The plane landed and I walked down the terminal, going as slow as possible. Part of me wanted to turn around, but I kept walking. I called Lance, not recognizing any of the faces as the ones I thought I knew in the pictures. He directed me to an area outside of one of the gifts shops. Though I still didn't recognize the faces, I noted one which must have been him, seeing that he was on a phone and waving in my general direction. As I got closer and closer and his image was made clearer and clearer, I felt my insides collapse in. He didn't look hardly anything like the pictures. They were either from when he was much younger, or were edited on photoshop, because I honestly would have never picked him out to be this person I thought i knew. I knew he was half puerto rican, but up close he looked 100%. His eyes were squinty when he smiled and his nose was large and flat. His teeth had obviously never worn braces and the wrinkles on his face aged him accordingly. Despite his age, he wore clothes punk guys my age would be wearing. A grunge T-shirt, tight black pants, loafers and a trucker hat. He had his fathers name tattooed on his neck and a sleeve down his right arm. He was also a couple inches shorter than me and had what appeared to be a small beer belly. Needless to say, he was not what I had expected at all. However, my pride was too big to even admit to myself I was disappointed, so I sucked it up and pretended like I was excited to see him.
We made the awkward walk to his car holding hands. He never stopped smiling the whole time and it made me squirm inside. We finally reached his car, which I later found out was actually his mothers car, because he didn't own his own car, then we made the 30 minute drive to his house. He lived in a rough part of Orlando. Not the worst, but if you drove past his house a few miles you would see prostitutes walking the streets to give you an idea. His house was actually a three bedroom, two bath condo. He lived with His brother and mother (which was also news to me) The inside had poor lighting and was hardly decorated. The furniture looked at least 20 years old and the carpets were...... disgusting to say the least. I Later found out that they didn't own a vacuum and hadn't vacuumed their house since they bought it, six years ago. His brother owned a dog, which made this fact a lot worse. There were a few spots on the carpet that were dark and nasty and I was too scared to ask what had happened there and I assumed I didn't want to know anyways.
His bedroom was a little cleaner. At least he wasn't a slob. It was slightly decorated with Christmas lights and a japanese flag strung across the back wall. It had a huge window on the far side of the wall and the room was big enough to fit a full size bed, futon, coffee table, computer desk and tv comfortably. I sat my stuff down and sat on the bed. He came over with a creepy look on his face and started kissing me heavily all over. I kissed him back a little and then pushed him off suggesting that he show me around Orlando. He stepped back and looked at me a moment then agreed. We started driving around and I liked that it felt like early summer despite it being late January. The scenery was much nicer when we left his neighborhood. He showed me all the local skate shops and the many malls. When it got later we went downtown and walked the strip where he showed me his favorite bars. I was only 19 but found that not too many people think to card you when you are with a thirty year old. I really liked Orlando. It was fun and exciting to me. I liked the buildings and the bars and clubs. There were so many neat people and so much more going on than in Indiana. When we got home I was exhausted. I felt uncomfortable with the fact that he assumed we were sharing the same bed and tried to pretend I was asleep before he got in. Perhaps he let me sleep because it was the first night, who knows but i was relieved to hear his snores before I finally fell asleep for real.
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