I Don’t Want my First Kiss to be with an Atheist

I wasn’t very religious, but I wore a cross in defiance. Meanwhile he was sketching plans for various designs like one for a clothing line based on very radical beliefs: straight edge, veganism, freeganism, punk and metal music. I’m not sure how I became so unraveled when I was around him.

He invited me to lunch but I had made up my mind. There was no way that my first kiss was going to be with an atheist. It wasn’t entirely just that. He had many radical beliefs. I understand someone turning away from something, being against it, but to be so passionate about it, to make little upside down crosses out of black electrical tape and wear them was a little more than I can handle. I drove to lunch and wore a bracelet with the Virgin of Guadalupe on it. I wasn’t going to stand down. I wore a shape forming skirt, buttoned down dress shirt, high heels, my hair frizzy from the rain. I looked like a rushed librarian, except my heels were four inches high and spiked. He reached over the table, slipped his fingers underneath the bracelet without noticing its design and affectionately caressed my wrist with his fingertips. I felt helpless. I wanted him and I wanted to stay away from him. He offered to pay for dinner, offered me a ride when my brother borrowed my car, offered to share his vegan chocolate cake.

I had never done anything like this, and I told him so, and he was more than willing to give me anything that I wanted. Time, mostly time, time apart and time to pass together. There was a no touching rule declared by me, I don’t know if I could resist otherwise, and I might rush into something much stronger and sooner than I wanted. The rule become that once I made the first move, things would be official. I was arguing with myself every day. I wanted him, I wanted to get away from him. This wasn’t good, at least it couldn’t end well, I was sure of it. When I wasn’t with him, I thought of either not returning his calls or of going out of my way to see him. When I was with him, I was the same hollow, melting and unkempt girl who at any minute, would unravel completely, submit to what I wanted, kiss him, hold his hand. He was annoyingly understanding. Annoyingly patient and comforting. I was losing little by little, and though I denied it every day, he had complete confidence in our future. I told myself that I wasn’t really interested, but I made excuses to see him, call him, think about him. I planned a pre-relationship breakup and the excuses in my head: I was a germaphobe and couldn’t rummage through garbage in the middle of the night, loud music gave me headaches, my children could not be atheists, they didn’t have to be devout anything, I just didn’t want them to be atheists. My parents wouldn’t let me get away without at least a baptism. I would only ever know “I Wanna Be Sedated” because it was on an episode of My So Called Life.

Before him, there was only one - a four year unrequited love affair with a neighbor who went to private school. He once asked me for a ride to his girlfriend’s house so that he could spend the night, after which I drunkenly pledged complete and total devotion to him after looking up but doing nothing with devotion spells I found on the internet. He mostly dated inappropriately gorgeous women. He impregnated a Budweiser Spokes model and they are currently living with her mother.

Although I was sure it wouldn’t go anywhere, I still spent all of my spare time with him, the entire time keeping the word “no” ready to use. I thought that I had a pretty strong handle on the entire situation, I even had several backup plans of what I would do when he wasn’t around, and was thinking of one such plan (getting a unlimited movie rental pass and renting several nineties sitcoms), when he called me to say that he was considering moving an hour up north to meet up with a cousin so that they could finally form a band. He would spend a week or so exploring the city, investigating their inventory of instruments and musicians, scouting local clubs that would let them play. He was excited, I was a little annoyed at his enthusiasm until the night before he left, sometime after midnight at an all night diner he reached his arm across the table to grab my wrist, careful not to move in a way that would lead me to retract my arm. “Couldn’t you go with me?” he said. With such short notice at work, and a controlling boss (who thinks that every day off that we request, we’re looking for jobs in a rival office and checks our facebook statuses for postings of our whereabouts), there was no way. He looked sad, pained. “You’ll be fine, you’ll be back soon.” I told him. “But, I’ll miss you,” he said. I swallowed hard. As of that moment, those words, combined with his exact expression, eyebrows turned down in concern, biting his lip looking deep in thought, seemed to change things for me, and I knew I was soon to give in.

When he left he was walking around as though his duffle bag was heavier than it was. He walked with his head down, his shoulders slumped. Despite our physical distance rule, we held hands; it was late at night and the time made things feel desperate, as if he were leaving for Iraq. All of his excitement for this trip, all of the talks about the venues and of bands, of his cousins apartment, of seeing his grandfather, all of that was not what he was thinking about now. His mother prepared snacks for the bus ride, placed them in his backpack, and snuck a blank check in one of the side pockets which he found and tore into small pieces and threw in a receptacle. More desperation themes, as if he would have no money or food, as if he were travelling to China during a cholera epidemic. I bought in to the drama of the situation, holding his hand tighter as they called out for passengers to line up to board. We hugged goodbye and he boarded the bus, looking out the window at me as he sat down, the same sad expression on his face. He swallowed hard and then stared blankly ahead at nothing.

He called me and sent me text messages. When he got off the bus, his family was confused by his expression, his sadness. “She made it hard for me to come here” was the first thing that he said to them. He succumbed to his sadness and he cut his trip short, going through some trouble when trying to exchange his ticket. When he would arrive, it again would be late at night, more drama to give in to. I stood and searched for him when the bus arrived, standing by a homeless woman who had fallen asleep while sitting up against the building. He got off, and rushed to see me carrying his duffle bag and other bags, visibly heavy and making it difficult for him to carry them and walk quickly at the same time. But when we were face to face he dropped them and we immediately hugged tightly, his cross stung me at my chest. I closed my eyes, and then leaned my forehead against his before kissing him. I was completely helpless now. I hope God isn’t mad at me.