“Oh,” Ginny felt her face flush on the chenille basement sofa that had probably seen more action on its stained cushions than she ever would. There was Theo, sitting in the corner of the l-shaped couch, one foot neatly tucked under his perfect butt. His jeans were just the slightest bit torn around his knees, looking like they’d been his favorite pair for years, not that he’d bought them that way from Abercrombie at the mall. His perfectly tanned skin seemed to glow in the middle of a depressing New Hampshire winter and the way his eyes sparkled, it might make you think that either he or you was on drugs. (He wasn’t. You weren’t, either, in this scenario.)
Theo and Ginny met at the beginning of summer while working at a kid’s camp together. They lived three towns apart but Camp Grow was smack dab in the middle. They got to see each other daily while taking kids on hikes and whitewater rafting trips. They planned arts and crafts, learned the words to silly camp songs, and got teased mercilessly by the campers for being in love. Both of their faces would turn beet-red. But, for very different reasons. We’ll get to those in a bit.
They kept up weekly dates once school started again in the fall. Theo was as close to the perfect guy as Ginny, in all of her eighteen years on this planet, had ever even imagined. He looked like a brunette version of an old movie star, with sideburns, dimples, and all. He had a sense of humor that could make Gargamel smile and he was legitimately brilliant. Dartmouth had even recruited him for early decision in water polo. I mean, come on. Ginny had, yes, of course, wondered why nothing physical had ever happened between them. There had been some hand-holding on occasion. They’d even passed out on the very same couch that they were now sitting on, snuggled up next to each other after one of the seniors threw a keg party in the middle of the woods. But nothing, like nothing, had ever happened. Ginny mulled over a dozen excuses:
Theo was just a perfect gentleman.
He was taking it slow.
They’d grown so close that she’d become friend-zoned.
Ginny had another ten reasons why he’d never tried to kiss her and had convinced herself to believe them all. But she was wrong.
Sitting on the generations-old couch while her mother was upstairs making Hamburger Helper, she looked deep into Theo’s rich eyes, his lashes like ferns in a tropical forest, while he told her that he was… gay. It felt like the heaviest door from the heaviest wooden castle slammed shut on Ginny’s delicate heart. Was he sure? Was this a joke? Could he make an exception to his rule? Luckily, Ginny was smart enough not to wonder any of this out loud.
“I...I...I will always love you,” was all she could stammer out. And yes, for the next two decades, every time she heard that Whitney Houston song, she cringed, and the depression that followed was real.
Nobody understood how perfect Theo had been. Her tears were dismissed by her mother as ‘young love,’ and her friends told her that she would get over him and find someone else to love with different qualities. Her science teacher, Mrs. MacKay, told her that, “this too, shall pass,” when Ginny broke down so hard over her microscope that she ended up staring at an enlarged picture of her own snot. But Ginny knew, deep down in the part of your heart that can’t lie, that there was something about Theo that she was destined to be with. At first, she ignored his phone calls.
She’d see his name on the caller ID of the white, General Electric house phone attached to the wall in her family’s kitchen.
“Just let it ring,” she would tell anyone within earshot. Even the thought of hearing the sound of his voice was too painful. What hurt even more, were his messages. Honesty about her feelings, especially her romantic ones, did not come easy to our heroine. Theo interpreted her silence as rejection after his emotional coming out.
“You have to tell him the truth. Especially if he is a true friend,” Mrs. MacKay said, not bothering to even look at Ginny as she cleaned the blackboard. Science was Ginny’s last period of the day and she’d taken to milling around the lab room, extracting as much life advice as she could from the very put-together fifty-year-old with pink lips and heavy tortoiseshell glasses. It wasn’t that Ginny thought that Mrs. MacKay was such a deep well of life advice, it was that she loved how her teacher looked at the world. It was all cause, effect, and asking questions. It felt, to her, like if you looked at the world through a science teacher’s lens, it might actually make sense. And, at eighteen and having never been kissed, this was all Ginny wanted.
So she sat at the front table, doodling in her notebook, willing her voice and body to appear way more casual than she actually felt.
“But don’t you think that sometimes, you just know?” she asked. “I know the things that I love about him I will never, ever get over.” Mrs. MacKay paused her cleaning and put her eraser down on the chalk tray. She turned to Ginny, slowly, nodding her head. She walked over to the girl’s table, sat one side of her butt in her cooler-than-most teacher’s blue jeans, and took a critical look at her favorite B student.
“You don’t want to hear this. I certainly didn’t want to hear this when I was your age but, well, the things that you are sure about now will indeed change. And it sounds like there’s a lot about this Theo to love. But as a friend. And you should love your friends, that’s great. Now–” Mrs. MacKay glanced at the wall clock above her desk, “I have somewhere to be. Don’t you?”
But Ginny didn’t have anywhere to be. She’d been so depressed about the love of her life spiraling down a tunnel that would never end with Theo that she’d dropped out of the Yearbook committee and subsequent after-school meetings. Ginny just shook her head miserably. Mrs. MacKay exhaled. She remembered how painful heartbreak felt at this age and for a split-second was brought back to her own busted teenage romance.
“Look, love is just your neurotransmitters flooding your brain with dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Try accounting for it chemically,” said Mrs. MacKay as she slid her laptop and two books into her tote bag. “Also, go for a run. Never underestimate the power of endorphins.”
Ginny just nodded. The door closed gently behind the science teacher and Ginny stared out the window at the cross-country team running in the freezing winter air. It looked miserable. Endorphins be damned, she was definitely not going for a run.
The weeks turned into a blurry semester where Ginny saw her usual Bs plummet down into Cs. She knew that she needed to pull herself out of this funk but she also didn’t see the point. She wanted a life with Theo. With Theo’s eyes and Theo’s confidence and Theo’s laugh and Theo’s kindness.
“No one has ever died of a broken heart,” Ginny’s mom told her while drying the pasta pot after dinner. But Ginny knew that that wasn’t true. She was pretty sure that she’d seen an article in People Magazine about a penguin that had died of heartbreak so if it could happen to a bird, it could definitely happen to a human with a developed prefrontal cortex. She was sure that Mrs. MacKay would confirm this assumption.
She was sitting at home, watching the original Beverly Hills, 90210, when the phone rang. It was Theo. It may have been that Ginny was so exhausted by her heartbreak, it may have been the cold rainy day, and it may have been watching Donna and David passionately reconnect after everyone had assumed that their relationship was done, but she felt a weird twinge of hope that forced her to pick up the phone.
And then she said it, “I’m not avoiding you because you’re gay. I’m avoiding you because I was in love with you.” The relief that flooded Ginny’s small body was almost palpable. Why hadn’t she summoned those words months earlier? To be honest, she just didn’t have it in her. Theo’s response was both simple and classic.
“I know.” And that was it. That was her apology and his acceptance and they spent the next two hours on the phone talking and catching up and making each other laugh. Ginny tried her best to quiet the longing in her heart. It wasn’t easy.
That night, sitting at the hand-me-down desk in the corner of her bedroom, Ginny tried her best to redeem her semester’s grade. At least in Mrs. MacKay’s class. They were still studying the brain and Mrs. MacKay asked them to pick two different places and map out their connection. All Ginny could think about was love.
She and Theo continued talking on a regular basis. Ginny felt her spirits lift a bit and even motivated herself to go back to Yearbook and submit a photo or two.
The other committee members greeted Ginny with hugs. She’d always been the highest contributor. Ginny loved taking photos and was quiet enough that oftentimes people would forget about her presence and then she’d have the opportunity to take better candids than anyone. It was a special skill.
“Who is going to photograph the lacrosse game? They made it to states so we have to document it.” The head of the committee looked around the room at the group of students who clearly didn’t want to stand out in the rain and take pictures of teenagers running around with sticks. His eyes landed on Ginny.
“Ginny, you owe us a bunch of pictures. You do it.” Ginny nodded. Fine, yeah, that’s how she could spend her Saturday. It would give her something to do. She made a mental note to remember her gloves. The weather had been brutal. Ironically, the most overcast days usually meant for the best lighting. You take the good, you take the bad…
The morning of the game was just as miserable as one would expect of a spring New England day. Ginny pulled on her rain boots and her mother’s LL Bean slicker which was just old enough to be considered ‘vintage’ and made Ginny just the tiniest bit happy. Theo said he’d try to make it with his family since his brother was playing. Even though she wished it wouldn’t, that thought alone made Ginny’s stomach backflip. Dude, the heart wants what it wants…. Especially at 18.
With her car packed with trash bags to protect her equipment and a thermos full of hot chocolate, Ginny headed out to the high school playing field. The place was packed with people. Ginny could not fathom why this was anyone’s idea of a good time but apparently it was.
She set herself up by the hometeam bench and began to take pictures from the sidelines. She had to admit there was a certain buzzy energy in the air. This was a big game, and everyone seemed to be taking it very seriously. Ginny found herself cheering and smiling despite herself, the cold, the rain, and her general aversion to her present situation. She followed the players up and down the field, capturing some pretty impressive wide shots of the team. They were certainly an athletic bunch. And lacrosse was more exciting to her than some of the other field sports. Protected under the cover of a Glad trash bag, Ginny switched out her lens, ready to pop off some close-ups now that the teams were tied. The ball was being passed down her side of the field. She could feel the player’s feet hit the turf and their loud breathing.
Ginny squinted into her Nikon lens, a drop of rain making the frame look extra artsy. Huh, she thought for a split second, I bet this picture could get a full page in the yearbook. But her thoughts of publishing grandeur were put aside for what was the real star of the photo. It was a senior guy pulling off his helmet. His curly hair was drenched, dripping from his forehead. His square jaw and bright smile were overshadowed by his deep, brown eyes. In spite of herself, Ginny gasped. A familiar feeling wormed its way into her stomach. She clicked her shutter. He sprinted towards the goal. She clicked again and again. His ball flew past the opposing goalie, stretching the net back with the force of its speed. There was only one minute left. They were going to win. Ginny didn’t even hear the crowd or the screaming from the stadium. She was totally focused. She captured the moment he high-fived his teammate and hugged his coach. She clicked and clicked her camera as he ran his fingers through his sopping hair. Ginny followed him with her lens, taking a photo of him embracing his mom, then his dad, then… wait – Theo??
As Ginny - almost unconsciously- snapped away, she saw the two guys hugging each other. Then both looked at their parents and smiled. They were, almost, identical twins. This version of Theo just looked the tiniest bit older. Why had she not clocked this information before? Yeah, Theo had an older brother. He’d stayed behind a year and they were in the same grade. She knew all of this. She’d never met him because he was gone every weekend, traveling for sports. She clicked and clicked and clicked until she had to replace her film roll. She could also have been considered a stalker if anyone was looking at these pictures.
There was something so familiar, so comforting, while still so exciting about looking at this different version of the man who unintentionally broke her heart that she was in a full daze, an utter stupor while putting her used film back in its plastic canister and didn’t even notice another person near her until she was jolted into reality by the tap on her shoulder.
“Ginny!” Theo wrapped her in his usual bear hug. She came this close to dropping her camera on the ground.
“I want to introduce you to my brother, Robbie.”
And that’s how her romance with Robbie started, and her infatuation with Theo ended.
You guys, this is true. Ginny and Robbie have been happily married for 15 years. When you know, you know. And you know who was right there in the second pew for their ceremony? Mrs. MacKay. For her senior project, Ginny had done the neurological mapping of falling in love. When they sent Mrs. MacKay the wedding invitation, Ginny had cheekily written on the back, ‘This is for extra credit.’
Theo and his husband are godfathers to all of Ginny and Robbie’s children. They have dinner every Tuesday. Both Theo and Robby are still extremely charismatic. And, like she promised, Ginny will always love Theo. Just not in that way.
Sweet Dreams
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