Yello – Call It Love
page 8
At the end of the first semester of my last year at Hampshire, I was in love with G, although she wasn’t G then, she was just Chris, and I wouldn’t have admitted my feelings for her at that time, even to myself. We had been spending a lot of time together – a lot of time – and she kept asking if there was more than friendship brewing between us, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it, terrified of what would happen if we tried to make it physical, and yet longing to do just that. My physical failures at every critical moment in my past had made me hopeless shy and nervous when romance or sex came up. She didn’t believe that there wasn’t more brewing between us, but I was adamant, so, to subconsciously bring things to a head, the weekend before Christmas break, she went out on a date with some jerk. I was devastated, but what could I say? If I wasn’t willing to step up to the plate and try to hit the ball, then I had to sit on the bench and watch somebody else make their way around the bases.
Chris and her best friend Kristen agreed to drive me to the airport so I could catch a flight down to Tallahassee to spend Christmas with my folks. I threw my bag in the trunk and slumped moodily into the back seat of the car, trying to figure my emotions out. Chris and Kristen chatted away, and all I could do was hum the throaty, sexy hums from Call It Love, which was in heavy rotation on my stereo at the time. We got to the airport and I got out of the car and pulled my bag from the trunk. I hugged Kristen goodbye and wished her a Merry Christmas. Chris and I embraced, and she gave me a small paper bag, wishing me Merry Christmas, kissing me on the cheek, and waving me off. I got onto the plane and took a seat by the window. The day was grey, the sky thick with faceless clouds, and little eddies of snow were skittering across the tarmac. The plane taxied down the runway and roared into the sky. I picked the paper bag up and opened it. Inside was a brown teddy bear, with a hard red heart sewn into its soft, warm chest. I looked down at it, tears filling my eyes. This nameless feeling, this uncertain emotion that had been torturing me for weeks came into sharp focus as I looked down at that beautiful, tragic bear. The plane burst through the clouds and the sunlight poured into the window, and I turned to watch the grey disappear into exuberant billows of white, my eyes stinging, my chest collapsing. I could finally admit what was in my heart, my hard plastic heart buried in a dark forest of fur. I knew what to call that painfully breathless, stomach-churning feeling now. I could call it love.