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Authors: Tiffany Truitt
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about himself catching the Southern Hospitality Flu. Every time he showed me some small gesture of respect or admiration, I would catch the smallest of cringes.
He didn’t want our relationship to change.
This didn’t stop me from noticing him staring, or being pleased that he talked more to me than my brother when the three of us were together.
If I hadn’t been so distracted by all the attention from Ed, I would have noticed this was when my brother started to pull away from us.
There were a million reasons not to let our small flirtations turn into something else at that point. I was a freshman and he was a junior. I was inexperienced, and it was no secret he’d lost his virginity to a seventeen-year-old high school drop-out the summer before when he was visiting his cousin in New York. Then there was my brother.
In retrospect, all of these reasons were bull crap. We couldn’t be together because we were scared. Ed was scared of hurting me, and I was scared of the same. So, we continued to flirt here and there, pretending that we could do so without causing any damage to each other.
Right.
Being at Wendall made it darn near impossible to snuff out my crush. I saw him all the time in the hallways and every afternoon after school. I tried to distance myself by joining every after school club that I could —Student Council, 4-H, Art Club, Drama. I thought if I spent less time with him and Tristan every afternoon, I would be able to move on and comfort myself with the thought of being friends. Maybe if I created a new place for myself, a place outside of the trio of Brett-Tristan-Ed, I could see there was more to appreciate about the male species than the boy who had crappy taste in television, owned nothing but band t-shirts, and had every comic book known to man—a boy who knew there was more to life than this small town. A boy who was not scared to listen to one of my political rants, or read one of my letters to the editor of the local newspaper.
But it was all in vain.
Visiting UVA changed something inside of me. It made me confront something I had long been trying to ignore. There was no way in Hades Tristan or Ed would go to school anywhere near Wendall. They both shared a desperate need to get out. They were leaving me.
I was unprepared for the emptiness that consumed me that weekend. My brother had been my only friend for so long. It took a lot for me to let Ed in as well, and now I was going to lose them both.
One afternoon, my mother and brother went to meet with an admissions officer. Ed and I were left to sightsee on our own. We jumped off and on a local student bus the whole day, searching out some Thomas Jefferson crap here and there. I couldn’t bring myself to talk very much, and Ed didn’t force me to speak. It was as if he could sense what I was feeling.
He has a knack for that.
On our way back to the hotel, the bus was crowded with college students heading out for some attempt at catching what was supposed to be the best years of their life. I had refused to sit down when Ed offered me the only seat in the back. I was a feminist after all. Ed chuckled at my denial and took the empty seat. I was forced to stand close to him, my legs brushing against his knees, my hand holding on tightly to the bar overhead.
During the long ride back to the hotel, an already drunk guy knocked into me, pushing me closer to Ed. I stumbled at first , but was able to remain standing. His hand, which sat on its side on his knee, briefly touched the inside of my thigh.
I froze.
I heard him inhale sharply.
His fingers still rested on my leg. I shifted my weight so I was closer to him. I couldn’t look at him, fearing the moment I did it would all be gone. I was running out of time. He would leave me. He would never come back. I was tired of fighting this strange thing between us. I wanted it over with. Right there. Right on that darn bus.
His hand moved slowly up my thigh, making its way up my skirt. I
He didn’t want our relationship to change.
This didn’t stop me from noticing him staring, or being pleased that he talked more to me than my brother when the three of us were together.
If I hadn’t been so distracted by all the attention from Ed, I would have noticed this was when my brother started to pull away from us.
There were a million reasons not to let our small flirtations turn into something else at that point. I was a freshman and he was a junior. I was inexperienced, and it was no secret he’d lost his virginity to a seventeen-year-old high school drop-out the summer before when he was visiting his cousin in New York. Then there was my brother.
In retrospect, all of these reasons were bull crap. We couldn’t be together because we were scared. Ed was scared of hurting me, and I was scared of the same. So, we continued to flirt here and there, pretending that we could do so without causing any damage to each other.
Right.
Being at Wendall made it darn near impossible to snuff out my crush. I saw him all the time in the hallways and every afternoon after school. I tried to distance myself by joining every after school club that I could —Student Council, 4-H, Art Club, Drama. I thought if I spent less time with him and Tristan every afternoon, I would be able to move on and comfort myself with the thought of being friends. Maybe if I created a new place for myself, a place outside of the trio of Brett-Tristan-Ed, I could see there was more to appreciate about the male species than the boy who had crappy taste in television, owned nothing but band t-shirts, and had every comic book known to man—a boy who knew there was more to life than this small town. A boy who was not scared to listen to one of my political rants, or read one of my letters to the editor of the local newspaper.
But it was all in vain.
Visiting UVA changed something inside of me. It made me confront something I had long been trying to ignore. There was no way in Hades Tristan or Ed would go to school anywhere near Wendall. They both shared a desperate need to get out. They were leaving me.
I was unprepared for the emptiness that consumed me that weekend. My brother had been my only friend for so long. It took a lot for me to let Ed in as well, and now I was going to lose them both.
One afternoon, my mother and brother went to meet with an admissions officer. Ed and I were left to sightsee on our own. We jumped off and on a local student bus the whole day, searching out some Thomas Jefferson crap here and there. I couldn’t bring myself to talk very much, and Ed didn’t force me to speak. It was as if he could sense what I was feeling.
He has a knack for that.
On our way back to the hotel, the bus was crowded with college students heading out for some attempt at catching what was supposed to be the best years of their life. I had refused to sit down when Ed offered me the only seat in the back. I was a feminist after all. Ed chuckled at my denial and took the empty seat. I was forced to stand close to him, my legs brushing against his knees, my hand holding on tightly to the bar overhead.
During the long ride back to the hotel, an already drunk guy knocked into me, pushing me closer to Ed. I stumbled at first , but was able to remain standing. His hand, which sat on its side on his knee, briefly touched the inside of my thigh.
I froze.
I heard him inhale sharply.
His fingers still rested on my leg. I shifted my weight so I was closer to him. I couldn’t look at him, fearing the moment I did it would all be gone. I was running out of time. He would leave me. He would never come back. I was tired of fighting this strange thing between us. I wanted it over with. Right there. Right on that darn bus.
His hand moved slowly up my thigh, making its way up my skirt. I
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