A Present from the Past
When I flew home last month to celebrate Christmas and the new year with my family, I expected it to be a mundane trip. I hadn’t been to New Jersey in two years so there was a thin layer of novel excitement, but mostly I was just going through the motions. After the unparalleled year we collectively had, ripe with uncertainty, I knew I had to see my parents. I hated leaving my routined life in sunny California for the cloudy, cold northeast but felt obliged to be a dutiful daughter.
A few days into my visit, out of boredom, I took a picture of myself in my childhood bedroom and posted it to my Instagram story. Minutes later messages poured into my inbox from the usual suspects—heart eye emojis, one-word flatteries and compliments from people I generally had no interest in. And then...something out of the ordinary.
“I’m guessing you’re in Jersey for the holidays?” It was a message from Jake, the first boy to ever send me into an emotional spiral. He proposed catching up while I was in town. Although our relationship had been a source of trauma when I was a teenager, the stakes seemed low. It’d been years since we’d seen each other. How much emotion could seeing him again inspire? A lot, it turned out.
Our link up started unassumingly, with Jake picking me up from my parents’ house and driving us to a nearby restaurant. Sitting across the table from him, I soaked up the view of his familiar face—his high cheekbones, camel-colored skin, and warm eyes...the features I was enamored with when I was seventeen. Looking at him again after years of being apart transported me back to that time.
Jake ordered a chicken salad; I got vegetable gnocchi. We barely ate our food, but not because we weren’t enjoying each other’s company. We talked for a couple of hours about where life had taken us, future aspirations, and why things didn’t work out ten years earlier. Talking to him was easy, like it’d always been, but pursuing a romantic relationship wasn’t on my radar. Like I said, our high school situation left me deeply distressed and I didn’t want to reopen the wound.
I went out with him thinking it would be a one-time thing, a quick moment of catching up. My mom called it “closure.” But before Jake dropped me off we made plans to hang out again. I was surprised we’d be seeing each other for a second time, but I still viewed going out with him as platonic. I didn’t expect things to take the turn they did.
By our second meetup we were making out in his car like teenagers. Just like that, the feelings I’d buried and forgotten about came rushing to the surface in the parking lot of a New Jersey diner on a Monday afternoon. After just a couple of days we were picking up where we’d left off in high school. It felt both risky and exhilarating.
By the third time we got together, his dick was in my mouth. But just like back in the day, our bond transcends sexual attraction. In fact, we still have never had sex with each other. At this point (or maybe it’s always been this way) there’s too much anticipation and deep-rooted desire to take it lightly.
I left New Jersey still not having gone all the way with Jake. Although there’s a strong urge to see where reconnecting could take us, I’m trying to be sensible. There are some things I need to take into account, like the fact that we live on opposite sides of the country, and that there are parts of each other’s personalities we’re not familiar with. We can only learn them by making an effort to spend more time together, which we plan to do.
I’m terrified to take the next step with Jake, because I know how much it means to me. I remember how much it hurt to detach from him when we were younger, how draining it was. I also know what I could miss out on if I don’t show up wholeheartedly, and that terrifies me more. So I’m moving forward with my heart on my sleeve, hopeful for the best outcome, and grateful that a routine trip home turned into so much more.