from my closet and
smelling it just to remind myself that last night wasn't just
a dream. I guess it still smells like you. Kind of. That sweater
- my favorite one, black with lace in the back, an adjustable 3/4
sleeve length, and a bit of a ruffle on the bottom - classy - was
laying in a little ball in my bed last night. I'd say that I
slept with it, except that I didn't really sleep much. I went
to bed at 12 AM or so and woke up an hour later, not to fall back
asleep again until 6 AM. I wasn't even tired, I don't
think. I was just kind of laying there, with headphones in my
ears, trying to comprehend what had happened, whether or not it
was really real... was it real? It was real. Or at least it felt
like it was. Dr. Seuss once said
that when you can't sleep, it's because reality is
finally better than your dreams. And I couldn't sleep.
I just couldn't sleep. So I just kind of laid there for a few
hours. Kind of kept trying to recreate in my head what had
happened, tried to remind myself that it was really real. At 2:30
AM one of my friends messaged me on Facebook, and as it turned
out she was just as awake as I was, so I called her. And I told
her everything.
I told her about how I walked into the crowded theater lobby with
another one of our friends, stuck thinking, "This is it,
this is really it, this is going to be it." The moment I had
thought about vaguely for about two months now and in greater
detail for the past two weeks. It was planned. Kind of. Except
that I couldn't have even imagined it being as great as it
was. But anyway, my friend and I had been wandering around the
lobby, waiting for someone... and of course my friend, being at
least 4 inches taller than me and wearing wedge sandals on top of
that, saw him first. I was in the middle of talking to her and
then she just told me, "Look." And I looked. And he was
there. My friend prodded me - "Go say hi!" - and I told
her, "I know, I will, just let's wait a bit." So we
waited, and as we waited we slowly made our way through the
crowd, and over the course of a few minutes the crowd got a bit
smaller, and smaller, and smaller... and then, I called his name.
And he looked. And I ran over to him, and he held me, and it was
beautiful. He held me for a long time. I don't know how long
of a time it was. Maybe ten seconds, maybe a minute, but it was a
long time, and it was beautiful. We hadn't seen each other in
two months. Actually, this was only the second time we had seen
each other, altogether. In the interim we had been living off of
half-hearted text messages and Facebook chats. I've only had
a few words on a screen to read into. I've only had a
Facebook profile to look at. There had been glitches and
misunderstandings because technology is weird and really
can't be everything. But this - this was everything.
We just put our arms around each other and held on tight. In
between this we talked a bit, though I can only vaguely
paraphrase what we said - I mentioned something about how the
backflips he did in the show were really cool, and I think he
said something about being glad that I was there, or reassured me
that he was here, or something... and I asked if I'd get to
see him again after that night, and he said that I will. For two
months I had been living off of dimly-lit screens in the dark,
and here I was actually hearing his voice again. And
then he started rubbing my back and just somehow reassuring me
that everything was going to be okay, it was all going to be
okay, we were going to be okay. And at the point where we were
about to let go, almost, we both just ended up holding each other
even tighter. I was just glad that he was there. He was actually
there. He was glad that I was actually there. We were happy. And
this was everything. And everything was beautiful.
Eventually we did let go, and I introduced him to my friend, and
he gave her a quick hug - but nothing like the one we had just
shared. And later, when she and I were outside waiting for her
parents to pick us up, she reminded me: "He gave me a normal
hug, but what he gave you... that was a special hug. That
definitely meant something." It wasn't as if I
didn't know - she just wanted to remind me of the fact. She
wanted me to believe that he cared. I wanted to believe that,
too, and yeah, I guess I do. Kind of. He is an actor, after all.
And I guess you could give a hug and on the outside make it look
like it was really special, even if it wasn't. That's one
thing. But you can't give a hug like that and fake it
actually meaning something... he and I both knew it meant
something. It had to have meant something. It couldn't have
just been nothing. That wasn't nothing.
That was everything.
And it legitimately was a dream come true.
2 faves · Feb 9, 2013 10:48pm