Dear my lovely pen pal,
You've been discovered.
And I'm still cringing so hard thinking about it.
Not all of my letters to you have been discovered and read, but it was enough to get the message across. I need to get a lock box for these or something.
Alina came over to my house for the first time today, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous out of my mind, but assuming no one will read this except you, I'll be honest.
I totally played it off with Alina even though on the inside I thought I might overheat and die without ever breaking a sweat.
We had gotten into a habit of going to her house after school or practice to hang out, and her parents had gotten pretty chill with me being there. I had even stayed for dinner a few times and it wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. I was definitely still being judged so I couldn't say anything I wanted, but it was nice to be able to eat wearing sweatpants with them and not have spaghetti for once (Mrs. Troy makes the most incredible grilled chicken I've ever tasted). It was also nice not having Clarissa wearing hooker clothes and protesting everything I said, by now everything was kind of chill and I was grateful for it.
Today we got in the car after practice and I was ready to head back to her place when she said "My parents are having a dinner party tonight, so we can't hang out."
I was kind of sad, I was really looking forward to spending the rest of the night with Alina (and a home cooked meal), but mostly Alina. Because of this, I said something without thinking. "We could go back to my place if you want to."
I don't know why I offered it, I hated having people over, especially people like Alina who had a great family and happiness in their life because my place is just a disappointment compared to hers.
"I mean, I would have to check with my parents, but I would love to." She said, smiling.
This was the part where I started overheating on the inside but totally played it cool on the outside. "Cool." I said, starting my car.
A few minutes later she let me know that her mom said yes, even though I was hoping she would say no. I really wasn't prepared for this.
I would've at least brought her to my mom's house before my dad's. My mom was dating a guy with a few kids and they brightened the place up a little. I still took out Chinese at her house and stayed in my room the whole time, but it was a little better than my dad's which didn't have kids in it and wasn't decorated and didn't smell like candles. It was just cold.
I pulled into my neighborhood and suddenly got way more anxious. What would we even do at my house? It was so boring and the only place where we could have privacy without my sisters seeing was my room, and maybe Alina wasn't ready for that yet. Not that we would do anything, but maybe she thinks I want to do something. Was my room even clean?
"You live in this neighborhood?" She asked, her eyes wide as she stared out the window. "Doesn't Bill Gates live around here?"
"No, his house is a few miles outside of here." I'm not rich, okay? I hate it when my friends are all like "Bro, you're loaded." Because that's not true. Yes, I live comfortably. Yes, my parents pay for my car and gas. Yes, both of my parents have good jobs and my grandpa left my mom all his money, but I'm not rich. I can't buy an island or anything for God's sake.
I pulled into my driveway and, if it was possible, Alina's eyes grew even wider. "You live here? Just you and your family?"
My house wasn't big either, it just looked big from the outside. "Unfortunately yes." I sighed.
Luckily (and not surprisingly), my dad wasn't home, and my sister's boyfriend's car wasn't here, so I didn't have to deal with that whole situation, but April was home. She was probably in her room watching TV so she shouldn't have been a problem.
"So yeah, this is it." I said as we went in the back door to the kitchen.
"You've got a really nice house." She said as she looked around.
"It's a lot, but it's not really a home." I muttered to myself, hoping she didn't hear. "We can go to my room, if that's okay with you. If you're not comfortable with that..."
"Ok." She smiled nervously. "That's fine."
"I'm serious, Alina, if you're not ready for that-"
"Geez, we aren't going to have sex or anything, right?" She laughed, still trying to cover her obvious nerves. "Lead the way."
If my family weren't so weird, I would've definitely stayed in the kitchen, but I would definitely rather take my chances with my room than with them.
As I opened the door of my room I prayed that it was clean and to my surprise, the only thing that could use tidying was my desk and clean laundry in a basket that had been there a few days. Even my bed was made. The cleaning lady must've come.
"Make yourself at home." I said, sitting in my window seat to leave plenty of options open for her to settle in. I decided to keep away from my bed in case she got weirded out, but it didn't seem to bother her as she put her bags on the floor and flopped onto my bed.
"You have a tempur pedic?" She asked as she pressed her hand into the mattress.
I wished she would stop mentioning the bed, it was making me nervous. "Yeah, it's really old I need a new one." Jesus Christ why did I have to be so awkward?
"Do you have a bathroom?" She asked.
"Yeah," I motioned to my bathroom that was thankfully adjoined to my room. Like I said, I spent all of my time in my room and having an attached bathroom was ideal for not showing my face to anyone for an extended period of time.
She got up to go and I quickly made a move to my dresser where I had condoms just laying out in the open. My dad had given them to me probably a month ago for no reason and I had just thrown it on my dresser like I did with most things. I threw them into one of the drawers and looked around for anything else I might need to hide.
"Grant?" She called, poking her head outside of the bathroom and into my room.
"What's up?" I asked, casually leaning against my dresser.
She pressed her lips together, her cheeks pink. "This is going to sound really awkward, but do you have a tampon? Or a pad or something?" She asked. "I forgot to refill my backpack stash, and this is really awkward." She laughed nervously.
Jesus Christ I was not ready to deal with a crisis like this. "Uh, um..." I said nervously, trying to think of any way I had one of those items.
"You know what? Nevermind, I can figure something out."
"No," I said, starting to overheat a bit again. "I have a sister who has a uterus too." Way to fucking go, Grant. Hey, at least Alina found it funny. "I can get something from her."
She smiled. "Thanks, really it means a lot, and I'm so sorry-"
"Don't apologize, you can't control your... thing." I said, quickly leaving before I could say anything else idiotic.
To little surprise, April was in her room watching TV and didn't give me any sign that she knew Alina was here. Her bathroom wasn't connected to her room, so I had a shot of making it in and out without her noticing.
I looked around her counter through mounds of makeup for something, but it's not like she just kept them laying around, which wasn't good for me. I checked the cabinet in her mirror, still nothing. Next I checked her towel cabinet which was filled with-- to no surprise-- towels. Where did girls keep this stuff?
I started rummaging around her drawers looking for it, even though I barely knew what I was looking for. Would it be in a box or a bag? What did tampons even look like? I had seen them in health class in ninth grade but maybe they had changed since then. Maybe April had a cup. What did a cup even look like? And what did a pad look like?
"What the fuck are you doing?"
I quickly shut the drawer I was going through and looked up at April staring at me from the doorway.
"Nothing," I said. "I'm just looking for something."
She raised her eyebrows at me, crossing her arms. "What are you looking for?"
I swallowed hard. "A tampon." I said, crossing my arms back at her.
"Why?"
"Project." I said.
She furrowed her eyebrows. "What fucking project requires tampons?"
"Uh, biology."
"You took biology in ninth grade."
"Anatomy elective, whatever, same thing, just give me a goddamn tampon."
She opened the cabinet under her sink and revealed to me the ultimate stash of period things. So that's where she keeps them.
I didn't realize there were so many sizes and types of tampons. Did Alina need regular, super, super plus, or ultra? Did she need a sports tampon? She just finished field hockey practice. Did she like scented ones? On top of tampons, there were about eighty more different types of pads. I grabbed one of each tampon and a few pads. "Thanks." I said quickly before rushing out of her bathroom.
"I thought you only needed one! That's going to cost you ten bucks!" She called.
"I'll pay you later!"
I got into my room and shut the door. "I didn't know what size you needed so I grabbed a bunch." I said, surprised to find Alina sitting at my desk, reading my letters to you.
I had a bunch of them sprawled all over my desk that I hadn't gotten a chance to put in the box under my bed and she had gotten a hold of some of them.
"'I don't know, something in my brain just is weird and gets happy whenever I'm with her and I have this strange feeling of wanting and compassion towards her that I have never felt before.'" She read, smiling. "You couldn't have told me that at the movies?"
That right there was probably the cringiest moment of my life. It tops holding hands with her at the movies and holding Alina's dad's hand and walking in on my parents having sex once many many years ago. As you probably know by now, I wasn't a super open guy. I don't like to talk about my feelings, especially not in a way that sounded like that.
"Nothing to see here." I said, taking the paper from her and grabbing the rest and crumpling them up, shoving them under my bed. "How much did you read?"
She shrugged, still smiling. "I think I started after midterms."
"Was it not the most embarrassing thing you have ever read?" I said, running my hand through my hair. "'Dear the love of my life, here are all of my dirty secrets.'" I said, mocking myself.
"No, of course not," She said, realizing my embarrassment. "I write stuff to my husband all the time." She went into her backpack and pulled out a red notebook. "I just don't leave it out for the world to see."
I was kind of surprised at this. Writing things to your future lover wasn't exactly something everyone did. I guess it would make more sense if she were in Mrs. Hathaway's class, but even then I think I was the only one who kept writing.
I took it from her and she tried to grab it back but I held it up away from her. "You read mine, now I get to read yours, it's only fair."
She raised her eyebrows at me. "The only person allowed to read it is my husband, so if you think you're him then go right ahead." She smiled.
I wondered if this was some sort of trap, her attempt at trying to lock me into the relationship, which for some reason didn't feel that scary. "Well I don't believe in marriage so that doesn't matter." I said, opening it to a random page and starting to read.
"'Every day I look for you. I look for that a-ha moment when something clicks inside of me and I know exactly who you are.' Wow, that's deep." I said, putting my hand on my heart.
"Shut up," She said, her face red. "Ok, you've read enough."
"Do you write about me?" I asked, flipping through the pages.
"Almost every day, but I have to take some time to talk to my husband one on one. All you do is blab to your 'woman' about your life."
"At least I'm not practically cheating on you like you are to me with these scandalous letters to your 'future husband.'" I laughed, shutting her book.
There was one paper I had missed on my desk and she picked it up. "'Burritos, that makes me happy.' Really?" She giggled.
"Give me that," I said, offering her her book. "You don't need to read that."
She turned away from me so I couldn't get the paper from her. "Game of Thrones, April, Jules..." Her smile softened a bit. "'Alina makes me happy.'"
I had already cringed so much I really hadn't started to feel that one until writing it down just now.
"It's true." I said as I looked at her.
She looked up at me with that special sparkle in her eye she always had. "You make me happy."
I squatted down so I was level with her and kissed her, partly trying to distract from the paper, but mostly because she really was my happiness. I don't care who reads this and how cringy it might be, because it was true.
We were rudely interrupted when my bedroom door open and April burst in.
"I knew it!" She yelled as I quickly pulled away from Alina and turned towards April.
"What the fuck, April?"
"I knew you had a girlfriend!" She grinned. "You don't take anatomy you dumbass. Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"I don't know." I muttered. "It's not really a big deal."
"Fuck yeah it's a big deal!" She scoffed, sitting on the edge of my bed. "Is this your first girlfriend?" She asked, acting like Alina was weed she had discovered in my room, who was sitting quietly in my desk chair, looking kind of uncomfortable. "I just never imagined girls even liking Grant." April looked up at me like I was a UFO or something. "I mean, I guess he's gotten better looking, but lacrosse players are such douchebags-"
"Thank you for such nice words, April," I said bitterly. "You can go now, and no she's not my first girlfriend."
April scoffed, crossing her arms. "How have none of us ever known this?"
"Can we talk about this later? Leave, please." I requested as calmly as possible even though I wanted to slap her.
She ignored me and stepped around me so she could see Alina. "Hi, I'm Grant's sister April."
"Alina," She responded with a polite smile. "It's nice to meet you."
"I'm sorry we had to meet this way, but Grant is kind of an asshole who doesn't like to tell his family anything that's going on in his life. You seem very nice though."
I interrupted before this could go much further. Alina knew I wasn't a very open person, but April had taken it a bit far. "I'm glad you two could meet, goodbye now." I said before having to forcefully remove her from my room, locking the door. "I'm really sorry."
"Don't be." Alina stood up. "I'm glad we met."
I scoffed. "You don't have to be nice about it, April is a nightmare." I sat down on the edge of my bed.
"She's your sister," She said, sitting next to me. "And even though you don't want to admit it, she's kind of right, and the fact that you haven't told your family about any of your girlfriends probably isn't the healthiest."
"I know that sounds bad, but I don't have a family like yours. I don't have a family that cares about every detail of my life and my girlfriends and shit like that."
She laughed. "Are you kidding me? They obviously do care, at least your sister does, you've just never bothered sharing details like that." She got up, taking one of the tampons from my desk. "Thank you for this." She smiled at me one last time before going to the bathroom.
I've been thinking about what she said ever since then and she was right, once again. I guess I never shared because I didn't think they cared, but maybe they did. Maybe I've been taking my family for granted all along because we weren't picture perfect and I thought that meant we couldn't at least be some sort of picture. I didn't want to open up about my life, but maybe it could make going home a little easier, maybe I could try to be better.
I did want to be a family. I wanted to have a family like Alina's that told each other everything and really gave a shit about boyfriends and girlfriends and family dinners and that really loved each other.
We could have that. We've just been doing it wrong all these years.
-Grant