Three Months/ Our First Kiss

Today marks three months since Blake's death. How does that make me feel? Confused. When I was on the phone with his mom earlier tonight I told her it seems like I haven't seen Blake in so long, but the pain makes it feel like it happened just yesterday. On one hand it's getting harder and harder to remember him exactly as he was, but on the other hand I still live with the constant memory of him. It's difficult to wrap my mind around the amount of time that's passed because time doesn't seem to follow logical rules. His death seems so long ago, yet so current.

I wanted to make a conscious effort tonight to acknowledge three months by focusing on only the happiness Blake brought me. Since it's getting easier to push past the pain and smile, I thought I'd celebrate that. I looked through pictures and I couldn't help but laugh at some of the goofy ones we took. I picked out some of my favorites and put them together in a collage.

Going through all of the fun memories and reminiscing made me think back to how it all began. A month ago I started writing a post about our first kiss, but was unable to finish it because of my preoccupation with thinking about his addiction. Tonight, I want to honor his memory (and celebrate the progress I've made) by finishing the story:

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There's always that moment. Either you look back on it and realize its significance in hindsight or it's so special you know right in the instant it’s happening. For me, it was the latter. After a week of endless texting, meeting up, dates, and getting to know each other, Blake finally kissed me. Our first kiss was that moment.

The night we re-met, I spent the majority of the time with Blake and a group of his best friends. He was the one I knew the least out of all of them, but I always thought he was really handsome. When I asked if anyone needed a ride home from the bar, Blake and one friend took my offer. He fought to get the passenger seat and insisted his friend's house was closer and he should be dropped off first.  When Blake and I discussed this night later on, I explained how I thought he was setting this up so he could try to kiss me. 

But he didn't. Instead, he gave me an innocent hug and said goodnight. I shrugged it off as him not being interested in me after all. Even though he asked for my phone number, I assumed it was because we got along well and he wanted to be friends.

However, only a couple minutes after I dropped him off he sent me a text that said: "Maybe I was a wuss because I did not say it to your face, but I didn’t want to be a creep! But you are extremely beautiful! Thank u for the ride! I really do appreciate it!" From that point on we had a continuous conversation via text message and over the phone for the rest of the week. 

A few days later we went on a date to the Suns game and even went to a movie after because we didn't want the night to end. Yet when he dropped me off at my house, he gave me a tight hug, but no kiss. I was confused. Why was this guy who had been talking to me NON STOP for the past four days not trying to kiss me? Was I just making it up in my head that we were interested in each other? 

The night before I had to fly back to California, Blake invited me over to watch a movie. I was already out with high school friends from my grade, so I didn't know if I wanted to leave. One of my friends recognized Blake's name popping up on my phone throughout the night and called me out on it. What's going on between you two? I don't know?... I really didn't.

When I finally got in my car and had to make the choice to drive home or see Blake, I was conflicted. It was getting late and him asking me to come to his house after a night out seemed a little sketchy to me. I directly questioned his motives and he snapped back at me. He defended himself and said he had behaved like nothing less than a gentleman to me and it was insulting that I even thought that. He said if I remembered correctly, he had been waiting for me to come over since the very beginning of the night and it was me that was pushing it back later and later. He said he would really like me to come over, but only if that was what I wanted. He wasn't going to try to convince me, it was my choice and I needed to make it; the way I had been stringing him along was unfair.

Damn.

I sat in my car in shock for a few minutes. Who was Blake Norvell anyway? I thought I had him pegged as this handsome, popular guy who knew he could get whatever he wanted. I liked the idea of hanging out with him and getting to know him, but up until that point I wasn't convinced we actually matched well. But the way he handled himself in that moment caught me off guard in a powerful way. He was totally right about everything he said. 

I was expecting him to be just like every other guy when clearly he wasn't like anyone else I've ever met. I had such a fixed notion about how he was going to treat me that I blocked myself from seeing that everything he did refuted that. In that moment I felt a mix of things. Embarrassed for the assumptions I made, but also in awe of how he called them to my attention in a way that resonated with me. No one ever had that effect on me before. I swallowed my pride, admitted I was wrong, and started driving to his house.

He had this big 3D TV that he just bought that he wanted to show me. He started talking all about it and how he set it up and a million other geeky things I didn't understand. I never knew he was so intelligent. But how would I have known? I never gave him the opportunity to show me that side of him. So I listened as he explained about his days in middle school as a hacker and the e-commerce business he was starting to get off the ground. He was so much more than I initially thought he was. I watched his eyes light up as he started explaining his plans for the future and that made mine light up too.

After I noticed what time it was, I was afraid I would fall asleep on my drive home. He offered to walk me out to my car. As we hugged goodbye the embrace lingered, neither of us wanted to let go. He asked if it was ok to kiss me. I laughed. Little did he know I had been waiting for that kiss all week. But in the end I was grateful he waited because then I actually knew who I was kissing. Who was Blake Norvell? Not only handsome, popular, and confident, but more importantly for me, a guy I genuinely liked and saw as my match.

That defining moment I talked about before? That kiss was it. It was so special and we both knew it in the very instant it was happening. I knew he was going to be the man to challenge me and he knew I was the woman who was going to ground him. And we both knew we were about to bring each other so much happiness. I'm not sure how a kiss can tell you that much, but it really did. 
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