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Miss Oblivious and Derek

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    Miss Oblivious and Derek

    She was a tall half-Asian, half-Caucasian girl who had been quiet and awkward most of her first 23 years of existing. Not really able to speak Japanese, but spending money on classes to eventually learn, and spending time other people would have used for friends to read or write instead, she was a studious person to say the least. And she really didn't know how relationships were supposed to work. Don't get me wrong, she had been in relationships before, two-year ones, but she hadn't yet found out how to make one work out permanently. Was it her looks? No, she had confidence in that at least, sometimes. Was it her awkwardness? Her anti-socialness? Her occasionally desire to be alone reading or writing or just thinking? Was it her bouts of emotional instability? Was it her old-fashioned clothes?

    And so, while Miss Oblivious was thinking and thinking about what was so wrong with her, she decided to not even think about dating anyone until she fixed whatever it was. She poured her attention into friends and family, graduating from college, and taking care of her fat cat. She spent time working with elderly people, learning how fleeting life could be, but that the Ultimate End isn't something to be afraid of or or even sad about. She learned that the best thing to do while living is to LIVE, and then spend the rest of the time telling the stories. She traveled two-thousand miles to visit her grandparents in Seattle, WA and San Francisco, CA, meeting her mom's father for the first time in years. She went walking with them, and those were the best, most relaxing walks she remembers to this day. She spent more time with her mom, who complained about getting older more often, even though her mom was nowhere near as old as the senior residents she worked for. So Miss Oblivious decided it was her mission to make her mom feel as young and beautiful as she believed her mom was. And then, she spent a semester alone in a small one-bedroom apartment with only her cat, some books, and used DVDs and a 14" TV to keep her company. She learned what it meant to live for yourself--going to the store to buy whatever, walking in the wind and rain just to get wet and cold, and jump into the blankets to read a book, only to fall asleep at the really good parts and have weird dreams.

    Some nights she was lonely, and she felt something inside her cracking in half again and again each time she thought about what "being alone" really means. At first she thought the cracking was her heart--that little muscle that actually has nothing to do with the biochemical process of feeling sadness, but is where the splitting pain occurs anyway. But day after day, night after night, week after week, and then month after month she realized it was her old self splitting off into someone new. Like genes unzipping in mitosis, like an egg breaking to reveal a baby chick, or perhaps more like a snake shedding its skin, she was undergoing a breathtaking change. It was painful at first, but then it became exhilarating.

    So she was single for over a year, thinking things through, looking at life again through the eyes of an individual. She graduated from college and made the big decision to join the Navy, despite having never thought of joining before. She was wary, scared of giving her life away to an institution that might abuse her, but she had her reasons. 1) She didn't want to pay off student loans the rest of her life like her mom did, still did after twenty years. 2) She knew already that her English degree would only land her a desk job until she paid off her loans, or until she became a pro writer, whichever came first. 3) She wanted to travel before she settled down, trying to take her mom's advice to wait to have kids until she fulfilled her premarital bucket list. And so, she kept her chin up as she walked into the recruiting office in a pair of sandals, tights, and a blue dress. She scored high on the ASVAB prep test, enough to have the recruiters talking about Nuclear Engineering. And then she blew the actual ASVAB out of the water.

    After studying and acing not only the ASVAB but the Nuclear Aptitude test meant specifically for potential Nuclear Engineers,the recruiters at the MEPS testing center explained to her that there weren't any female spots open and that she had to pick a backup until she could switch her contract. She was disappointed, frustrated, even angry, but she decided to wait it out. During the first six months before basic training, she was in the Advanced Electronics and Computer Field. She trained under the title, AECF, studied the START guide, and even moved to California under that title. It was only after nagging her recruiters back East, signing a waiver about her lack of college-level Mathematics, and then endless months of DEPping in every Monday only to have to wait until next week, next time.

    Oddly enough, waiting for the Nuke contract was just about as frustrating as waiting to close the distance in a long-distance relationship. And whether it was for herself or someone else, she was never very good at waiting. Maybe that was it... Maybe, she just wasn't good at waiting. She realized this a few months in and decided to change it. She stopped thinking about how long it might take to get the new contract, about how, if she couldn't get one before she shipped out that she would be stuck with AECF rate instead of NF--she just stopped thinking and delved into her work without hesitation. She worked part-time at the retirement home, she learned how to ballroom dance, bought a belly dancing skirt, revamp her old wardrobe, and read a mountain of books. And then, after the six months of waiting she got a call one Monday.

    "Hey Petty Officer, how's it going?" She said, curious to know why her recruit was calling right after she had DEP'ed in with him earlier that same day.

    "Hey Nakamura, are you sitting down?"

    "Noo...why?" She looked at the dining room chair speculatively, wrinkling her dark brows.

    "Guess what?"

    "What." By this time she was getting slightly agitated at the suspense.

    "Your contract came in. I'm holding it right now. I'm gonna scan it and email it to you, and all you have to do is sign and send it back. How's that?"

    At first she didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and then it clicked. She couldn't stop smiling while she said, "Sure, I'll do that. Thanks Petty Officer, thanks for all your hard work." And after hanging up she felt anything less than jumping up and down with joy wouldn't express how happy and relieved she felt. It was over, the wait for the contract was over. It made the next six months of waiting to go into basic training easy-peasy.

    But that wasn't the only waiting that ended...

    Around the same time a young man she had met at the MEPS center back in Michigan confessed to her through Facebook, albeit somewhat indirectly. His name was Derek. He was as tall as her, though he would like for it written that he was half an inch taller, (but the Navy didn't count half-inches), and he was younger, fresh out of high school. His eyesight was so bad he had to go to an optometrist to get a waiver signed so he could join, even though he also smoked the ASVAB and applied to Nuclear Engineering. He was confident in his mathematical knowledge, and tinkered with electronics just to see how they worked and get them working again. He wanted to join because he needed direction, discipline, and money. He wanted to get away from his impersonal family and start his own life, somewhere down the road get married and have a flock of little children, raising them up with someone he loved.

    He didn't expect to meet Miss Oblivious in the middle of his breaking relationship with a girl from Hawai'i. He definitely didn't expect to meet her at the testing center. But he did, and they hit it off. They rode the same carpool down, along with another guy. That first night they left the hotel and walked a couple miles to get Jets pizza, sharing it innocently in the lobby with their carpool mate. The next morning they were off to MEPS, tired at f***, and dragging themselves to get their medical waivers signed and processed. They got a ride back, listening to Rock and nodding off, expecting never to see each other again. But Derek talked to his recruiter, who was the same recruiter for Miss Oblivious, and he was able to get another day at MEPS with her, this time to sign their final contracts. She was signing AECF, he was signing on as a Master-at-Arms (MA). Neither of them got the Nuke job they originally wanted...


    (Continued in next post)

    #2
    He wanted to invite her to his graduation party but his mom wouldn't drive a half-hour out of her way to pick up a girl. He apologized and kept in contact on Facebook, but the girl left to visit her parents place on the other side of Michigan before traveling to Seattle and then to San Francisco. It was only when she was in Seattle that he heard of her moving away at all. Most of his friends were on vacation or had moved away to college that summer, and so he just sucked it up and kept talking to her on Facebook, briefly, bit by bit, hoping to keep her attention long enough for something to happen. Anything, a miracle!

    Now, why couldn't Derek just confess earlier? Why wait a few months during summer if he was lonely and needed company right then? Well, he was afraid of scaring her off. He had a history of developing crushes on girls who, for some reason or another, decided not to date him. A couple coworkers, a few strangers, mostly friends or friends of friends. He ended most of his relationship because the girl was being bitchy, or too clingy, or too dramatic. He liked Miss Oblivious because she was chill, relaxed, and enjoyable to talk to time and time again. He didn't want to lose that, and so he didn't say anything until she showed some interest. In August, they had a conversation on Facebook that lasted hours.

    A few days after that he was drinking, and she wanted to drink with him so he wouldn't be drinking alone, so they drank a couple shots together virtually and he decided to make his move.

    "The only things I have really really going for me is my bd-card and my v-card." He wrote, after she made the rhetorical question about why he hadn't found someone yet.

    "Big dick?"

    "Yah."

    "But what's a v-card? V-card... vvvvvv."

    "Virgin."

    "Oooooooo..."

    Then they got to talking about what kind of person they desired in a significant other, and he ended up saying something like, "I wouldn't mind losing my virginity to someone like you."

    Maybe it was her hormones, or maybe the year of spending time alone was catching up to her, but she replied, "Well, I wouldn't mind taking your virginity."

    The next morning, she Facebooked him, or emailed him, or called him, and asked if he remembered last night, since they had been drinking. He smiled through the phone, she could hear it in the way he said, "Nope, and I don't regret it either, do you?"

    "No." she said.

    And Miss Oblivious' obliviousness was blown out of the water. She asked him about his experience, how he had fallen in love with her. How he had gotten a boner at MEPS when she smiled wide at her, when she had fallen asleep on his shoulder in the waiting room without realizing it, or really remembering it, about how he was really disappointed that she couldn't come to his party, and about how he had felt helpless and on the verge o giving up when she had moved away. Miss Oblivious was stunned, unbelieving for a second. She hadn't known, and if she had would she have still moved to California to visit her family? Yes and no, maybe.

    She shook her head to clear out all the thoughts, knowing by now how much trouble thoughts can become. She focused on being happy that they were together now, even if it wasn't physically together. Not yet.

    For the next couple months they spent almost every day calling each other on Skype, talking about anything and everything. He sent her funny angry comics, and she sent him the occasional picture and a loving email to go along with it. They sent texts back and forth, sometimes on Facebook, sometimes on Skype, sometimes talking on the phone, but always talking. Then, Miss Oblivious had an urge to look up prices for a flight from Detroit to San Francisco, and she found a round trip ticket for $300 to San Jose airport. She couldn't believe it! She called Derek that same day, he asked for a few days around Halloween off, and she bought the tickets by the end of the day.

    She was finally going to see him again after beginning the relationship online, after talking for hours about missing each other and about wondering if she should've stayed in Michigan after all. She was excited, but once again she had to wait. Three weeks became agonizingly long. They started a count down, which probably didn't help matters until the last week. It was only during the last seven days when costumes were being bought, bags packed, itineraries sent and boarding passes printed, and online check-ins that the time really flew by until he was on the plane, and then on the train, and both their phones were dying but he was calling out station names as he passed them by, getting closer and closer to the San Francisco stop she was waiting at, pacing back and forth on a stone bench, trying to stare through the wall the train was going to stop behind.

    When the train pulled up Miss Oblivious didn't remember breathing. She felt bouyant, weightless, staring blankly into the handful of people lugging bags up to the station gate. It was late, she was tired and hungry, but then a buzz-cut guy in a tan t-shirt, jeans, and a black Lowell High sweatshirt raised his hand as he passed through the gate and said, "Hey." She mumbled, "Derek?" under her breath, but he probably didn't hear.

    When they were waiting to board the BART rail, she snapped out of her daze and emotion welled up inside her so fierce she had to look at the ground. She felt like she could burst from holding every happy emotion in, and he said, "Look at you, can't even look at me." And he grabbed her around the waist and kissed her under his hood, under her long hair, kissing her lips for the first time, holding her body for the first time.

    Needless to say, as soon as they walked into their hotel room Miss Oblivious took Derek's v-card and shredded it. They spent those few days in pure happiness. She showed him the piers, the bridges, and they walked miles to get to the Golden Gate bridge from the Embarcadero. Then they took the bus to Japantown, and she showed him how much Japanese she could still remember. The next day it was Chinatown, and then clubbing during Halloween night, and then as soon as it started it was over and they were rushing to board the train that would take him to the airport, and take her back home. They were crying together on the train, riding it as far as she could go before she had to turn back to go to work. They played music. They talked about missin each other, and about calling each other asap. They talked about staying strong, and about how they would see each other again in a couple months. He said something about after the first two months, the next few shouldn't be a problem, right? She laughed and kissed him, but something inside of her kept her quiet.

    Miss Oblivious was cracking again, and this time the change was slower, and she felt each crack like a jab to her sternum. Some cracks were sweet, like knowing that whenever and wherever he was, Derek would still love her and think about her. Some cracks were more drastic and painful, like how they couldn't spend Thanksgiving on New Year's, and how they had to search for an apartment, but every apartment seemed to be gone before they could get it. Some few times she wondered what the hell she was thinking when she stopped being single, and splurged on herself by buying new books to read, clothes to wear, and going out to the movies. Derek referred to these times as her "alone time," and she thought it was rightly named. It was like she was back in her apartment with her cat, temporarily, and it was lonely but refreshing at the same time.

    They got into arguments those last months, which are in fact not really over yet. Some of the arguments were serious, like how she was frustrated he would spend time with his friends when they were supposed to get an apartment. Some were harmless, but even more emotional, like how he wanted to spend Christmas Eve with her but she had decided to spend it with her Dad. They made up eventually, always eventually. But one argument is left undone. And now, the morning after Christmas, after a couple days on arguing with Derek, Miss Oblivious is writing this long-winded story on a website she found out of desperation of having nowhere else to go or anyone else to talk to. Derek has turned off his phone, saying he has to sleep, and she feels sorry because he said he loved her, but she never did. She said, "I'm not sure," and he hung up.

    And now she has to wait. Damn.





    The End
    Last edited by kynakamura; December 26, 2012, 09:46 AM.

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