Hey everyone, I just wanted to say thank you for embracing this story. Your comments have meant a lot and I am overwhelmed by the response.
Sorry for any mistakes that might appear. :( I do try to edit the chapters before I post but sometimes things just slip through. Not to mention that my grammar is not the best. LOL
I will try to update as often as I can. I hope you all like this chapter.
The day I met Chloe changed my life. The plane starts its decent and I feel Salem in my bones. I feel Chloe is near and my stomach turns with nerves. I've always been the type of guy who is less than confident and Chloe was always my biggest fan. I've missed that in our years apart. Her encouragement, her smiling face, the way she never let me give up.
In our teenage years the once tomboyish Chloe became popular. Her small stalky frame turned into a voluptuous female figure. But she was still that same girl. She never forgot the boys that taunted me in my childhood and still didn't give them the time of day and I loved her even more for that.
At thirteen I was even more awkward than most. My tall lanky frame and my clumsy demeanor, not to mention my blindness, did nothing to attract other girls and I think that even if it had, I wouldn't have wanted anyone but Chloe.
She was perfect to me. She was smart and funny. Wittier than anyone I knew and as sarcastic as the devil. Her sharp tongue often got her in trouble in school, but her brilliance and soft voice got her out of it most of the time.
We were polar opposites. I, the shy boy, goofy and unsure of himself and she the charismatic girl, poetic and confident, but somehow we matched each other. It was a friendship that I so desperately clung to and the only real one I ever had.
What made me fall in love with her? I don't think there was just one thing. I think the love was there even the first day we met.
I want this to go as I planned. I'll show up at her house one day soon and tell her I love her. In my dreams she'll tell me she loves me back and we'll kiss. I'll take her in my arms like I've longed to do and lay her down and we'll make love.
But see, here's the thing about girls and love and - lovemaking. The guy they want has to be the best. He has to be the most romantic, sensitive, and down right best lover they've ever had and will ever have again. They expect to be ruined for other men by their one true love. I know this because I have a sister. And as every guy that has a sister knows, girls read romance novels, and fantasize about their perfect love life, not all girls, but a lot. I wasn't going to take any chances, because even though Chloe had always been a tomboy she was still a girl. A beautiful, intelligent girl, with a sexuality to her that I was sure was untamable. I wanted to be the one to ruin her for other men. But therein lies the problem. How can I be this stallion when I've never even had sex, let alone made love? (Unless masturbating in the shower counts, which I'm pretty sure doesn't!).
God, Chloe was the first girl I ever even kissed and that was only because she felt sorry for me. At least that's why I think she kissed me. I was a blind kid, who the hell else was going to kiss me?
I wonder if she knew how much I cherished that kiss. Her threat to beat me up after if I told didn't lessen the impact either. Hell, I know I said she was the first girl I ever kissed but what I really meant was that she was the only.
It happened twice, once like I said, behind the bleachers at her baseball game when we were twelve. After they had lost and all the other guys on her team went for burgers, she took me by the hand and pushed me into the dirt and then laid it on me. Now, being blind makes me very aware of the things around me and let me tell you the feel of her lips on mine was mind numbing. I couldn't talk afterwards and when she sat up and asked me a question, I didn't hear it until the third time. "Yeah, I could go for some pizza." I answered in that shy voice I always used when I was embarrassed which ironically was more times than not.
The second time it was after a school dance. Of course I hadn't gone but she had, with Bobby Stanton or was it Billy Stevenson? It doesn't really matter, there were lots of boys she went out with that I care not to remember. Anyway, it was after the dance and she came over like she always did, and I think it was to comfort me, and sometimes I needed her comfort, but I always acted macho and nonchalant (keep in mind this girl could read me like a book). She turned to me and I asked her a question as I always did after one of her dates. "Did you kiss him?" And she shrugged it off like she usually did, trying to change the subject and so I knew that was a yes.
"Brade, will you dance with me?" She asked me out of the blue.
"I can't dance." I told her and I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Do you forget that I'm blind?" I asked her, almost angrily, and it was so unlike me to be angry and she knew it.
"Yes Brady, sometimes I do." She told me, and I could feel my eyes moisten. "Now dance with me, you idiot!" She commanded. And I was on my feet and swaying. She guided me across the room like a leaf in fall, dipping and whirling before we finally hit the ground. The loud thump surprisingly didn't wake anyone in the house and when I was still on the ground, disoriented from the fall, she took my hand and placed it against her cheek. I ran my fingers over her soft skin and my breath seemed to be lost. The next thing I knew her lips were on mine and this wasn't some juvenal kiss. This was expert, because by then Chloe was an expert and my lips were so immature compared to hers, but somehow we found a rhythm and I nearly died right there. And when it was over and my lungs were burning for air she helped me up and took my hand in hers. "Don't ever think you can't do anything just because you can't see." She warned me. "You see better than most people, and one day you'll realize that."
And with that she was out the door. I don't ever think that Chloe knew exactly what she did for me.