Part 4: First Kiss

March 28, 2005

Monday night I casually called and invited Jon over to watch "The Mask of Zorro" at our apartment. He accepted (along with all the other people we we able to cram into our living room).

I distinctly remember wearing my neon green exercise pants and a black oversize T-shirt featuring a broken heart and the words, "Raging Chester is My Hero" (thanks, Maegs!). Obviously I was going for comfort, not style. Jon wasn't too embarrassed by my outfit to cuddle with me during the movie (or maybe it was too dark to see what I was wearing).

The movie ended just before the magical midnight hour when all visitors of the opposite gender must exit our apartment--how we love BYU and the Honor Code. Eventually the living room was empty except for me and Jon. Being the good boy that he is, Jon noticed the time and started to get up. I was NOT having any of that. I had spent all weekend working up the nerve to talk to him about asking me out and he was NOT going home until I got a date out of him.

I pulled him back down, and the next thing I know he was kissing me. I have never been so surprised in my life. Jon had come across as the 'slow and steady' kind of dater--date for a few weeks, then MAYBE think about a kiss. So this--kissing me before we'd even been on a date--was a complete shocker.

Not knowing what to say, I fell back to my original plan of demanding a date (but I was much nicer about it since he had just kissed me). How romantic, I know... I got him pinned down for a date that Friday with more details to come, and then I let him go home.

Of course, my roommate Sagers (and some friends) had been about 2 feet away in the kitchen during this little incident. As soon as Jon left, she asked if he'd kissed me. I smiled, walked back to my bedroom, and burst into tears. Yep.

I'm not usually very emotional, but this was a big step for me. A little more than a year previous to this, I had broken off an incredibly difficult relationship. Realizing the emotional toll the breakup had taken on me, him, and our families, I promised myself that I wouldn't seriously date another guy for an entire year. I figured that would give me enough time to understand who I was and what I really wanted out of life. My semester at Nauvoo was a huge part of that development, but I honestly couldn't say I was ready to date again until just before I started liking Jon. So in some ways this was a huge relief, and in others it terrified me--did I really want to seriously date someone yet? What if it didn't work out? I spent most of the night calling various friends to discuss the issue (I'm such a girl sometimes).

Jon, on the other hand, went straight to bed without telling anyone (including his roommate and best friend Erick). He told me later that as he was walking to my apartment that night he thought to himself, "I could probably kiss her tonight." How's that for self-confidence? True to his character (as I would soon find out), Jon lost no sleep over the matter. I, on the other hand, didn't sleep for a good week.

PART FIVE