Last year, my first year of college, I walked into my first college level photography class on the first Monday of school. Overwhelmed with the size of the school and finding the building my class was in, I sat down in relief seeing the smaller sized class. I looked around, interested in the people and the environment I had found myself surrounded with. I was particularly caught up by a skinny boy with dark curly hair, I found myself drawn to him, though I had never met him before. I was too nervous to talk to him, or anyone else for that matter, so I stayed quiet for the first few classes. I noticed the same dark haired boy in a few of my other classes, since art kids seemed to all have the same classes. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him, he was stunning, his body seemed to move by music and I longed to discover who he really was. I finally worked up the nerve to talk to him one day in photo class when we were supposed to photographing objects. I photographed him instead. Using a glass jar as an excuse, I asked him to hold it in his hands while he sat crossed legged on the floor. Behind the lens of the camera I found no fear in exploring his face and the way he held himself. His eyes stared back at me and I swear he could feel the electricity coming from my body as I got my first real glimpse of him.
Time went on and the dark haired boy and I began to sit together in class and talk to each other as friends. But something was burning inside me, and every time I was near him I set on fire. My legs were so close to his in the tight rows of lecture halls. My hands hung off the edge of the armrests, daringly near to his own fingertips resting on his thighs. And one day I caved in; I began to flirt shamelessly, with playful touches to his arm and overdrawn eye contact. I could not resist the undeniable chemistry between us, and I soon found out he couldn’t either. He began to flirt back and that damn smile that danced on his face, I was so overtaken by him and his ways. We texted all night, we talked all through class; I dreamed and daydreamed about him. I was thoroughly infatuated with him and I wanted him to be mine.
I tried desperately to get the dark haired boy to spend time with me outside of class, but failed all but one time. I was lost; I swear he felt the same way I did yet he would never hang out with me. I hated being so persistent, but I was fixated. I confronted him about the mixed signals he was sending me and finally broke down the wall. He was seeing someone else. The dark haired boy had been in a relationship for years. I was shocked, I was furious, I cried, I was so confused. I only assumed everything that had been between us to be over. But we were already intertwined and with chemistry like we had, there was no way we could have been done.
I considered the morals in going for what I wanted despite the situation, and for a few weeks, the good in me won out. I texted the dark haired boy less, I even sat away from him a few times, but it couldn’t last. I desired him more than anything and I wasn’t going to give up. I could feel the fire still burning in me when I heard his name or saw his face. So it was on again. And the dark haired boy put little fight against me.
Our day-to-day, week to week exchange continued on as it had left off. Subtle flirtations and racy comments dropped by each of us. Every day was hard, but some were impossible to try to resist my attraction to him. One day that stands out more than any other was halfway through the semester in our photo class. We were working on a project that required the use of the dark room, something I had never used before. The dark haired boy had experience in the dark room and offered to help me with the project. Down in the dark room it was quiet, murmurs from the other students, only a slight red glow to make our hands visible. At a projection lamp station I had my photos laid out and I stood pressed up to the table. He came up behind me and stood just a breath away. I could feel his body without it even touching me, heat radiated off of him. He spoke low, explaining how to work the machine, but I couldn’t focus on anything but how close he was. I craved him right then and there. I wanted to reach out in touch him; I had to take deep breaths to keep my head from spinning. My body was alive, electric waves surged through my veins; I had goose bumps and butterflies going insane in my stomach.
It was desperation, infatuation and pure chemistry. That dark haired boy had a grip on me that I never wanted to be free off. The semester ended, another one started and still I craved him. We drifted apart for reasons relating to his other, but there was always that random text, that awkward run in, that song that brought him to the front of my mind again. As summer started, I was far from him and I was well enough distracted away from his red lips. Then the dream happened. The dream where I was woken from sleeping by butterflies so fierce, butterflies caused by a kiss, a kiss that was created by my subconscious and landed in my dream. A kiss that haunted me because I knew I would never get a real one.
The texting started again, he bravely slipped how he wished he had the dream as well, and I taunted him with the idea of me again. The summer flew by with a few nights of texts where the dark haired boy stepped outside the safety lines of a relationship and into the dangerous darkness that enveloped our entire connection. Four days into the new semester of school, I ran into the dark haired boy. It had been months, and he looked like a cigarette to a failing addict. We spoke briefly in person, I cried briefly afterwards to a friend, and that was that. But I couldn’t put it to rest; it devoured me inside. So I questioned him, I challenged his motives and his true desires and I got a confession but our situation still remains unchanged. He was in the same place as me; we couldn’t deny the powerful attraction that still drew us together, but he was the still attached to another.
This dark haired boy has captured me and I just can’t give up on him.
