I wanted each and every one of the girls in the room to know that he had been thinking about my underwear. I wanted them to know that he was attracted to me (for a reason unbeknownst to me) and I wasn't wearing any make up and I didn't even have to shove my breasts in his face. So there.
I would have screamed this to the world if given the chance. I also would have flashed the entire city of New Orleans but I didn't. I didn't tell the world that I was with Taylor either. Just because I didn't. I didn't feel like it.
I wasn't jealous of the girls he flirted with. Or maybe I was slightly, but that wasn't the entire reason I wanted to break each of their hearts. I wanted them to see how ridiculous they were and how unnecessary it was to attack him and tell him they loved him. What's sad is that I'm sure some of them truly did love him and he could so very easily make them believe he loved them back without even realizing it. He didn't even have to say anything, just hold their eyes with his and they believed wholeheartedly he had seen his soul mate within them. I wanted every girl to know that he didn't love them and that he simply exuded an aura of radiant sexiness and love.
Okay, fine, I wanted them to know he was already taken.
I met Taylor at a concert in Boston. I waited for six hours on a sidewalk on Tremont street and got a ticket in row Z which I was supposed to switch with my friend in row F half way through the show, but that never happened. I got a backstage pass by chance because my other friend decided she didn't like the band and gave it to me. I almost died at the prospect of meeting Hanson.
I bought a mini denim skirt that I couldn't bend over in. I bought a silver scarf that I knotted around my neck and I had beautiful silver hoops that almost fit around my wrists. They hung from my ears and swung back and forth, hitting my neck with the refreshing coolness of metal as I danced. I wore mid-calf high boots that made the balls of my feet hurt and by the end of the evening I couldn't walk. I wore purple eye shadow and thick black mascara. I felt beautiful that night and I'm sure it showed as I walked through the theater before the show. I wanted to show myself off, show everyone how gorgeous I looked and standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom I applied red lipstick like a queen while the girl beside me slid on a light shade of frosty pink. Live on the edge, I thought. Go red.
I danced until my side hurt and even then I didn't stop. I untied my scarf and used it as a prop, waving it and twisting it around my body in sexy movements that I hoped could be seen by the three boys on-stage. I hoped the glitter on my cheeks reflected the light jumping offstage and made me shine like a star so the whole world could see me.
I wasn't full of myself. I allowed myself to feel beautiful and therefore I was beautiful. I knew that if I thought of my make up or my hair or the roll of skin and fat that was visible if I moved the right way in the light I wouldn't look beautiful and people wouldn't stop and stare. But I wanted them to stare so I became the Gorgeous Callie Howard. Hah.
Backstage I screamed like every other girl there as Isaac Taylor and Zac walked in. Their skin sparkled from sweat and their hair was soaking yet they all looked insanely gorgeous.
I met Taylor last. I waited until no one else was there and I walked up to him. Unintentionally I held his eyes with mine as I said hello. It was then that I stopped feeling beautiful. I stopped feeling anything at all and simply stared at him. He stared at me. In thirty seconds I think he saw beyond my constant reminder to myself that I looked good and to the purely insecure 16 year old girl in front of him. I think he saw that I was scared and nervous and that my feet hurt and my hair stuck to my neck and made my skin itch.
I wonder if I saw as deeply within him as he appeared to see in me. I saw that he was beautiful and that he didn't know it. He never thought about it. I saw that he couldn't stop looking at me and that scared him because he had almost made it back home without falling for someone (if falling was what he was doing). I saw that he was trying to say something and sign my ticket stub but he forgot that he was holding a pen and wondered where he could find another one.
I don't really remember what else was seen or what silly, incoherent things we said to each other, but I do remember him telling me in some odd way to stay where I was and he would be back and take me to Dunkin Donuts down the street to get some coffee. He said we would talk. And we did, for four hours. At 2:30 I realized I had a place called home and I had missed my train there. He called a cab and waited with me outside of the Orpheum until it came.
He kissed me and I gave him my phone number. He called me the next day and asked me to come visit him in Philadelphia in two weeks.
In Philadelphia we didn't part for 48 hours. I never went home and told my mother I would see in her in a week. I wore Taylor's shirts for that week until she sent me more clothes. I did school work with their tutors who offered their teaching for free because the Hansons were so nice.
As soon as I met Taylor my life became insane. Taylor is insane so naturally everything around him is insane. The girls who see him for the first time instantly loose their footing and step off the deep end. When I see him daily, I wonder if the deep end ever stops and if I will ever hit the bottom. I stepped over the edge long ago and I can only wait for the day I wake up and realize I'm lying on cold, hard pavement. Alone.
