Just Spit it Out

I remember the first time I saw Damien. He was playing basketball with some friends. I actually didn't really know him then. He was a friend of the boyfriend of a really good friend's sister. He was pretty decent at basketball I guess, but my attentions were focused on another guy, Jordan.

Jordan was all a girl could dream of. He was tall, at least six feet, maybe even six-foot-one, and strong, incredibly so. With bright blue eyes, and brown curly hair, he was the epitome of perfection. I had had a crush on him for four years, and we had known each other since we were quite small.

I guess you could say we had grown up together. We were part of the same homeschool group, and even though I usually went to a different church on Sunday mornings, I was able to spend around three hours with Jordan each Sunday night.

If this were one of those teen movies, the two of us would be in a real school, with him being a secretly nerdy jock, and me being a geek. He'd be popular, and I wouldn't be, so in his world, I wouldn't exist. Of course, that would all change the day we played some sport like gaga ball or dodgeball in gym, and he'd FINALLY notice me, and we'd get together... and then of course, I'd have some sort of altercation with his former Barbie girlfriend, but then we'd live happily ever after.

It sounds simple, and in a way, you wish life would be like that, until you realize that there's no substance in that, and it would be absolutely pointless.

Our history was nothing like a teen movie. We talked, joked, laughed, and picked on each other to no end. As we grew older, and I turned seventeen, I believed I was in love with him, and I hoped that soon he would tell me he was in love with me too, or at least that he liked me. We had spent so much time together. He had done things for me that I had never seen him do for anyone else. I thought for sure he had to like me, and, keeping with the choice I made when I was five (that a boy had to tell me he liked me first), I never said a word to him about it, or his four siblings.

Everyone at church said we liked each other. Whenever they ran into our parents, it was apparently a topic of conversation. I waited and waited, but he never did say anything, and then I moved away.

It wasn't that far, nothing like across country. I actually didn't even move out of the state. I only moved about an hour and half or so away, but that distance was enough. I couldn't drive yet, and neither could he, and he wasn't much for texting, so I barely talked to him at all.

That summer, I left for a Christian camp. Not the kind where you spend a week simply learning Bible stories and having competitions, like they are badly portrayed in movies, but one ten hours away where I, along with around fifteen to twenty other teenagers, would live for eight weeks, serving adult groups, youth groups, and day camps, along with attending around four to five Biblical instruction classes a week.

It was an amazing camp, as evidenced by the fact that this was my fourth year there. I was angry about moving, I disliked our new house, and this camp was like a second home, the other teenagers my second family. Plus, it helped that my brother (the director for the camp) and his family were there as well.

It was at this camp that I ran into Damien again. I had seen him the previous summer, but really hadn't spent much time with him. He had seemed to be a little too crazy about the whole studying thing, and didn't seem to be much fun, other than when I played practical jokes and hid his water bottle from him. I had a friend who also let me use her phone to message him, seeing if he could figure out who it was. In the end, he ended up giving me is number, and I thought nothing of it.

We did text some throughout the winter, up towards the beginning of camp, though I made it clear I was interested in someone else.

Starting out, this summer didn't seem like it would be much different than the last one. We settled into our cabins, and I spent the beginning of the summer pining for Jordan, studying, working, and attempting to keep some of my friends from texting him. The last conversation I remember having of him was an argument about the validity of 'predestination'. We ended that on "agree to disagree." Other than a few scattered conversations, Jordan and I didn't talk at all, and when I needed someone, he wasn't there.

I didn't feel I could talk to many people about how I was feeling, not just about Jordan, but about how angry I was with moving, and being put in the same work area for the fourth year in row. I didn't know who to talk to about how alone I felt, even when I was in the middle of a bunch of people. And then I really started texting Damien.

He wasn't at the camp full time, but he was there enough. He always answered my texts, and we sometimes texted for hours on end. I convinced myself that he was just a good friend, nothing more. I was able to believe this until one, rainy day.

It wasn't like a movie at all, just so you know. In a movie, he would have admitted he had feelings for me, and then we would have kissed in the rain, feeling gloriously alive.

First off, real life doesn't happen that way. Second off, I don't believe in kissing on the lips before marriage.

Anyway, I was working with the day camps, and we had taken the kids kayaking, when it started sprinkling. Just sprinkling. It was enough to make the counselors cold and just a bit wet. Once the kayaking time was over, we took the kids to get changed, but I was unable to go change. Being one of the older counselors there, I had to stay with the kids, to make sure we had the ratios evened out (state regulations), and we headed into the Dining Hall, where there were fans on. As you can imagine, I was absolutely freezing. Damien hadn't been a counselor, he was just helping put the kayaks in the water, so he had gone to change, and then came to hang out with the kids.

I suppose Damien saw me shivering, because he came to me and asked if I was cold, and if I wanted a sweatshirt. I was freezing, I couldn't go change, and a sweatshirt sounded wonderful, even if it did belong to some stinky boy, so I said okay. I expected him to just grab me a sweatshirt he had brought inside. What I didn't expect was for him to go outside, where it was now raining cats and dogs, to run to his cabin to get me a sweatshirt. It was then and there that I realized I had a crush on him.

Of course, I said nothing, except to my best girl friends, whom I swore to secrecy. From then on, it was a bit awkward. I really, really liked him, but I refused to say anything, and I honestly couldn't tell if he liked me back. He was the first boy that puzzled me like that. I knew of so many boys that had had crushes on me, and I always knew it, because I could read them like books, but not Damien. He was extremely courteous to every girl. He hung out with every girl (albeit in groups and six inches apart, per camp rules). He didn't tease any girl.

I wrestled so much with my crush on him. I told myself over and over that I was in love with Jordan, and that Damien was just a simple little crush because Jordan wasn't around. Eventually however, I came to the realization that if I were truly in love with Jordan, I wouldn't be struggling so much with my crush for Damien, and if Jordan had liked me as much as I had thought/hoped he did, he would have made a move by now.

So, I let go. I allowed myself to have my crush, and worried and obsessed over whether or not Damien liked me. Weeks and weeks passed, and then the summer program was over. All of the summer staff left, including Damien, and the only ones left were me and two of my girl friends. We stayed to do the internship program through the camp. It was similar to the summer program, except it was a year long, with more real life work experience, and more intense Biblical study: Systematic Theology, Church History, Biblical Hermeneutics, you name it. And the rule that you weren't allowed to date while in the program, a very good rule. It helped to keep your focus where it was meant to be, on God and your studies.

I still couldn't focus. I kept texting Damien once he left, and he always texted back. By this time, I had set some limits, not wanting to appear desperate, and attempting to keep within the boundaries I had set for myself ages ago. I'll admit, I did flirt with him a bit, and I thought he flirted back, but then again, I wasn't sure. I fished around a bit, hoping he'd give away some clue... but it was to no avail. He was tight-lipped and didn't allow any sort of clue to slip out. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't going to say anything, no matter how tempted I was. I couldn't. I was in the internship program, I was the girl, and I had determined years and years ago that if a guy was interested enough in me to have that kind of relationship with me, then he would be brave enough to tell me so.

So I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing was forthcoming by the end of the first month in the internship. Then, sixteen days into the second month of the internship, while I was at the house of a very dear friend/co-worker/camp mom, while I was spending time with my two girl friends, and a couple other teens that had been part of the summer program, I received a text.

It was from Damien. "Sorry to do this in a text..."

I didn't know what to do. Should I open it? Should I ignore it? I opened it, "Sorry to do this in a text, but I have said some things to you that could be seen as strange, and not appropriate out of context. I like you. I want to know if you like me too, but feel free to take some time to figure it out if you need too."

I wanted to sing with joy, but, besides the fact that I couldn't sing at all, I was in the middle of a group of people that I didn't want to know yet, so, I ran to the bathroom, and finally said, well, texted the words I had wanted to say for almost three months: "I like you too."

*Author's note: I know this isn't exactly what the prompt says, but it is about two people refusing to say what is one their minds.*