Cupid's Love Game

Cupid and I really haven’t been on speaking terms for several months. He had a blast directing my previous relationship- that ended abruptly after a year- and he still had fun draining the happiness from me on an emotional basis. From crazy incidents with my ex to being around guys who instantly fell for me, I got exhausted of blindly being a part of his love game. But alas, that accursed mythical being had one last trick up his sleeve. And that last resort was none other than Ian Alexander.

It was one fateful Thursday in late July when I got the call. I was so ecstatic to see the boy who was one grade my junior. (Soon to be college freshman excited over a senior in high school. I can already hear everyone I know calling yours truly a cougar.) With hours before his arrival, my inner girl took the reigns and prepared the sacred ritual. (Taming the mane, that’s all it is.) Afterwards I emerged into the hellish mess I called my bedroom with a huge crisis: WHAT DO I WEAR?

With diligent searching, ransacking, and kicking out little children, I found my outfit: white and black striped shirt that nearly covered my pair of short blue jean shorts and to top it all off, my pair of double-tongued Converse. For accessories, I rummaged through my giant box filled with bracelets, pulling two of my old favorites. With that out of the way, the only problem was the movie.

After seeing “Grown Ups 2” and “White House Down” with him and realizing that my crew wanted to see the latest “Wolverine” movie and “The Conjuring,” you can see why I was having some movie crisis. What makes it worse was the fact that my family wanted to see “Despicable Me 2.” Like I said before, my options were heavily limited.

It was exactly 7:42 when I got the call from him, signaling his arrival outside my house. With a bit of pep in my step, I bid my family good-bye, stepping out of my small brick house and into the giant black Suburban that glistened in the setting sunlight. From beyond the black tinted windows was the guy I enjoyed spending time with, along with the all-welcoming breeze of air conditioning and the cool feel of leather seating.

He’s a fair-skinned boy with wispy brown hair that draped his face, revealing an amazing pair of light blue eyes underneath. He wore a green Chicago shirt and beige cargo shorts. “My lady,” he said with a ridiculously funny chivalrous tone. I replied with a chuckle, “Hey,” and off we went to the Palace Cinema.

Ten minutes of normal conversation, texting, and navigation lead us to the Palace Cinema on Old Summer Rd. It’s parking lot was as a lonely one: with a couple of cars parked here and there. We were parked next to a maroon minivan, hopped out of the massive vehicle, went past the monkey statue, inside the theatre and up to the ticket booth.

He pointed at a TV screen showing movie playtimes. “Do you know what movie you want to see tonight?” I took one glance at it and my indecisiveness took hold like a cowboy riding a furious bull. I looked at “Despicable Me 2” and opted not to.  I did the same thing with “The Conjuring,” speaking to myself for a few minutes about why I can’t see each film.

“You’re so indecisive,” Ian interrupted my self-conversation. I chuckled and looked at the matinee behind the glass window. I jokingly told her, “Do you mind if I punch him in the face?”

“Oh no,” she laughed looking down, “I didn’t see anything, but the camera might.” With that I pretended to punch him in the face, laughing as he blocked, holding my loosely clenched fist back. Ian finally decided to pick the movie and chose “R.I.P.D.” in 3D. I was glad to finally have a movie picked out, but there was one problem: the movie didn’t start until 9:15. That meant we had over an hour to kill.

After we climbed back into his giant Suburban, we both had no idea of what to do. So we decided to talk. For over an hour we spoke about all kinds of things: him easily figuring out the other girls in his grade, him not being able to fully figure me out, how awesome my shoes were, Music Fest, my first thought of him, and whether or not if I was ready for college. Along with these random topics, we poked each other. (I somehow managed to wind up on his side of the car with my left side being jabbed by the middle compartment.) With five minutes until the movie were to begin, both of us managed to be half-in, half-out of our sides of the Suburban. So we went back inside and claimed our tickets.

He asked me if I wanted something from the concession stand and I immediately wanted three Nerds Rope. Unfortunately, that was six dollars in total, so I got one. I used it as a whip (that was hilarious) and we both began to tell and show each other ways to kill someone. (Learned quite a lot.) Time was winding down and we both went into theatre six for our evening entertainment.

Luckily for the both of us, we were the only two in there, so we could do pretty much ANYTHING. So we did what any normal teenagers would do: we sat right above the tunnel where people would come in, poked each other, fought over his awesome whistle bracelet (you’ll never guess who won), somebody got viciously tickled (I earned some bruises that night), to talking about his lizard, debated whether or not a fire breathing dragon or a water lizard would be a better pet (I still say dragon), and to top it all off, he tried to steal my shoes. (Why steal a girl’s shoe? He wanted to tickle my feet.)

 The lights dimmed above as the air suddenly began to get cooler. The speakers thundered with the bass of the film and the revival of color for the ginormous screen. So we put on our 3-D glasses (I looked really special with two pairs of glasses on.) It was the beginning of the film and the end of our shenanigans. (Or so I thought.)

I munched on my delicious cavity-inducing treat as Ryan Reynolds and his love interest of the film appeared on screen. My mind lost focus so I dangled the piece of crunchy deliciousness near Ian’s face, motioning him if he wanted a piece of it as I glanced back at the screen. It was nearing the part where Ryan was supposed to die when out of the corner of my eye, I see Ian grab my wrist and lead it towards his mouth, nibbling on the candy and my finger. I glanced at him funny and went back to the film. Focus reestablished.

Okay, so I really wasn’t all that focused. After seeing Ryan getting pulled into heaven, something possessed me to just poke Ian in the side. And as soon as my right index jabbed him, war broke out. It was a barrage of fingers flying through the movie-lit theatre. Our weapons of flesh and bone (mine came equipped with fingernails) connected at various points: his sides, my sides and worst of all, my neck. The war wasn’t waged for too long when Ian’s great plan of retaliation came to fruition as he gripped BOTH my tiny wrists. With that I was defenseless, becoming nothing more than a mere model to be posed. My arms were thrown into the air and he waved them like I just don’t care. The war came to a peaceful resolution when we hugged. (He made me hug him.)

Something managed to just click, but I don’t know what. We pulled apart and for some ungodly reason we paused midway. It felt surreal; like being plunged into some form of a romantic comedy Cupid was directing. We locked eyes, looked down, smirked- all of it being perfectly played out as he intended.

As I sit here typing away on this keyboard, I could keep going with that wonderful night but that moment then was what really stuck with me the most. I was happy being several inches away from his face- better yet, being that close to a guy who made feel like that.  And with every time I get close to Ian- I not only get that immediate surge of happiness from that night- but the laughter of that annoying little Greek creature who’s already scripting my future with him.