My Teenage Dream Ended (3 page)

That was a crazy night, with a lot of romantic drama—some

couples were breaking up, others were hooking up for the first time. It was also the night that almost everyone we knew realized that Derek and I were a couple. Our kiss left no doubt about that. Hopefully, it would keep away all the girls who were always hovering around Derek, like sharks circling their prey.

A friend took a party photo of us kissing that night and every time I look at that picture, I can still feel the thrill of that moment.

SISTER SISTER

That night, I ended up staying at Derek’s friend’s place with him and in the morning we all went out for breakfast. I felt like I was really starting to get to know Derek and his friends, which was great, but I began to notice that he was always hanging out at his buddies’ houses instead of his own. He never talked about his family. I didn’t know what was going on.

It bothered me that I still didn’t know anything about his parents or his family life. That felt weird to me. Other guys I had dated had been open about their families, but it wasn’t the same with Derek. He never mentioned his parents.

Then one day Derek picked me up from school and said we had to go get one if his sisters from her high school. I was happy to go along, happy he was finally letting me meet someone in his family.

When his sister got into the car with her friend, everything went really quiet and awkward. I had thought this was going to be my chance to bond with one of his sisters, but no one spoke the entire ride. We stopped to get gas and as Derek got out of the car his sister pointed her head towards me and said something like, “She’s actually pretty.” Derek smiled and went to pump the gas. I just said, “Thank you.” It was such a weird comment. What was I supposed to say?

We dropped his sister and her friend off at Derek’s house, and as we were leaving, his other sister pulled up in her car. They had a conversation about where their mom was, and while they were talking she was looking over at me, obviously checking me out. She never said one word to me, not even “hi” or “bye,” but from the way she was looking at me, I could tell she was going to say something about me to Derek later.

I thought it was pretty rude of her not to talk to me, but I stayed neutral and didn’t say anything to Derek. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I didn’t want to make trouble for him.

FALLING IN

The next week Derek wanted to hang out with me a lot. I suggested we go fishing. I knew my dad had fishing rods, so I thought it would be a good opportunity for him to meet my dad. My parents were separated at the time, so Derek and I drove out to my dad’s house to get the rods and the two of them met for the first time. It went great; my dad seemed to like Derek. When he came down to meet us at Derek’s car they shook hands and my dad said, “Here you go. I hope you guys have fun.” I was happy that my dad accepted Derek. I always wanted my parents’ approval and I (usually) tried hard not to disappoint them.

We went to my friend Sarah’s house and fished in the lake in her backyard. Derek and I sat at the end of the dock, chatting while we waited for the fish to bite. It was so cute and perfect and he was such an outdoorsy, manly guy—I loved it!

After a while he said, “We’re not going to catch any fish here. We should detach this dock and go out further.”

I have always been scared of going out further into the lake and jumping on and off moving docks. I’m always afraid of falling in. But I didn’t want Derek to see how chicken I was, so I said okay.

Sarah came outside and I told her that Derek wanted to detach the dock and go out farther. To Derek she said, “My brothers do it all the time—it should be fine.” Then she whispered to me, “Watch him fall in.” and we laughed to each other.

Derek unhooked the rope, retied it, and then ran fast to catch the dock before it was too far away for him to jump onto it. He leapt, but only landed halfway on the dock, grasping to pull himself up for a couple of seconds before completely falling off into the water.

As he rushed out of the water and back to the land dock, Sarah and I busted out laughing. He looked up at me, so I tried to stop laughing and squeezed out, “Are you okay?”

I could tell he was embarrassed, and probably mad at me for laughing at him, but I will never forget that moment because he handled it like a man. He didn’t get mad or act like a jerk. He just climbed up from the water and kept quiet, his face blank, trying not to show any emotion. He was probably hoping I would forget it if he acted like nothing had happened. He looked so cute, standing there all dripping wet and embarrassed, that it made me fall for him even more.

After he dried off and changed clothes, he came back out and grilled us some burgers for dinner. As we sat and ate together, he asked me to go to the prom with him. He did it totally nonchalantly, like, “Hey, prom’s next week. Do you want to go with me?”

I was so happy. I couldn’t believe that Derek was asking me to the prom. I threw my arms around him and kissed him. “Of course, I want to go with you!” I was ecstatic. I liked him so much. Plus, it felt cool to be going to prom as a sophomore—very few sophomores are ever invited to Senior Prom.

After we finished eating, we cuddled on the couch. He held me really close and we lay there looking at each other. He was quiet for a little while and then he said, “You know, when we go to prom I really want to have sex. Are you okay with that? Everyone has sex that night. All the guys will make fun of me if we don’t.”

He had on such a puppy dog face that I couldn’t help laughing, but my response was serious. “I’m not going to prom with you if you think you’re getting sex that night. Just because everyone does it doesn’t mean we have to.
If
we have sex, I want it to be special.”

Derek gave me a sexy grin. “I
will
make it special.”

That sounded so cheesy to me. I stuck to my guns. “No, Derek, sorry. If it’s that important to you, go with someone else.”

I was never afraid to let a boy go if he was pressuring me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with—he could go do whatever he wanted with some other girl. At that point, it was up to Derek to make or break our relationship.

Derek looked at me for a moment and then whispered, “Okay, no pressure.”

I was relieved. Truthfully, I was already feeling attached to him and didn’t really want to let him go. But I also felt strongly that he had to prove how serious he was about me in order for us to be that intimate. I wasn’t going to have sex for the first time with just any guy. It had to be someone I loved, and who I was sure loved me back. I wanted Derek to be that guy—I hoped that he would be—but I knew we weren’t ready yet.

He was pretty quiet for the rest of the night. Obviously he wasn’t used to rejection and my response had shocked him. I felt a little bad for him, but I figured he needed to start getting used to hearing the word “no.” If he was going to date me, he wasn’t always going to get his way.

THE CROTCH INCIDENT

After that, we hung out every day that we didn’t have school, work, or sports, and we would be on the phone for hours on the days we couldn’t see each other. Friends weren’t really a priority in those days. We just wanted to be with each other.

Derek was really showing that he cared about me and wanted to get to know me better. He would call me a lot, and take me out to dinner and to the movies. He seemed to really enjoy being with me. When he talked about his future he always included me as a part of it, like we would be dating for years to come. I felt so close to him.

Meanwhile, it was getting closer and closer to prom. I still hadn’t really met his family, but I decided not to think about that and focused on getting ready. I ordered my prom dress online, which I knew was probably a bad idea, but I saw this dress that I just had to have. It was shiny hot pink with a haltered top and a low back that showed off my best asset at the time—my butt. Of course, when the dress came I totally didn’t have enough boobage to fill it up.

Fortunately, I’ve since fixed that problem.

While I was trying to solve my cleavage dilemma, I asked Derek what he was going to wear. I wanted everything about prom night to be perfect. He told me he and his stepdad were going to go look at tuxedos and his dad was going to buy it for him as a birthday present. Our prom was on May 5
^th
,
Derek’s birthday was May 8
^th
, and my birthday was May 31
^st
. May was going to be a big month for us and I was bursting with excitement.

Finally, it was the beginning of May and prom day was approaching fast. I had managed to get my dress problem sorted out, fortunately. I had to use two pairs of boob pads to fill out the top, but it looked pretty good. (I was a little nervous about making sure they stayed hidden, but I had my fingers crossed.) So, now I had the perfect dress, I had found the perfect shoes, and I had made appointments to get my makeup and hair done.

I was ready.

I called Derek to see if he wanted to do pictures at his house for his parents, but he said, “No.”

I was shocked. For all the other dances I had gone to—which weren’t nearly as big a deal as prom—both sets of parents, mine and the guy’s, always wanted photos. Then he told me we
would
be stopping to do pictures at the houses of his friends with whom we were going. The fact that only Derek’s family wasn’t taking any pictures made me continue to wonder about his relationship with his parents. I didn’t push him to explain, but it added to the mystery surrounding his family.

When prom night finally arrived, Derek showed up at my house to do pictures and met my parents together for the first time. He was in an all-white tux, looking perfect. The corsage he gave me was the perfect pink to match my dress. Little touches like that made me like him even more.