2004-10-28 - 10:58 a.m.
the explanation
it all started in june, june of this year. my friend michelle and i were walking around the grounds of my church convention one rainy friday evening. we must have been in a rush; as we were dodging around the groups of those huddled close to each other avoiding the downpour.
he stopped me, a nineteen-year-old i would later know as troy _______. he was beautiful, of middle eastern decent, and had these huge brown eyes that just melted me. he stretched his arm out towards me, held out his hand, and confidently spoke, "i'm troy. what's your name?" *no one had ever done this before.
i meekly mumbled out, "megan" and tried to scurry off. too soon to make a break, his friend asked, "what was her name?", i quickly turned, spoke out "megan" with a little more voice and then hurried off.
that night in the tent where michelle and i camped out in, i couldn't stop thinking about troy. i thought about his huge beautiful eyes, the reason why he stopped me, and things i just shouldn't mention. i was immediatly captivated, completely stunned by him.
the next few days i spent in amazement as i randomly caught this barely-known stranger starring at me from the distance as i took walks with kids other kids my age, held my blind and elderly friend, bernice, and played with a little girl named addrielle. *i was happier beyond belief
but he was wearing sunglasses, and i convinced myself, he was starring at something, or someone else behind me. even when my friend lindsey told me she had seen him "check me out", i reminded her he was wearing shades and very easily could have been looking at something else at our confusion.
"i'm not that pretty, what could he see in me anyway?" i thought to myself.
the last day of my church convention, i felt i had to speak to troy because it could have been my last chance to see him. this boy that amazed me, i couldn't let go of him so easily.
i walked up to him while he was standing in a group of his friends. as soon as he spotted me he held out his arm to me again and excitedly called out, "megan", i grabbed his outstretched hand and gleefully reciprocated his name back to him. "troy!"
before he could say anything else, i asked, "can i kidnap you?" he said yes, and told his friends, "i'm being kidnapped."
as we started to walk, i must have been strucken sick because i immediatly began to vomit out words. the first thing i said was, "i've been working up the courage for the past three days just to talk to you."
"me, i'm not that cool, i'm pretty lame actually."
this boy is so humble, i thought to myself.
i can't continue the rest of this, because it is honestly driving me nuts to replay our conversation even in my mind. i'm so caught up in this boy, it's incredible. i'm going crazy just thinking about this day. to make a long story short, i really believe he liked me before i spoke to him. he kept cute little notes about me, such as where i sat and who i was sitting with. he even tried to convince me to come to the get-together after the convention. no one else had worked so hard to get me to go to anything. he was also very curious about me and my life. i was taken by amazement. he also asked of me to go to the convention near portland, which i promised him i would.
throughout our conversation, i discovered we had several things in common. things that probably no one else in the world does except us. he brought me to the cafeteria to eat, introduced me to all of his friends as "[his] friend megan", and told me to meet up with him after i had finished eating. (i left him to eat with my family only because i was too intimidated to eat with him and his friends. i know, silly.)
by the end of the night, he had given me his email address. at that moment, i really believed we could have started something, anything, i didn't care.
as soon as i got home, i wrote him an email hoping for him to respond. i checked my e-mail every day, sometimes even several times a day for two months.
nothing.
these two months drove me crazy. i decided i had to forget about this boy. i changed my email address in attempt to forget about him but it didn't help that my new password was his name.
another month had passed and it was late august. a couple of my friends and i decided to go to another church convention in northern washington, past seattle. the whole way there i thought of how wierd it would be if i saw troy there.
i tried to think of every logical reason there was on why he wouldn't be there such as the distance from portland to seattle, school starting soon, and even avoiding the chance of seeing me again.
nine hours from boise we had started to unload our bags and meet up with familiar faces from home. one of these people was a boy named derek...and derek, unfortuneatly happened to be standing next to troy.
the boy i had been pining over constantly for the past three months previous to this incident was still, strikingly as beautiful and perfect as i had first seen him to be. the only difference was he had grown a goatee.
i was so embarrassed of seeing him, assuming he had neglected to write me back for any specific reason, i walked right past him without even making eye contact. i wished we had never met at this point.
the next day he had shaved his goatee. i don't know why though.
the days continued, we had seen each other from the distance, we had walked past each other frequently, and we were even conversing in a group of friends only to exclude each other.
"he hates me," i thought to myself somewhere after getting lost on the spokane exit on the way back home.
two weeks later i was in a car again, this time travelling four-hundred miles away from home to portland, oregon the city troy lives in. it was the church convention he had invited me to three months back. the plans to go were also made three months back. i was stuck now.
we arrived on friday night. on saturday morning i was relieved i hadn't seen troy or had been seen by him yet. however, as i was walking into the meeting tent alone, in my white, black, and blue canvas halter dress, i had spotted a stranger from the distance in a white, black and blue canvas overshirt, black pants, and blue undershirt observing me as i walked in. "how odd," i thought to myself.
later that day, i met up with my friend, michelle who had flown in two nights before. she had this marvellous idea to talk to troy about plans to get to the airport after the convention (he had arranged for his friends to pick her up when she flew in). i agreed to walk with her to troy, except that when we got to him, she didn't even talk to him, but rather, left me as she walked off. "thanks shell," i muttered as both he and i watched her as she wandered off into the distance.
i was now standing in front of the boy i had been pining over for the last quarter-of-a-year. this time, i could not look into the eyes i had fell so deeply for before, or even look at him. the silence was killing me. when he finally spoke to me, i looked up, from the ground to his face, black pants; white, black and blue top.
"how are you?" he asked, voice cold, face, expressionless.
i wanted to run away at that moment.
his eyes were starring into mine. empty and bored. as soon as i replied back, we fell into another awkward silence. this continued on no matter who started to converse. in attempt to break the awkwardness between us, i decided to start acting "cutesy" hoping the mood would change.
i started to wrinkle my nose and tossle my hair and make soft "arrr" sounds. he would respond with a stiffled half-grin every few moments and muttered out "you're crazy" while failing to conceal the biggest smile i've ever seen.
then i playfully arped out, "thanks for not writing me back jerkface!"
"i did," he scourned as tension pressed upon his eyebrows.
"oh, i guess i should have checked my email before i said that."
"i guess so." he muttered as informed me it was time to leave for the next meeting.
it was three o'clock in the morning on a monday night when i had finally arrived back at my computer desk from portland. in my trash folder, i searched through four-hundred emails, not expecting to find the one i did from troy _______. embarrassed, i wrote him two emails back. one casually stating it was nice to see him again, and the other, a three page apology telling him how much he astounded me. he never received the latter. that's alright though.
we know write. sometimes it takes him two weeks to respond. i still check my email every day. i haven't seen him face-to-face since this, but i still hope, that maybe...
i can tell you about the drugs and all the trouble i've gotten into and all, but i think the only thing really important is that...
sometimes i immagine his smile as i go to bed. i have been blessed to have the opportunity to bring a smile to his face. a smile that i will probably never know the true meaning of. i can only dream.
maybe, someday, this hubris tale of romantic tragedy will succumb. maybe someday this story will be told with flutes of champagne and the decor of white elegance. maybe my bridesmaid will say, "i've never seen more of a perfect. story-book ending than this. even cinderalla wasn't as charmed."
but i have to stop dreaming. i have six years of college ahead of me, and several stops along the way. but even in the midst of it all, i cannot only think upon the chemical formulates of pain killers alone.