The boy that ditched our randomly planned double date the Sunday before last decided the next day that he “owed” me for being inconsiderate and bailing out on us. If he could realize that he was in the wrong, apologize, and request to make it up to me, I felt as if he deserved a second chance. I’m a pretty forgiving person I’d like to think. When Colton, the Maritime man, offered to take the hour long train ride from Long Island to take me out to dinner and drinks, I decided that his offense was overlook-able. I’m glad that I gave him another chance because now I know that he deserved it.
We walked around Times Square for almost an hour just getting to know each other and exploring the bright lights. I found out that he was not legally able to get into the bars. He had a fake ID that he had actually pieced together from parts mailed to him from Taiwan. He is only 20 years old (little old me coug-ing out as always). Being a random Monday night, we walked around for quite some time looking for a good bar to settle down in. After no luck, I decided that we should try the always-hopping 13th Step. The bartenders were just as friendly as they were the other night with Dani and I. Even though I was with a boy, they were passing us free drinks left and right. A small Mexican woman at the bar made friends with me and I nodded/smiled at everything she said, though I honestly had no idea what she was speaking about 80% of the time. We decided to verse our new bar friends in a game of beer-pong with a free shot at stake.
I mistakenly asked the foreign couple to “consolidate” the cups after we had made two shots. With this statement, the two looked at each other very quizzically. Colton burst out laughing because he had apparently n-e-v-e-r heard that word to describe a re-rack in beer pong before. From here, our laughter became whispers and our conversation turned a little racial. It was all in fun, plus they had no clue what was going on in their drunken stupor. We began laughing so hard that my awful witch cackle came out. He was rather astonished that such a noise came out of me, but this caused us to laugh even more. I love when I laugh like that because it means that I’m truly happy, and having real, uncontrollablefun.
After losing our pong game, we decided it was time to get the heck out of there. The couple was trying to insist that we stay and play another game, but we wanted to go home. No way, Jose! Instead, we went back to my apartment. I wasn’t going to make him wait for the hour long train back to Long Island at 3 in the morning, so he was going to have a “sleepover.” We sat in my apartment and discovered that we were strangely similar people. I didn’t get any sleep that night because we never went to bed. We had way too much to talk about. Traveling, favorite memories, goals, school, relationships, and life were among the subjects of our conversation. It wasn’t until I had to leave for work that Colton went with me to the train station.
We hung out a few other times since this first date and I’m so glad that I gave him that second chance to make things up to me. He turned out to be a really cool guy that was incredibly easy to talk to. It was weird how our conversation just flowed from one topic to the next without even the slightest lull. As they say, however, all good things come to an end. He’s training to be a ship captain at Maritime and is required to leave on a six-week summer intensive onboard a ship with 50 other men. Colton actually left today for the duration of the summer.
He was such a positive person to be around, and had a smile to die for. I knew the last time I’d see him, for this summer anyways, was Sunday night. My friends here were all joking about him trying to make me an army wife before he left. I knew from getting to know him, however, that this was not his goal. Marriage is something in the distant future, but why not hang out with someone whom you enjoy his or her company? He made me feel really comfortable, smart, and generally good about myself. We had our big goodbye, and he told me that meeting me had been the biggest highlight in the “best summer” of his life. I often wonder why we’re placed in these poor-timing types of situations in life. For instance, what was the reason I met him? We clicked so fast only to have him sail away…
Always,
Alena Netia Horowitz
