You Cannot Quit Me So Quickly

It was May 23, 2008. I remember scrambling home to get ready before he came to get me. I also needed to ask my mother if I had permission to go out that night with a new guy. She looked at me comically, as if to say "So soon after a breakup?" I had broken up with my boyfriend only a few days before, but as my friend Kristin told me, "You pretty much broke up with him months ago."

Hurricane's was an interesting choice for a first date. Hurricane's specialty is there wings, and neither of us were wing people. Even though it was a Friday night it wasn't overly packed, but enough to where you had to speak loudly enough so your companion could hear you. Every now and then I could catch bits of the songs playing, but very rarely. I mostly was focused on trying to speak.

I mean, besides being incredibly shy, I was also dumbfounded. Never in a million years would I have dreamed of being with him, but moreover being on a date with him. I felt like a mere mortal sitting in the presence of a god. In my own teenage way, all I could think was "O.M.G." It couldn't be happening.

But I wasn't dreaming. I could feel. I knew I really was awake, and we were really there together, and he really was staring at me and smiling. No way, but it was real.

A bunch of minor details happened, like him getting the wrong order and a mutual friend of ours calling (she was just as suprised as we were!) and the whole Sailfish District having their meeting 5 feet away from us (nice choice on the Philmont shirt on his part though).

But the moment that defined that night was hearing The Space Between. Both of us were fans of DMB. I smiled when it came on, and pointed it out to him. He was surprised, then listened in amazement. Never before had he heard The Space Between played on any radio station before, but to hear it then, in that moment, was quite the coincidence. And it wasn't just any DMB song; it was the one that I had sat and listened to and thought of him.

It was really an unforgettable night.