hold back with signing.  I don’t know if I like Emily for Emily or if I appreciate that my preferred language can be conveyed uninhibited… At the same time, I know that Emily has to hold back and as fast as she goes and as much as I understand, I think she knows that I get lost in the translations sometimes.”
“Looking at the amount you talk about Emily, I think you like her for her.  You should be able to tell from how she looks at you, her facial expressions, and how she talks to you.”
“I can’t tell though.” I said. “I can’t just look at her and read her face.  When I’m in the thick of it, I am completely oblivious to everything she does.  It’s the same way I was with Talitha.  No matter how many times someone told me how bad she was or what she did that was bad, I couldn’t see it because I ‘loved her too much.’ And ASL utilizes a lot of facial expressions to convey thoughts and I can’t base my thoughts on those because the way I see it, they’re unreliable. No one else can assist me with what she’s saying because, not to be egotistical, I’m the best signer in my group of friends.”  Henry and my conversation droned on for a while and at the end of it, I still couldn’t figure out what my true feelings for Emily were.  I decided that I would tell her face to face the next time how I feel because I wanted to see her reaction.  I know, though, that no matter how many times I practice this confession; as soon as I see Emily, I won’t be able to get the words out.  

This morning I woke up in haste to get to my job, so girls didn’t even cross my mind.  While I drove though, all I could think about was my conversation with Henry and where I stood with Emily.  It was true that I missed her dearly and I wished that it was as easy to visit her as it was for me to visit Talitha, but it’s just one more wrench in the works for us.  I reanalyzed my relationship with Talitha and looked at how Fate seemed to be dropping hints left and right that she was not good for me.  I analyzed how I took every misgiving and turned it into a way to be with Talitha and forced the relationship to work out for better or for worse.  I looked at how my entire “relationship” with Talitha was completely man-made.  Concurrently, everything pushing me and Emily together has been a major move on Fate’s part.  I’ve gone over this all before, but what are the odds that Emily would sit right across from me on the train.  What are the odds that she would catch the same returning train that weekend? What are the odds that my friends would decide to go to the starbucks social the first week that I don’t see Emily on the train?  We had never gone to any sort of sign language social until that day.  So should I sit back and let Fate take the reigns?  I want so badly to play along, but what’s my role?  Where’s my script? I want the part so badly that I will do anything for it, but what’s the competition? Who do I have to sleep with to get the part? 

It’s getting late and I really want to wrap this up and go to bed, but this had to be a last minute vent that has been festering in my head for a night, searching out the right words to translate onto paper.  I know that there is more to this rant, but it shall be saved for another post, perhaps another “part 2.”  But we’ll see tomorrow night.  For now, I must remember to ask myself: Who am I thinking about when I first wake up in the morning?

The Monday before my trip to Sacramento, I had been talking to Antoinette and realized that I had no plans between the time I woke up and the time that I was to go to the social with Emily. I considered the possibilities and asked Antoinette what she was doing and she said that she was off work for the day and planned on seeing Star Trek if I was interested in joining her.  I said “sure” and we agreed to meet at 11 so we could play videogames before the Noon showing.

A couple days before that I was talking to Emily about my trip to Sacramento.  She knew that I had Wednesday off to go to the ice cream social and she knew that she was the reason I wanted to go so badly.  Upon looking at the calendar, I noticed that the starbucks social that we usually went to was happening the Thursday after the ice cream social and asked if Emily was going.  She said that she was and I asked:
“I have the option of staying in Sacramento Wednesday night and going to the social on Thursday… What do you think?”
Emily sent me a smiley face and said “Whatever works best for you, I guess…”
I laughed and sent back “Well, I guess I’ll go just to see you.  Unless that’s too much of me for two days…”
“Definitely not” Emily sent with a smile.
“It’s decided then.  I’ll stay in Sacramento Wednesday night just so I can see you again Thursday!” I sent her with a smile of my own.
“Ok!” She sent and the conversation changed topics.
This was how I decided to stay in Sacramento for two days.

Thursday morning, I was slightly awoken by Chloe getting ready to leave for her summer school class at 8.  I soon fell back asleep only to wake up on my own at 10:40 barely giving me enough time to shower and drive to the theater to meet Antoinette.  I checked my iPod for the time and realized I had another message from Emily waiting for me.  Emily had sent me another text thanking me for taking her to get mexican food as well.  I sent her a quick message saying that I was sorry if it was too spicy for her and how much of an idiot I was that I didn’t ask if she was ok with spicy foods or not.  I then quickly got into the shower, got dressed, and brushed my teeth before heading out to the car.  I made it to the theater at about 11:10, bought my ticket, and went inside to meet Antoinette.  Upon arriving, she said to me:
“Oh, I just sent you a message to your facebook telling you that I bought your ticket…”
“….Oh…..” I said unsure what to do.  It was clear that Antoinette was mistaking this for some sort of date.  “I’m sorry… The girl just ripped my ticket too… At least you can return it later though!”
“Yeah, alright.” She said, and we started playing videogames.  I played Time Crisis 4 and a little Guitar Hero arcade while she played some other games off to the side.  We went into the movie and I began to realize that she was one of those kinds of talkers.  I’m not a big fan of drawing attention to myself (Unless I’m signing with Emily) but while we were in the theater with only about 10 other people (at the most) Antoinette was talking kinda loud…  The movie started and she didn’t exactly talk through the whole thing, but she had made comments at certain scenes that made me think “she’s being kinda loud, if I didn’t know her, I might be a bit mad…” I didn’t want the movie to seem like a date so I made sure to keep my arms off the armrests and folded them neatly across my chest to avoid potential hand holding or skin touching to avoid confusion.  After the movie, we went back out to play more videogames.  This time we played a racing game, DDR, and some more Guitar Hero before deciding to leave.  We walked out to the parking lot and stood there talking about comic books and videogames and other nerdy things while I “decided where I wanted to eat.”  It was at this point that I realized that I hadn’t eaten since 5 when I was with Emily at the mexican restaurant.  I realized the stupidity of that move because I really didn’t want to go out to eat with Antoinette because that could easily be misconstrued as well.  I decided to suppress the hunger and press on, ultimately deciding to go to the discount movie store known as “Dimple Records.”  We bot got in our cars and agreed to meet there.  She pulled out before I did and was ahead of me the entire drive.  As I was driving, however, I saw her hand leaning out the window holding a cigarette.  This is not something that I found particularly attractive and as much as I don’t mind her smoking while we are friends, I definitely don’t want to be around it if we were to start anything.  In short, it was a bit of a turn off for me.  We arrived at dimple and got out of our cars and I could smell the faint scent of smoke clinging to her which made me wrinkle my nose.  I quickly looked away before she noticed though.  We browsed around the store for about an hour before I found a CD I wanted to get and she found a couple items she wanted as well.  We walked around and talked about nothing while shopping before I realized that it was 5 and I had to go pick Emily up.  I purchased my CD and Antoinette purchased hers and we headed out to our cars.  Before I left, Antoinette came in for a hug and held me tighter and longer that was really necessary.  When she was finished, she stood closer to me than I was really comfortable with and I kept talking as though she wasn’t.  I stuck to conversational pieces and went to open my new CD and sat on my driver’s seat as I talked to her to keep her at a distance.  Eventually, conversation began to die and she asked if I was going to be coming back to Sacramento again.
“Maybe…” I said, contemplating my next move.  “It depends on what I have going on, if there are any Deaf events or anything else I want to come up here for…”
“Yeah, just let me know if/when you come back!” She said “I’ll see if I can get some time off work and maybe go down and visit you too?”
I was taken aback by this and tried to think of a suave and polite way to say “no” but ultimately couldn’t and all I could muster was a “Yeah, I guess… Sure…” I stammered. “It’s kinda boring there though… We’ll see what happens…”
“Yeah, definitely” she said.  And that was it, I checked my ipod for the time and declared that I had to go pick up my friend.  I couldn’t bring myself to say that I liked Emily and that I was picking her up and was super excited about it because of how amazing she was and how beautiful she was.  I couldn’t even bring myself to say her name around her because I felt to fucking bad about making Antoinette feel bad.  With that, I got in my car, turned on some loud music, and tore out of the parking lot.

I arrived at Emily’s house 4 minutes after 5:30.  I would’ve been right on time if there hadn’t been road construction, but at least I made it.  I got out of my car and got halfway to the door before Emily came out.  I smiled at her and she smiled back.  I apologized for being late and explained that there was traffic.  She looked confused and said, “You’re not late… You have perfect timing!!” I smiled back and said “I still feel bad though…”  She replied with a gentle smile and a “don’t” before getting in the car.  I rolled the windows up and turned on the AC because I knew that was how she liked it, and we began the drive to Starbucks.  We chatted on the way and I got more practice signing and driving.  I’m getting pretty good at it too, if I do say so myself… We chatted more at Starbucks and were even joined by a few ASL students taking classes over the summer.  I spent some time interpreting for Emily and she rewarded me by assuring me that my skills were getting a lot better from when she first met me.  Over the course of the night, we were “joined” by three students, but most of the time Emily kept me all to herself.  Whenever there was a lull, I would move over to the students and ask them simple questions like “are you enjoying the class” or “who’s your teacher” or “why are you taking ASL” and they would answer the questions slowly, but more often than not, right when they were done, Emily would wave my attention back to her and strike up a new conversation too fast for the poor students to understand.  I would, unfortunately, get so caught up in her story and staring at her gorgeous face that I would begin to speed up as well, ultimately loosing the students in wonder at how we could sign so fast.  It got to the point where I think that the students forgot that I was hearing because they began talking about Emily and asking each other if she was Deaf or if she was a student or if she was still learning ASL.  Of course, I secretly told Emily every time someone had said something about her and this made her smile.  I told her that I didn’t want her to feel left out and that I wanted to make sure she knew if someone was gossiping about her.  One student at one point asked another if Emily and myself were dating and another replied that it looked like we were.  I considered the course of the night’s conversations and realized that Emily and I teased each other a lot and both of us made coy jokes that made the other smile or giggle a lot.  This made me feel good.  Perhaps I’m not the only one that believes that she’s into me.  This made me happy.  Eventually the students left, leaving myself and Emily to continue chatting in peace.  But sooner than I had hoped, 8:45 came and Emily asked me to take her home.  We left Starbucks, got in the car, and began driving home.  We kept talking but again, the strain was too great to pay attention to the road, translate what she was saying, think of clever responses, and make up new conversation topics.  The conversation dropped on my end many times and this brought the elation I had felt before down a few notches and despite my best efforts to drive slowly, we reached her house and she prepared to leave.
“I’ll see you in two weeks?” I asked her.
“Yes.” She said with a small smile.
“Do you want me to pick you up again?”
“Sure.” She smiled bigger.
“I have to work til 10 again for the next two nights… I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.” The smile faded and I put my arm out  for a hug.  She wrapped her arms around my neck and squeezed me a bit.  I felt her smooth cheek scrape against mine and smelled her hair for a bit before she pulled back and said “bye.”
“I’ll talk to you…. Later, I guess…” I said.
“Yeah.” She said smiling at me and waving.  I smiled and returned the wave and watched her go inside before backing my car out and heading back to Chloe’s one last time to grab my stuff.

Again, as I had done the night before I recounted the events of the evening to a suspicious Chloe and I decided to leave most of the thinking to myself and kept the details brief.  I hung out with Chloe long enough to allow her to take some of my music for her own and then packed up my car and left for home.  And now here I am; back in… “reality” I guess…Back to missing Emily.  I already have plans to return in two weeks for another Deaf social with Emily and for an officer’s meeting that I’m not particularly looking forward to, but that’s not a story for this blog.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been assigned to closing shifts ending at 10 at night therefore restricting me from talking to Emily.  By the time I get home, however, Antoinette is still up.  While I am never happy about having to go a day without at least saying a few words to Emily, I suppose talking to Antoinette satisfied me.  My last two days, however, were spent in Sacramento.  In case if this wasn’t already clear, both Emily and Antoinette live in Sacramento.

Two weeks ago, while talking to Emily about going to a Deaf social, I decided to ask her if she wanted to go to dinner with me before we went.  She replied with a “sure” and a smiley face.  I was ecstatic at the time and couldn’t stop telling people that I had a date with this beautiful, blonde, Deaf girl.  As time wore on, however, I became somewhat less enthused and a little bit more paranoid.  Questions popped up such as “is this really a date?” “what does she think this is going to be?” “Is she going to back out at the last minute?” those and more began circulating in my head to the point where I could barely keep track of the days. All those questions encompassed my head up until Tuesday night, the night before I was to leave.  I vented my problems to the friend I would be staying with, Chloe, and in her excitement for me decided that I should buy Emily flowers.  After much contemplation, I ultimately agreed.  Here’s how my Wednesday played out…

I left the house at 1 P.M. Wednesday afternoon and sped up to Sacramento in order to meet Emily at 4.  I stopped by a flower shop that was going out of business and had a sale on virtually everything and got a nice bouquet of flowers for 10 dollars.  I’m cheap, I know. I threw them in the car and proceeded over to Chloe’s place to drop my overnight bag off and wait until 4.  I brought in my bag, the flowers, and everything on my person.  When it came time for me to go, what did I forget? The flowers.  The flowers had stopped being meaningful in my head by the time I had come around to getting them.  Emily and I had agreed to meet in front of the mall where the social would be because, I assumed, either she didn’t want me knowing where she lived, or it was just too damn hard to give directions to.  Either way, I was going on a date with Emily.  By the time I was at the light to turn into the mall, I looked down to notice the flowers missing.  I swore out loud to myself and realized that it was far too late to turn around.  I found Emily and told her of my folly and asked if it would be alright if we went back to get the flowers.  She said that I was sweet to get her flowers and that I didn’t have to, but sure.  We drove back to Chloe’s place and I ran in for the flowers.  When I returned with them, she gave them a thoughtful look and said they were beautiful, but her face didn’t light up like Talitha’s did when I presented her with roses on valentine’s day.  I decided not to dwell too much on it though.  I apologized again for being so forgetful and asked if Emily was hungry.  “Not really” she said.  and I knew that this wasn’t going to go well.  I tried to keep the conversation going while I was driving and it was hard at first, but I soon got the hang of it.  The real problem, however, was that I was too nervous to think of good conversation topics while watching what she was talking about and keeping an eye on the road.  Emily and I got to the restaurant and we were signing to each other and she had told me that she didn’t go out to restaurants often and never knew what to get when she went there.  I tried to recommend things to her, but she didn’t understand what any of it was.  It didn’t help that I took her to a mexican restaurant.  Eventually she decided on something and upon looking around, was impressed and curious to see the various awards that the restaurant had received.  A trepidatious waitress came over to our table and was relieved when she realized I could talk.  I ordered first and the waitress took a glance at Emily and looked slowly back at me and slowly, almost awkwardly asked “And what will she be having…?” I interpreted for Emily and helped her order and the waitress said that she would be right back with the food.  Emily and I spent a good deal of time chatting back and forth about nothing in particular through when the food came.  I had also realized that I had no idea how to approach the eating portion of the “date”.  We were both signing so much that we didn’t really have time to reach down and begin eating.  Neither of us really touched our food until it had already become cold.  There were, however, many lulls in conversation where we were able to eat, but I wasn’t really getting the vibe that Emily was enjoying herself and I was feeling too paranoid about things going right that I was probably a big factor in that.  After two hours, we each got a box for our leftovers and got up to head to the social.  We talked more in the car and I noticed the curious looks from passing cars at the two strange people quickly motioning to each other.  Eventually we got to the Deaf social at the mall and we all instantly saw people we knew, we didn’t part ways though because luckily the people we knew were in the same general direction.  We chatted with the people we knew and then found our way back to each other in time and chatted a bit more.  Of course, I was there to promote the baseball game event that I had been organizing and when the time came to make the announcement, I was tapped to interpret.  I went over with the announcer who was signing to everyone and I did my very best to interpret while not being certified/qualified/experienced.  I looked over at Emily mid sentence and saw her and her beautiful smile looking at me.  I shrugged and signed “I’m trying to interpret… but I don’t think it’s working out for me…”  She giggled and smiled wider forcing me to smile back at her before looking back at the signer to continue my interpreting.  I couldn’t help looking back in Emily’s direction and watching the neon lights of the food court reflecting off her wavy blond hair and her perfect smile and brown eyes as I failed to interpret what was being signed.  I couldn’t help thinking how beautiful she looked from afar and realized that this must be how everyone else looks at her.  I realized in that moment that I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to talk to her every day and not be rejected at every turn.  After the interpreting was done, I made my way over to Emily and asked her “How’d I look?” She laughed and just said “fine.” I then brought her over to meet a friend of mine who had come to help us with the advertising of the baseball game.  When we got there, a friend of hers who was about 30 something was flirting with my friend.  Emily smiled when she saw this and nudged me to get my attention.
“He’s flirting with her.”  She said with a smile.
“Really?” I said with a small chuckle.  “Sadly for him, she’s married…”
“Really?” She said with a laugh and a little bit of a squeal of a surpressed laughter.  “He even flirts with me, whenever I get a message from him, I ignore it.”
I smiled at her, not sure what to say to it.  At that point, Anny, another friend of mine, began talking to us and introducing us to her roommate who was also taking ASL classes.  We chatted for a bit before Colleen, the friend I was introducing Emily to, joined us and introduced herself to Emily.  We stood around and talked for a while before commandeering a table and starting an ever expanding little group.  By the end of the night, there were about 15 people sitting and standing around our table wanting to meet all of us.  At 8:30, as per the norm, Emily got up to leave.  I walked her to my car and gave her my flowers and her food and gave her a hug and held her close for a while just to smell her hair and feel her in my arms.  It was so strange, she was so much smaller than Talitha was and it felt good… Right, almost. I let her go and told her to get home safe and she smiled and said “I will” before turning to walk to her bus stop.  I returned to the social and began talking to Colleen about my club events and what we had planned.  Colleen was interested in helping in whatever way she could, and so I was filling her in on all the details. Colleen and I even touched on the topic of coming to the events.
“I’m gonna tell you a secret, don’t tell Leah or Anny cuz they might get pissed…” I said with a giggle.  “I tell them I’m coming to support the baseball game, and I really do try to support it, I tell people about it, I’ll give people flyers and everything, but do you remember that girl you met earlier? Emily?” Colleen nodded.  “Well… We’ve kinda been dating and I really just come to see her.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet” Colleen said with a small smile. Colleen and I kept talking for about half an hour before I saw a hand waving at me to get my attention.  I looked over curiously and saw that it was Emily.
“What’s up?” I signed to her.  “Why are you still here, what happened to your bus?”
“Something happened to the bus and now the next one won’t get here until 9:45…” She said.
“Oh no! Do you want a ride home?” I asked, half expecting a no, I’m just going to wait for the next bus in order to prove my “she doesn’t want me to know where she lives” theory.
“If you don’t mind…” She said slowly and shyly.
“No no, I definitely don’t mind!” I said.  “Give me a second to say bye to everyone first though.”  I walked over to Anny who was still sitting with the big group of people and talked to her for a bit about club business and told her that I was leaving.  I then said bye to Colleen and told everyone I met that it was nice to meet them and that I would most likely see them at the next social.  With that, Emily and I made our way back to my car to get out my GPS and figure out where she lived.  Emily struggled with the GPS for a while before getting frustrated and telling me to do it, giving me the address written out on her phone.  I quickly punched in the address and we were off.  Though it was pretty dark, the lights on the street were plenty for me to see what she was saying.  She helped a little by voiceing a bit of what she was signing.  We found her house and I dropped her off asking her if she wanted me to pick her up the next night for the next social that we planned on going to together.  She said “sure” with a small smile.  We agreed on 5:30 because the social started at 6, I gave her another hug with the added “good night, sweet dreams” and a small wave before she got out of the car.  I moved my car slightly so I could see that she got into the house ok before pulling out and driving back to Chloe’s place.  Upon arriving at Chloe’s apartment, I received a notification on my iPod telling me that I had a message from Emily.  She had messaged me to say that she liked that I got her flowers and that I was really sweet for doing so.  I responded by saying that I was happy that she liked it and that I was excited to see her the following night.  After receiving no response, I figured Emily was asleep and I recounted, briefly, the events of the evening and my concerns and misgivings, asking Chloe for her feedback.  The feedback and recounting didn’t last long, as I didn’t really want to talk about it much anyways and the rest of the night was just hanging out.  I fell asleep around 2:30, to my dismay after I realized that I had made plans to meet with Antoinette the following morning at 11.  I’ll save that for Part 2 though.