Dude, we're so awesome

True to form, I was the last to figure it out. When I started talking to Kate about it, she immediately said “No shit Sherlock… I’ve been WAITING for you to have this conversation with me!!!” Even Lance, a seven year old who resides in a different state to me, had it figured before I had. I really need to work on my inner detective skills and learn to interpret the signs a little more accurately and much quicker.

Janek and I have been hanging out a lot, whether on campus or at my place watching videos etc. He hasn’t been well so I’ve even had him sleeping there during the day while I gallivanted around learning and being the model student. On Friday, I called him at about 3pm and asked if he’d like to pop round to watch a video because, well, there was no reason… I just wanted to spend time with him.

He arrived at about the same time as a sudden spasm of back pain so I couldn’t get comfortable sitting up. I lay down, with the electric blanket on full blast to try (rather vainly as it would turn out) to relieve the pain. Janek lay down next to me, our bodies pressed up together on my tiny single bed, and his head on my shoulder. We watched the movie and then lay there talking, me topless by this point. I realise that at this point this story is beginning to sound like bad porn fiction, but I swear that (on my part at least) it was all innocent. As we spoke, I had a sudden spasm of pain run across my left shoulder blade; he asked if I was ok and held my hand. Anyway, the time came for him to leave so I accompanied him outside and bid him farewell. And then it hit me. I have feelings for him.

I jumped on MSN. Kate was online, thankfully:
Dan: Kate!
Kate: Hey babycakes! How’s your day been?
Dan: I think I have feelings for Janek.
Kate: No shit Sherlock! I’ve been WAITING for you to have this conversation with me!!!!
Dan: As he was leaving today it hit me. Fuck I’m dumb sometimes!
Kate: Dan… he wants you too ya pair of fools!
Dan: I know!!!
Kate: It’s so funny… I have known for AGES… and I have said zip and you worked it out FINALLY for yourself!

I smsed him and asked him to come back here, that I had something to say. He wrote back that he had just got home but would come as soon as he could. An hour later he was on my doorstep. He came in and I told him that I knew he still had feelings for me (he looked at me with a look somewhere between confused and non-committal) and that I knew he did because Kate had told me, and that I liked him too but I was too nervous to do anything. He pulled me in and held me tight… I lifted up my head and looked at his face—beaming like a sun on laughing gas—and kissed him. Unfortunately our blissful reverie was cut short by the fact that his brother was outside waiting for him in the car, so he had to leave after about twenty minutes. Then it was my turn to grin like an over-enthusiastic clown doctor.

Later that night I went into the kitchen for some water and bumped into The Optimist. We talked a little then he too beamed at me and announced that he had kissed The Girl From Down The Street. “Ahhh,” I said, “I was wondering when you two would get together. I see the way you are around each other.” It turns out I can see these things in other people, just not in myself. “Well, I kissed Janek today,” I told him.

“Dude,” he replied, “we’re so awesome!”