the feeling that i might be an asshole has slowly ebbed away.

and now, the warning:

this entry will be completely about her, so if you don't like that kind of stuff, well, you've been warned.

she tells me, now, that when she first saw me, at our date, when she was walking up to the curb, she saw me sitting in the lobby.

she said she felt something, something about me caught her eye and she knew we could be really compatible. which made her really nervous. which made her stay on her cell phone as she walked inside.

and i saw her on her phone, and she didnt say anything to me, barely looked at me, and i thought "oh no she dinnt."

she stayed on the phone as we sat down, and i was mentally grumbling, but then she hung up and told me it was about her grandmom, which i understood.

and then, yesterday, she told me she stayed on as long as she did because i made her nervous.

after dinner i didn't want to leave, so i asked her to go to a movie with me. she said yes, we started walking across the parking lot to the mall, and it started raining.

i felt like an ass, getting her stuck in this bad downpour, but then she just started laughing.

so that got me.

we watched the movie, we didn't want to stop, she drove me to a coffee shop.

we sat there, talking, and i wanted to kiss her, and she kept looking at my lips, and then two of her exs came in and that was weird.

after one of them took her outside to yell at her (i didn't know about this until later, or else i'd been out there getting her away) about the way she was looking at me.

she came back, got me so we could escape, and we sat in this parking lot just talking.

she said "you make me self conscious."

"how?"

"because of the way you look at me."

"what about it?"

"it's just... your eyes, and then that smile you get, and it's the unspoken stuff."

"what unspoken stuff?"

"you know, what to do, what not to do."

"what should i do?"

"what do you want to do?"

"kiss you."

"i think you should go for it."

so i went for it.

and i spent the night with her.

i took my shirt off, at one point, and she said "damn!" and i said "what?" and she said "you have a hot body."

and i laughed. hard.

but she meant it, for whatever reason, she meant it, and she looked at me, looked and just touched me, my shoulders, my chest, my hips. and it was quiet, and it was slow, and it was.

since then, things have just gotten better.

i won't got into it all, wont go into how she looks at me as if i really am amazing, or how she tells me i'm going to break a lot of hearts by being with her, or how shes made me be more honest with her than i think i've ever been, how i've done things with her i haven't done with anyone.

she's so unlike anyone else ive ever been with. her past, her problems, this, that, the other thing, i'm completely not used to lying there next to someone, talking, listening to her tell me about cutting herself, about the drugs, it's just... it's almost over my head, out of my hands, but then she'll sleeply say "you make me want to be a better person."

she's christian, and we've already discussed/argued our beliefs, so we'll see how that turns out, later down the line.

we've talked about her going away to school, me going to brazil, and she still wants to try for things, she wants to come visit me on her fall break, she says "it's just a semester, right?" and i say "right."

i met her stepbrother, he told her that he thought i was cool and not a psycho, which her exs have been, which is a plus.

her dogs like me.

her best friend likes me.

and she took me to meet up with one of her other friends, to get something he had borrowed.

the three of us started talking.

we wound up memphis, sleeping on someone's floor, under a blanket that had been folded under us to cushion. i let her sleep in the fold, because she was cold, and as i was just reaching around to pull the cover up to her shoulder she stopped me. she said "why do you take care of me?"

and i couldn't explain it. i couldn't say that covering her when she's cold is just something that should be done, that's just right to do. instead i just said "you should be taken care of."

and the smile, man, her smile, it's what kills me, so wide and honest, so great.

we went to the zoo in memphis. we went to eat at a chinese buffet.

her friend read his fortune, he said it was true. she read her fortune, she said it was true.

i read mine.

it read "stop searching so hard. your happiness is next to you."

i read it.

they were waiting for me to read mine out loud and declare it true. i just turned it so she could read it.

i watched her eyes scan it.

then she looked up at me, looked up, did that smile, and said "that's kind of freaky."

my happiness is next to me.

i'm going to pick her up from work in two hours. i'm going to pick her up and i don't know what'll happen, where we'll go, what she'll see of mine. i want to show her my writing, i want to show her baby pictures, i want to do all of this stuff with her.

i don't know what's really happening here, but she says it feels different.

and it does.