So, a while back, I made reference to the fact that Phil and I are a couple for the second time. Doesn't sound that uncommon, I hear you say! Well, no, it isn't when there's no explanation. However, I think our little story is worth telling, so here it is:
Picture the scene: September 1997 and I'd just started college at St Vincent in Gosport. I was 17, a little Hippy pagan chick with red hair, blue eyeshadow, bottle green chord flares and serious angst. Fresh out of school I was very sweet, very innocent and loving every second of perceived
freedom of not being in uniform and at the mercy of a timetable anymore. I was wandering round the upstairs floor with a friend when she spotted a guy she knows (and secretly really fancies) so we sat down and chatted with him and his large blonde friend. She introduced him as Phil, and Phil introduced his friend as Zildjian. I'm terribly shy, so I barely said anything, and it was soon time for our English class we stalked off towards the clocktower and our classroom.
A few days later I was sitting in the cafeteria doing I forget what, when the same friend, this time with her secret crush and some others in tow showed up and we all sat together, drinking coffee and talking nonsense. Somehow, Phil and I got talking about paganism and all sorts, chatting away like no tomorrow. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my friend is getting a little huffy, so was almost glad when there next class starts and I'm left to my own devices again.
The only problem is, I really quite liked this guy. He's cute. He's got long blonde hair, a wicked smile and a way of walking that makes me feel slightly full of butterflies. Somehow, our paths crossed several times more, culminating in me switching one of his DM's for mine - how terribly
silly, and yet how sweet. Ultimately, we ended back at mine one afternoon where there was some holding hands, an awkward question with a happy answer, and then lots of snogging.
We stayed together for less than 6 months; ours was a first-love style romance, sweet, full of furious make-out sessions, holding hands, cinema dates and long phone calls. We were hopelessly in lust with each other and utterly inseparable. It was a relationship of firsts for both of us, including a change from PG-13 to rated R ;) But, as these things often do, they ended with much angst and shouting and tears shortly before my 18th birthday, and I went off to become a Goth to show my depression at having been dumped for the first time. We didn't speak again, and slowly, he faded into the distance of my memories.
Fast forward to November 2007. I'm now living in Brighton with my two cats and loving life, I've bloomed into a happy little Gothic wench with a wicked sense of mischief and adventure. My dear friend Jeremy had not long moved to Cardiff of all places and was pestering me to go and stay. I really didn't have much money but it was my only spare weekend before Christmas and I really missed him, so I set off on the train.
Cardiff is a bit ghastly really, and it's scene is really nothing special compared to Brighton, so the club we ventured to first made my face hurt with the horror of it all. It was fairly busy, fairly pricey and the carpets were fairly sticky. And it smelled like feet. Luckily, just round the corner was another club, so we tried that one out for size! Oh dear god, it was worse, if possible. This one smelled of wee and was no-where near as busy. But it was cheaper, so we loaded up our glasses with vodka and lemonade and headed out into the back garden so I could smoke, Jeremy could look at boys, and we could wait for more people to show up. Hopefully.
A few drinks into the night, I realised that just to my left there was a young man who looked oddly familier. I remarked upon this to Jeremy and tried to explain it.
"That's weird. That bloke looks just like a boy I went out with, years ago in college. Only now he's got dreads and is wearing glasses. I think his name was Phil."
I mentioned this more than once, because eventually, with more drink inside him, Jeremy got up and strode across to their table to accost him.
The next thing I knew, this guy came bounding towards me, and it really is him, it's the first boy I ever fell in love with, and he's hugging me and I'm thinking how gorgeous he is, how strange this is and still not quite believing it's him! Of all the places in the world to meet him again, the beer garden of a rubbish gay club in Cardiff was pretty high up on the "least-likely" list, I'll be honest. But there he was, and the three of us sat and chatted, laughed and smoked our way through the evening, every-so often getting fresh drinks. We caught up very quickly on the last 10 years and reminisced - he even remembered my full name, all 5 of them - about heady college days. Jeremy went off to dance, so Phil and I took advantage of the solitude to...get talked at by a mad Christian man for aaaaaaaaaaaaaages. In the end, he finally went away and the boy and I
shared our first kiss in 10 years - and it was brilliant. Truly, a movie moment :D
And the rest, as they say, is history. A lot of it is rated NC-17, so none of that here, some of it is terribly romantic, and it all involves falling in love all over again. Phil decided he'd fallen n love with Brighton too, so he got a job here in early May and he's been living here ever since - a fantastic move as we now have a perfectly wonderful, normal relationship. I spend a lot of my time smiling :D He really is the best guy I've ever had the pleasure of dating, and words can't really describe how happy I feel when I look at him or think of him.
It's all good in the world of SHG.
