Tonight is my first blind date and I’m nervous. Nervous enough that I feel like I’m going to puke any second now. But I’ve been ready for almost an hour. While pacing across the room, I look at the mirror next to the front door again, and examine my long brown hair that I straightened just for this occasion. It does look nice if I do say so. I look at the clock once more and sigh very loudly. It’s 7:17. He’s now seventeen minutes late. I can tell this is going to be a dumb date already! Why do I always get the stupid guys?!? Fourteen minutes later the doorbell finally rings. I slink slowly towards the door, bracing myself for the worst. I take a deep breath and open the door.

There stood a very familiar looking boy. He was so attractive that it made me forget his flaw of arriving late almost instantly. Maybe I knew him from school. But if he does go to my school, I don’t believe I’ve ever had any classes with him. He was dressed casually with a striped polo and khaki pants. His blond hair was a little messy but it worked on him. He stood there awkwardly for a second before he spoke.

“Hello, Hannah. I’m David. I apologize for arriving late tonight but dinner took a little bit longer to cook than I expected. I do hope you forgive me. I tried to plan activities that I thought you would like but please forgive me if I messed up. If we plan on getting to dinner before it gets too late, we should leave right away. Are you all right with pasta? And you’ll want to bring a coat and maybe a hat and gloves. It’ll be very cold. But I must say, you look beautiful. Do you normally do your hair straight like that? I really like it. And is 11:30 a good time to be home for you? And I’m a very good driver I promise,” he explained, while only taking a breath a couple of times.

“Pasta is my favorite actually! I can’t believe that you knew that. I’ve only told a couple of people that. And 11:30 is exactly when my mom said for me to be home. It looks like everything’s good now. Lets go before my brother sees us and starts to tease me.”

While walking out to his car, it hit me where I had seen David before. He was David Jenkins, the smartest but also the dorkiest guy in our grade. He looked so different tonight than he looked in school. Normally he wears floods and big, thick glasses and was seen speed walking to classes carrying many more textbooks than I thought was possible to have. I heard that he was taking almost all of his college classes online while balancing time reigning as the school’s chess champion and tutoring all of the dance company and half the people in my Physics class. Now that I think about it, I did have him in many of my classes. But, besides the fact of how unnaturally smart he was, he was really one of the nicest people I had ever met. No matter what he was doing, the instant that you asked him for help, he’d be there explaining the concept until you understood it. I am a little surprised to see that he actually goes on dates though. He doesn’t seem like a guy that would.

Realizing that my friends would never let me live it down if I told them I was on a date with David Jenkins, I became less excited for this date that what I was earlier. How fun is this date going to be if I can’t even tell my friends who I went with and what we did. I smiled as I remembered what my mom had said earlier, “If the date turns out to be with someone you don’t like, just put on a big, fake, cheesy smile and pretend that you are having a blast.”

“So where are we going?” I inquired.

“Somewhere special. You’ll see soon enough. It’ll be even better if it’s a surprise,” he explained to me.

“Ok then,” I replied. “I like surprises, I guess.”

We drove for quite a while as the road led deeper and deeper into the countryside. This is the first date that I’ve been on in a long time that didn’t have many awkward silences. We talked almost the whole time. I got to know him very well. The reason he works so hard in school is because he wants to become a lawyer and someday run his own law firm. His favorite subject in school is art, which surprised me. He showed me some pictures that he had left in his car. I sat there devouring his first picture noticing how intricate the details of his meadow were. When looking closely I saw how each tiny snowflake was different from the next, and how the horse in the picture seemed to actually be moving. There was a fire so detailed you could almost feel its warmth. Hidden in a pine tree covered with snow, was a beautiful arrangement of mistletoe. Each picture of his was what I would call a “Winter Wonderland,” with everything so calm and peaceful as the snow fell gracefully. These pictures revealed to me his love for winter and the snow. We talked about his obsession for quite some time. I learned that his all-time favorite thing to do is look at and play in the snow. He also listens to Christmas music year round because it reminds him of the beauty of the season.
We had more in common than I thought we would. Winter was my favorite season as well. I finally had found someone who shared my love for the cold and didn’t tease me about it. I learned that I enjoy the same things that he does and that we don’t like a lot of the same things as well. By getting to know him, my thoughts from earlier of how cute he was doubled in size! As crazy as it sounds I could imagine becoming very close friends with him. Maybe even liking him! My friends would laugh so hard if I told them this. I then realized that I’d have a really fun night tonight if I got over trying to impress my friends. Tonight was going to be a night just for me!
We finally arrived at our destination about a half hour later. I looked out the window and couldn’t believe what I saw. It was almost an exact replica of his meadow drawing he had showed me earlier. The only thing that was different now was that there was a beautiful candle-lit table with two very comfy seats under one of the tall and elegant pine trees covered in snow. It was extraordinary how beautiful everything was.

David grabbed the food from the back of the car and set up the table while I continued to be amazed at this perfect location. He came back to the car to open the door and help me out. He grabbed my hand and a warm tingly feeling ran through my body. As we walked closer and closer to the table, I heard Christmas music playing. David seemed really nervous all of a sudden.

He stated very shyly, “Hannah, I think you are a very cute girl. I’ve wanted to come up and talk to you in class for a long time but I get too nervous. I was hoping that if I took you on a date to my favorite place, I’d be comfortable enough to talk to you. And it worked better than I hoped. Hannah you are such an amazing person. I really hope that we can be friends for a long time.”

I was quickly falling in love with David. I had begun to like him so much that the differences between us didn’t seem to matter anymore. He leaned in slowly and kissed me gently on the cheek. That warm, tingly feeling I felt earlier, shot through me again. In the background I could faintly hear the words from Let it Snow saying “When we finally kiss goodnight, how I’ll hate going out in the storm, but if you really hold me tight, all the way home I’ll be warm.” I had someone now to keep me warm. Even though it wasn’t the person I’d ever imagined it would be, it was far better than I had ever hoped. I honestly smiled, thinking to myself, what a wonderful beginning this turned out to be.