The weekend was perfect. It was everything I could have wanted it to be.

FRIDAY NIGHT

Molly and I left school at lunch on Friday. We stopped for a quick bite to eat and then went to the salon to get our hair done. We both got up dos. Originally I was afraid to get it done so many hours before the prom but my hair was not coming down. I’ve never had so many pins and so much hair spray in my hair before.

On the way home Josh called. At first I was worried that he was going to cancel. Molly scolded me and told me to just answer the phone. When I did he told me his mom wanted to know if we would take pictures with Lauren and Brett. I can’t believe I was so worried!

I spent the rest of the day getting ready, and by the time the doorbell rang I was super nervous. I knew that this was my chance to spend time with Josh and find what’s going to happen between us. I was excited and scared out of my mind. I was so afraid that things would get messed up, you know? It was like I was standing on the edge of something huge and terrified of getting hurt. But I remembered what Josh holding his hand out to me at the baseball game and saying, “I’ll catch you if you fall.” I realized that I can trust him and that he wouldn’t ever hurt me on purpose.

When I walked down the stairs and saw him standing there I felt completely at ease. He looked so gorgeous in his tux! And his eyes were shining…so cute! He told me I liked beautiful and my mom and Aunt Lu both said “Ah!” I was ready to kill them!

My mom took pictures and then we rushed over to the Andersons’ house. My mom and Mrs. Anderson took more pictures. Then it was to Molly’s house for pictures with everyone: Lindsay, Tom, Jennifer, Terry, Molly, Alex, Josh and I. From there it was to the prom.

Dinner was fun. The boys were giving Molly a hard time for never seeing “Star Wars” and Alex was shocked that he was dating someone who hadn’t seen a pop culture phenomenon. Molly just kept rolling her eyes and shaking her head at him. A few people stopped over to say hello to Josh. Rich walked over and said hi and just smiled knowingly at us. I don’t know what’s up with him. I’ve only talked to him a few times – and the time we were in the elevator was the biggest conversation I’ve had with him. Nancy also stopped by. She didn’t say a word to me. Probably better that way since I wanted to rip her tongue out, tie it around her neck and strangle her with it.

After dinner the dancing began. Alex wanted to do the Cha Cha the whole night – since it’s the only dance he knows. I think Molly was getting a little annoyed – especially since most of the songs were not Cha Cha’s! I finally requested the song “Dance With Me” so that he could put his moves to work. Josh and I also got to show off some of our swing dancing moves. I kind of felt bad for Lindsay, though. Tom wasn’t much of a dancer but Alex and Terry both danced with her.

I danced with Alex and Terry. Josh danced with Molly, Jennifer and Nancy (I told him it was okay…trying to be the bigger person), but other than that Josh and I stuck together the whole evening.

The rain held off so we walked outside on the balcony. I looked up at the sky but there were too many clouds to see the stars. He must have known I was looking for the stars because he asked me if I remembered a conversation that we had last year at the prom. I actually did remember it because I went back and read my blog post about last year’s prom and I mentioned it! It was a conversation about star gazing. He asked if I still wanted to admire the stars from afar. I told him that there are times to watch from afar, but there are also times to take a closer look. He just smiled at me and looked like he was going to kiss me but the song “Kiss Me” came on and he laughed and was like, “Okay, this would just be too cheesy!” We went inside then and ate our dessert.

Molly got it into her head that she wanted to leave early to get down to the shore but I wanted to stay for the last dance so Alex kept her busy until the end. The last dance was a slow song. I thanked Josh for a great evening as we danced and told me that he had had a good time. I knew by the look in his eyes that it was coming, and then his lips were finally pressed against mine and it was Christmas Eve all over again… only a million times better. Everything I’ve wanted was finally happening and it was all so much better than I could have imagined. If the Christmas Eve kiss was the kiss to keep us warm all winter, than this kiss would keep us from cooling down all summer!

I was sure everyone knew what was going on afterwards because we kept grinning at each other like we were lovesick! No one noticed except Molly who had seen us kiss. I told her not to say anything. I didn’t want everyone to know there was something going on until I figured out what it was.

So we all headed home, changed and picked up our bags for the weekend and then it was off to Molly’s shore house. Josh drove my car and Alex and Molly rode down with us. Molly wanted my car down there thinking we could put the top down and cruise around. Unfortunately it was cold and looked like it would start raining at any second. I wasn’t really comfortable driving that far so Josh did the driving for me.

It was almost 2:00 when we got there. Lindsay, Tom, Jennifer, Terry, Kim, Kevin, Rhonda, Mitch and I were all there. The house is two stories with two apartments. The girls were upstairs and the boys were downstairs. Molly and I shared a room.

We didn’t go to sleep right away though. Everyone sat down to play Apples to Apples but I wanted to get on the beach before it started raining so I managed to get Josh out the door without anyone following us. We ran down to the beach and I could smell the salt air. It was nice being at the beach again. I touched the sand and Josh remarked that it wasn’t as nice as Siesta Key. I didn’t care though. We walked down to the water and I made him take off his shoes so we could get our feet wet. He tried to warn me that the water would be freezing, but I didn’t listen. Unfortunately, the water is nothing like Florida and he was right. I thought my toes were going to freeze off. He was a good sport about it though.

We sat down on the sand and talked for a little while. He was worried about Lauren. She had seemed agitated at the end of the night but we didn’t know why (we found out on Saturday…I’ll get to that later). The things we talked about were ordinary, every day things, but for some reason it seemed like such and important conversation. There was something different in his eyes – a good different – and I wanted to stay there looking in them forever.

The wind was picking up and I knew it was going to rain soon. Josh teased me that my hair wasn’t moving at all. There was probably a whole bottle of hair spray on my hair and a million bobby pins so it wasn’t going anywhere. Josh touched my hair and then he moved in and kissed me again. All of my fears were put to rest then. I was worried that maybe it wasn’t real, that our previous kisses were just accidents or things that would never happen again…but as he kissed me I knew this connection between us is 100% real. We didn’t get to sit there as long as I would have liked because it started to rain.

We got back to the house and everyone was in the middle of a game of Taboo – girls against boys. Josh and I joined our respective teams. The girls won! By then it was 4:30 in the morning and everyone was going to bed. I wanted another moment with Josh but I didn’t want to seem clingy or let on to the others that something was going on.

SATURDAY

We slept almost all morning on Saturday. We skipped breakfast and went straight to lunch. Molly has a favorite seafood restaurant in Point Pleasant so we drove over there and had lunch. After that we went over to the boardwalk.

It was raining off and on. We managed to squeeze a walk on the boardwalk in before it really came down. Most of the time we were in the arcade. I’m a champion at ski ball and Molly and I played air hockey. She beat me twice but I came back on the third game.

Josh pulled me into one of the picture booths and we had our picture taken. As I was getting up to leave the picture booth Josh took me by the arm and was like, “not so fast.” He pulled me back into the seat and kissed me. It was really cute.

I was kind of bummed that the weather was so bad and that the boardwalk was kind of dead. Josh promised to bring me back to the beach over the summer. :)

After that we went back to Long Beach Island. Kelly and Jason were coming for dinner so Molly, Kim and I went grocery shopping for food.

Dinner was interesting. Kelly acted like Josh should be paying full attention to her and Jason. I think she was getting on his nerves, and I felt really uncomfortable around her. As we were finishing up our meal my cell phone rang. I answered it and Lauren was on the other end crying hysterically. I got up from the table to hear her better but I couldn’t really make out what she was saying, except that she wanted to talk to Josh. I gave him the phone. He talked to her for a second and then went downstairs to talk to her in private. He was gone for a half hour so I went to find him. He was pacing around his room and talking to her. He was on his phone then and handed my phone back to me. When he got off he told me that Lauren was heartbroken. Brett had tried to pressure her into sex. When she said no, he dumped her. My first instinct was she’s better off without him, but then Josh said there was more. Apparently Brett told everyone that they did sleep together and that Lauren was horrible in bed and that’s why he broke it off! Josh looked like he was ready to kill someone.

I calmed him down and reminded him that Molly is one of the most popular girls in school and that she could single handedly set the record straight and bring Brett down. That seemed to make him feel better.

We were all beat from the night before so everyone was ready to call it a night by 11:00. I was kind of disappointed that Josh and I didn’t get to spend much alone time together but I didn’t want to bother him. He seemed stressed about his sister.

SUNDAY

When I woke up Sunday morning the sun was shining! I was so excited. We made a big breakfast at the house and then we took a ride over to a light house. We went inside and up to the top. The view was awesome, and Josh was in a much better mood.

We got ice cream after that and then took a walk by the water. Josh apologized for being moody the night before. He said that Kelly was getting on his nerves because she wanted him to pay attention to her. I made a remark about how she had come to see him, and he was like, “that’s fine, but I came to see you.” My heart turned over in my chest and I told him that if he wanted to see me, he should come home more. And he said, “I just might do that.”

After our walk we got back in the car and went back to the beach house to throw the towels and sheets in the dryer and then we grabbed lunch, and cleaned up the house before packing up the car.

From there we headed to Princeton for dinner. Kelly had called and insisted that we meet them for dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. I could tell she was getting on Josh’s nerves again but he did a good job at hiding it.

At the end of dinner she ticked me off because she insisted that she and Jason should take him to the train since they had to go that way anyway. I really wanted to spend every second I could with him before he had to go. We said an awkward good-bye in the parking lot and he left with Kelly and Jason.

Molly, Alex and I were starting to head home when my phone rang and Josh said he left his book in my car and asked if I’d drive over to the train station. Molly thinks he did it on purpose so he could see me again, but I don’t care why it happened I was just so glad to see him again.

We got to the train station and the three of us went up to the train platform where he was waiting with Kelly and Jason. We stayed there with them for a few minutes and then the light for the train started flashing that it was coming. Josh said good-bye to everyone but I still felt awkward about it.

As he was walking away I called out his name (I know, this sounds like a lame movie ending!). He turned and I ran over to him and thanked him for a great weekend. He gave me a big hug and a mischievous grin. He said, “So, should we give them something to talk about?” I didn’t know what he was talking about but I nodded and he kissed me right there in front of all of them. Then he looked into my eyes and said, “How about dinner next Saturday?” I was kind of taken aback but I must have indicated a “yes” somehow. He smiled and gave me one last quick kiss and said, “I’ll see you then.”

When I turned back to my friends Molly was grinning from ear to ear and Kelly looked completely shocked. It was priceless! The perfect ending to an amazing weekend.