Page 12 of The Dating Game

Does God not see me as being of great worth?

Truthfully He wouldn’t be the first male not to. My mind starts replaying scenes from my dating history. I haven’t always picked duds—as Sydney so nicely called them—to date. When I entered high school I had very idealistic visions of love and romance. I was going to fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. And the guy I was going to fall in love with was Van Parker. Sure some people may have found my obsession with the senior star quarterback to be a cliche, but that was only because they’d never been on the receiving end of one of his dazzling smiles.

Van and I had one class together, our final hour of the day, and one week into the semester he came in and sat down next to me. To say I was flattered by getting attention from a senior, especially a senior of his status, would be an understatement—I was over the moon thrilled. For weeks he was all I could think about. All I could talk about. I was all “Van this” and “Van that.” When Sydney eventually tired of hearingme wax poetic about the guy, I turned to my journal, writing novels about the future we were going to have together.

He asked me out at the end of September and we dated happily for about a month before it happened. We were sitting in the deserted parking lot of the local ice cream shop and we started kissing. I’d kissed one other boy before Van, but it had been rather chaste kissing. Nothing heavy.

Van was experienced, though, I’d learned quickly. He expected more than a few pecks on the mouth. But up until that night, I’d enjoyed the kissing. It was fun and things never got out of hand. But that night something was different. I felt it almost immediately. For one thing, his mouth seemed far more insistent and demanding than ever before. Worse, he was far more handsy than he’d ever been. Three times I had to knock his hand away from my chest, at which point he’d changed tactics and put his hand on my upper thigh. My very upper thigh.

I jumped away so fast I hit my head on the seat.

“What’s the problem?” I can still hear him asking in an annoyed voice. It took all of my courage to tell him I wasn’t comfortable with what he was doing. He rolled his eyes and acted like I was being stupid and juvenile, but he didn’t try anything else. Just drove me home and said he’d see me around.

It seemed as if he’d decided we were over.

I cried myself to sleep that night, but woke up in the morning to an apology text from him. Starry eyed and naive as I’d been I quickly forgave him and agreed to meet up with him after the football game that night.

Feeling guilty for having turned him down the night before, I decided to surprise him before the game with a quick little make out session. I’d show him that just kissing could be good.

I planned on waiting outside the locker room, so I could pull him aside when the team came out, but then I heard loud voices around the corner. Evidently the team was gathered in the hallway, talking loudly to each other. They were just around the corner so I surged forward, planning on revealing myself then rather than waiting, but then I heard words that could only refer to me and froze in my tracks.

“So have you slept with the hot freshmen yet, Parker?” One of the voices asked. I waited indignantly for Van to answer. To defend my honor.

Instead he said, “Not yet, no, but I’m wearing her down.”

“Wearing her down?” Another voice taunted. “You can’t even get a freshmen to sleep with you, man? Are you losing your touch?”

“Hey, man,” Van sounded irritated, “freshmen are actually harder because they’ve never done it before. They get all skittish about it. Anyway, I’ll get there. She said no once, but I’m feeling good about my chances tonight.”

“Just tell her you love her,” yet another voice suggested. “Girls go nuts for that. She’ll probably beg you to sleep with her then.”

“Oh, yeah for sure,” one of the original voices says. “That’s how I got Katy Bogman to sleep with me.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll try that,” Van said noncommittally. “I mean, it feels a little douchey since I don’t, then again Brooke ishot. And you know, I’ve done my time listening to her talk for hours about stupid stuff like dance and her family and the books she’s reading. All in the hopes of getting some. If you ask me, I’m owed some sex.”

I didn’t listen to anymore. Instead I turned on my heel and sprinted out of the school, my blood pounding in my ears and my tears hot on my cheeks.

Out of some sort of morbid curiosity I did meet up with Van later that night—maybe, I remember thinking, he wasjust trying to save face in front of the guys. But no, almost as soon he saw me, Van pulled me to him and whispered that he loved me. When I still turned him down for sex he accused me of being a tease, then said I wasn’t worth any more of his time. We were officially over.

I started dating a guy named Felix a couple of weeks later. He was on the debate team and, like me, he was a freshman. After a few weeks I realized we weren’t a good fit and walked away with my heart fully in tact and ready for the next guy.

It’s been a really good system.

“Uh, Brooke?” Sydney’s hand appears in front of my face. “Where did you go?”

With a jolt I realize I must’ve been driving on autopilot because we’re outside Sydney’s apartment complex and I have no recollection of how we got there.

Sydney laughs. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

“Of course.” Not. I heard nothing. Gosh, I hope it wasn’t anything important.

“So you agree that Caroline and I should move away to California for me to try and make it as a movie star?”

“Wait, what?” I blurt out, before recognizing that she’s joking.

“Gotcha,” she says. “What I was really doing was telling you all of the amazing qualities of the guy I’ve picked out for you.”

“You already picked someone out for me?” I’m aghast. “How did you know you would even win?”

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