I wonder if he's awake yet...?? (a memoir)

I wonder if he’s awake yet…? I just don’t want his parents to catch me looking at him. I’ll just lay here a little bit longer and listen to hear if he shuffles in his sleeping bag or not. But I’m dying to know if he’s awake yet. Just lay here, Angela—just for a minute.

Forcing myself to pretend like I was sleeping, my thoughts flicked through the recent events of the weekend: I was on a camping trip with my best friend Daniel and his family (except for his sister, Mia). They had never been camping before, so I had to show them how to do stuff—like clear the ground of pine cones before setting up the tent. We were all equally excited over being in a rented 4-Runner, as normally their family drove a hunter green mini van and mine drove a big boat, which Ford tried to elegantly call a Crown Victoria.

Daniel’s Swedish dad, Jan, carried his coveted Arizona Highways magazine. He used it to choose all the towns we would visit. There were several items of interest that he wanted to see, one barn in particular. But when we drove to see the barn, he kept showing us the picture in the magazine—completely forgetting about the actual barn in front of us! That became the joke of the day.

Still pretending to sleep, my thoughts returned to Daniel. We had been best friends for quite some time. How funny that I first met him years prior because he and my sister wanted to “go out” in Jr. High and my parents didn’t want them to. Well, here we were. Daniel was allowed to bring one friend camping with him, and he chose me! That made me all giddy and squishy inside. I had been crushing on him for a long time, but couldn’t admit it because we were such good friends and I knew he wasn’t interested in me. Now I had to spend this whole weekend with him, pushing back those retarded heart jumps that made me shy and suddenly stupid. It’s hard to be normal around someone you like.

I wonder if he’s awake yet…? I’m just going to barely crack my eyes open and see… I hope they don’t open too much so it looks like I’m peeking! Ohp, there we go. Oh my gosh! He’s staring at me! I quickly shut my eyes, wondering if I shut them so fast it made my eyes flinch. Then he would know. Then he’d know that I peeked at him and saw him looking at me. Oh my gosh, this is so lame. What am I supposed to do now!? I have to peek again to see if he’s still looking, or if it was just a fluke. Slowly Angela, don’t let him know you’re peeking! Dude, he’s still looking at me! He’s totally looking at my whole face—studying me! Oh crap…. The sun is shining through the tent, making my morning facial oils glow, I’m sure. And my hair… I KNOW how sexy I am with sleeping bag hair. Oh dude, what do I do? Do I roll over so he can’t see me? Do I open my eyes? No, cause then he’d catch me… Man… he is still looking at me.

No longer am I wondering if he’s awake yet. I’m freaking out because I don’t know what this means! Could I actually get my hopes up? I could have spent a whole month wondering why he was looking at me, because that was how long it took Daniel to tell me that was the moment he fell in love with me.

Angela L. Mattei