Daniel and I just finished watching Pretty in Pink, one of my favorite movies from the 1980's. The scene when Andie Walsh (Molly Ringwald) confronts Blaine McDonough (Andrew McCarthy) about his avoidance of her has always reminded me a little of my own high school romantic drama.
His name was Cole, and I was totally besotted with this boy for way too many years. It started in the halls of Chapel Hill High School, right outside the city limits of Tyler, Texas. I was in tenth grade, and it was my first year there. He waved to me from a classroom almost every time I walked by. I thought he liked me. I thought he was cute, and I was drawn to him because I noticed he was always giving to others in a variety of ways, and I wanted to be the one to give to him.
On a chilly October night after a football game, I was up in the bleachers, and I realized this was love. I loved him, and I felt swept up by the joy of it, even while not knowing what to do about it. I'd really never been in love before.
I finally decided, after much deliberation, and after finding out that one of my so-called "friends" had already spilled the beans to him, to write him a note explaining my feelings. I painstakingly wrote the words to Lionel Richie's oh-so-romantic-to-the-point-of-sickening song "Hello," which always brought rivers of tears to my eyes whenever I heard it, and I explained in writing that the song expressed my feelings for him.
His response? He was very flattered, but...you know the rest. He claimed he wanted us to be friends, but I found out in the days to follow that he was just trying to let me down easy, trying to soften the blow of his not sharing my romantic feelings for him.
I'm a stubborn girl. I held on tightly to my dream of Cole someday seeing what he was missing in me. I listened to all those maudlin 1980's love songs and wept and wailed. I begged god to let this happen for me. I knew Cole was The One for me, and I knew that I was better for him than the long line of hussies he was constantly romancing.
Because I'm not only stubborn, I'm a tad, well, foolish, I actually asked this boy, who had made it abundantly clear that I was nothing but a nuisance to him, to escort me to my senior prom. He took a short moment to think about it, then claimed he was going to be out of town. A friend of mine saw him--oh, what a shock!--in Tyler the night of prom. He later claimed he was "sick." I'm not sure if that's true, if he was out getting himself medicine, or if he was simply lying, as I suspect, to cover up his true feelings for me, which were the opposite of my feelings for him.
Watching that scene, Andie slamming Blaine up against the lockers, hitting him, demanding that he tell her the truth, I remember feeling that same emotion, how it got to me to watch that scene in the theater and understand. Sure, I wanted Cole to like me, to come to his senses and love me, but even more I wanted him to be honest and not pretend.
I did go to my prom, and I wore a pink dress that I helped design. I went alone, danced with friends. My prom turned out to be nothing like the movie.
The good news is, none of this matters anymore. The naive girl of 15 grew up, and she walked through some of life's most painful challenges, and she faced the probability that she would be alone for the rest of her days. She decided to make the best of it, to live whole-heartedly, live happily, no matter what.
And then he came into her life. Daniel. The perfect match, so many things she wanted, so many things she didn't even know she wanted, in one delicious, noble, sensitive, hilarious, compassionate, intelligent, loving man.
Talk about falling in love! And lucky girl that I am, he loves me right back.
Copyright 2008 Melissa LaFavers