Next on the list of regrets of the heart, we skip forward to 2005. I was young and totally oblivious to the variety of ways a boy can cause you pain. I admit that when I look back to these times, I don't recognise myself. All I see is a young naive girl; a person who prioritized everything in the wrong order, with boys before friends, and school and parents right at the bottom. She never wanted to think about the future, specifically about how her actions in the present time might affect the future, but this did give her a blinding ability to enjoy that moment as she lived it so much more than anyone else. The rosy glow to the memories of Beccles Carnival, of Kier's parties, and all the antics of that first summer blur into a haze of drinking vodka and orange juice, listening to music, sitting on sofas all day doing very little, and an insanely large amount of gossip.
The crux of this story however falls on the heads of two boys. Both have no idea how their actions have affected me, but I guess I prefer it that way. If they knew, it wouldn't do anything to help me, and their guilt, if that's what they felt, would make me feel worse.
Thomson. I liked him, and I didn't look at anyone else. He did, but I didn't notice. In fact, I'm lead to believe that two nights after he was with me, he was with one of my best friends, now my wife. Everyone knows the story. I don't like remembering it, yet I'm forced to on so many occasions. Up until that night he'd been nice, in a "share my bottle of vodka" way, and he'd been funny and sexy and all kinds of dangerous things that I'd never known before. And in one night he ruined my illusion of the 'perfect bad boy' by just being... a boy. The only thing he thought with was his dick. When confronted, he denied everything, and I don't blame him, but it's given me this weight of incredibility when this story is told. One of my 'friends' once accused me of making it up. Why on Earth would someone, no matter how attention seeking they might be, make up a story like that?
His actions, and then his denial, lead me to grow weary of anyone who could charm the skirt off me. However, Smithy did the exact same thing.
Sat in Wife's living room, he had budged closer and closer to me on the sofa, and finally made his 'move' by putting his hand on my knee and slowly moving it up my leg, and when I never protested, well... you can imagine how that might have developed. I knew that in the morning he'd go home, and next time I saw him we'd be back to the casual small talk and the random conversations about what he should do with all his money. But still, I wanted it, and I wanted him, because I knew that night was a unique one, and if I was to take the great advise of Iggy Pollock and "grab life by the balls", I needed to start here and now, when there were no consequences. I can't even remember the next time I saw Smithy after that night, but I was totally correct in all my assumptions. Luckily, I wasn't too committed, so my heart didn't feel a thing.
I must admit that these two boys were the first people I ever experienced anything so highly charged with. I can remember at least five nights which I spent with Thomson, and just the one with Smithy, and after that I changed. I saw boys slightly differently. Instead of first seeing looks and charm, and then seeing the corrupt and shallow personality underneath, I started looking first at the personality. One day we were at a gig, Self Titled were on stage, and my cousin was chatting to the bassist in his band. I looked around the room, and noticed how this guy I had never spoken to before seemed to draw me in. Something about his awkward posture, his baggy t-shirt and little glasses, his face covered in hair and his smile as he chatted with Luke made me know that he was better than the others. He had a good soul, and I could see it shining at me, and as my friends swooned over the lead singers from both the bands, and the guitarists with all their cockiness and swagger, I knew that I was looking at someone truly unique: no imitations of someone, no hopes at being compared to the big rock stars; just a simple guy who looked over at me and made my throat dry in a crowded sweaty room.