Backstory

This girl always happened to sit near me on the bus ever since semester started. She never talked to me, but would just glance my way. I asked around on Reddit and apparently most agreed it was a sign of interest. I then made an update post which basically described how I finally talked to her and felt there was something there.

Now, found below, are my mini-journal entries of how things have transpired since that last post.

 

Day 1

When I met her again on the afternoon bus the next day, I asked about her major (Chemistry) and wanted to know why she chose it. I also told her I had a couple of friends majoring in it. I cheesily asked if she was influenced by “Breaking Bad” like my friend, to which she laughed. From there I transitioned the conversation to Breaking Bad. Obviously, she’d seen it. She remembered the scenes that I mentioned and at that point I felt there was a mutual topic of interest and things were starting to click as the convo wasn’t as dull as our earlier small talk.

Amid our convo, I mentioned a scene she vaguely remembered, so I pulled out my phone and told her “Hold on a moment, I’ll pull it up on YouTube”. Once I found it, I got up from my chair to hand her the phone and show it to her. She was sitting in the same row as me, but on the opposite seat next to the window. As I get up to hand her my phone, she sees me coming and drops her bag which was on the seat next to her. At this point I knew she was signaling me to have a seat next to her, to which I most definitely did :)

So now I’m closely sitting next to her, watching a scene of Breaking Bad. Clip finishes and YouTube suggestions show a couple more scenes from the show, which we then watch and briefly chat over.

I continue to just scroll on the YouTube feed as she’s looking at my phone with me. She sees a music video suggestion and recognizes the artist as she’s a fan. I ask her what kind of music she listens to and she names me the popular female artists, to which I’m like yeah those are some of my guilty pleasure songs etc. Anyways, we talk about music and entertainment for the rest of the bus ride home. She holds eye contact with me whenever I turn my head and talk to her (we are seated on a bus, so a lot of the time our heads were facing forward.) When she’s about to leave I give her a goodbye fist bump just to “test the waters” if she is comfortable with physical contact, given that I’m living in a conservative culture (Egypt) and don’t know where she stands with touch. Luckily enough she fist-bumps back with a cute laugh.

 

Day 2

She gets on the morning bus. I'm getting a bit nervous as I’m about to do something a bit ballsy in my eyes.

As she approaches, I hold eye contact and drop my bag that's on the chair beside me, nonverbally hinting for her to sit next to me. She smiles, greets me with a hi, and sits next to me thankfully.

This is great. I’ve now established a relationship where she is comfortable sitting next to me on the bus. She was glowing that day too so I was kinda nervous.

I tell her good morning, but this time I give a low five rather than a fist bump as we’re seated. She low fives but keeps her hand there for an extra second before releasing. My heart is pounding. I’m thinking she wants me to say something. I turn my head to look directly at her and she just gives me this intimate look with her deep blue eyes. It’s something you can just feel in your gut. I'm guessing she was feeling extra confident today. She looked pampered. Maybe she had a presentation. Maybe it was for me. Who knows?

I noticed that she had her hair cut since we met yesterday. I ask her during this brief gaze “did you get a haircut? It looks great”. She says thanks and nervously laughs and touches her hair. She got shy and my mind blanked and I didn’t know what to say. In my head I’m like let’s leave it at that and give her some space. For the rest of the trip we don’t say much. We make our separate ways onto campus upon arriving. I don’t see her again on the afternoon bus ride.

 

Day 3

I’m on the morning bus and she gets on it the stop after mine. I’m not sure if she will voluntarily sit next to me when she gets on or if I have to hint to her to do so. I want to make my intentions clearer so I put my bag on my lap before she gets on the bus so that the seat next to mine is empty. When she finally gets on the bus and approaches I say “Hi X”. She says hey and sits next to me again. In my mind I’m relieved, the interest is still there... I think.

During the ride she notices that there is a gym bag on my lap rather than on the floor.

 

Her: “What’s the extra bag for?”

Me: “It’s just my gym clothes that I wear when I play basketball. I find it really soothing just chilling out after class and playing, as the court is practically empty and the AC is perfect in this hot weather.”

Her: “Do you play at [x location]?”

Me: “Yep that’s it”.

 

A few brief seconds later, I decided to take the leap of faith and indirectly ask her out.

Me: “If you’re ever interested in shooting some hoops sometimes, we can meet up at the indoor court after class.”

Her: She touches her hair and says “I don’t know how to play basketball but I guess if it’s as chill as you say then sure”

Me: “Awesome, I can give you my number and we can plan on meeting up say tomorrow or whenever you’re down”

Her: “Alright, tomorrow sounds good”

 

She then gives me HER number first. I give her a ring so she gets my number in return. From there on we talk a bit about fitness at uni and the various social uni clubs till the bus reaches campus. I walk with her till she reaches her class.

She doesn’t text me that day and I don’t wanna text her either to not seem too pushy. I’m assuming we’re gonna play tomorrow as we agreed.

 

Day 4

Morning ride. She sits next to me voluntarily for the first time. I’m feeling a bond developing. She says hi and mentions how she brought her gym clothes with her. We agree on a time after class when we’re both free (at around 6pm). I am over the moon as I didn’t expect things to move this fast. I can tell she is feeling the same way. She looked extra happier than usual.

She calls me at 5:30pm and says “Hey [name] I’m done with classes and heading to the gymnasium.” I’m like great, I’m already there.

We meet up and she changes and is looking hella cute in her shorts. Turns out she wasn’t as conservative as I thought she might be. I tell her we can’t just start playing, we need to warm up. I teach her how to do suicide drills and she’s just laughing and having total fun. We’re doing them together and I can tell she’s enjoying my company.

I then toss her the ball and say let’s see you dribble. She dribbles pretty badly so I start laughing and demonstrate how it’s done. I show her how her elbows and wrist should move in a snappy flow. And I take the opportunity to touch her arms as I’m explaining it to her. She doesn’t seem bothered by it one bit. We then move on to shooting and I show her the proper form. Lots of close physical contact here as well. She misses a lot at first but then she finally gets it and starts getting the ball into the net. She got excited when it started to click. I kept encouraging her throughout.

Anyways we spend around 40 minutes then cool off and sit on the bleachers. She says she wants to head to the locker room first and then meet up at the bleachers in 20mins. I says sure and do the same.

Now we’re sitting at the bleachers next to the court.

 

Her: “I’m really tired. How am I going to make it to the bus? I can barely walk and it’s 15 minutes away

Me: “Don’t worry about that, I’ve got it covered.”

Her: “What do you mean”

I get up into piggyback form and say hop on. She laughs but says “what if people see us?” (Egypt is conservative and people unfortunately don’t mind their own business here).

I say: “Well it’s practically empty here, I guess you can have a test ride for now”

 

And damn. She obliges. She hops on, I grab her legs, and she holds me tightly. Someone pinch me. I can’t believe this is happening. Anyways, I give her a piggyback around the court and then make my way out of the gymnasium and to the mini-supermarket nearby. She’s giddy the whole ride. I tell her to grab a snack and it’s on me. She shyly insists that she’ll pay but I brush it off and say it’s just a snack. We checkout and I pay. She says thanks and we make our way to the bus together for the first time. On our way there our shoulders and arms were brushing against each other while we were walking. Every time I drifted away a little bit I noticed she got closer and our shoulders would continue to brush. I can just sense that this girl actually is really into me now.

We make our way onto the bus and it’s practically empty as it’s the 8pm bus. We sit near the back. I think it’s time for me to say something to her. The signs are all there.

 

Me: “You know, you’re one of the cooler people on this bus. I wish I talked to you sooner.”

Her: Shyly touches her hair “What do you mean?”

Me: “I just noticed that you happened to always be seated nearby throughout the semester. I didn’t want to bother you but you seemed like an interesting person the moment I saw you”

Her: Continues to fix her hair and I can tell her face is getting red even in this dimly lit bus

Me: “I liked seeing you on the bus :) it’s a shame the semester is ending.”

Her: “That’s no problem, you have my number right?” [I do]

Her: saying it in a shy voice “I liked seeing you too”

Me: “Thanks” :)

 

At this point I just put my hand out in a low-five position between my lap and hers, hinting that I want her to hold my hand. She immediately puts her hand on mine and clasps it. Her hands are so warm. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such an incredible feeling in my life.

She then snuggles closer and lays her head on my shoulder and says “I’m tired”. I tell her “same” and snuggle closer too. I am now holding her hand and we are cuddled together at the back of the bus. As she’s holding my hand, she continuously glides her thumb across my skin back and forth. We’re sat like that and we just talk about random stuff. She’s exhausted and eventually falls asleep midway.

I wake her up before her stop arrives and say: “Hey we should do that again sometime” She says “great, I’d really like that.” I wanna kiss her goodbye but people were around us as she got up. I only gave her a goodbye wave in the end.

 

Day 5

On the morning bus ride:

Me: “How are you feeling? You sore yet?” I touch her forearm and firmly press it as I ask

Her: “Nope” and she immediately punches my arm :)

Me: “Do you want to meet up again but at the gardens? Weather seems nice today.”

Her: “I’d like that.” Her hand gets closer to mine when she says this

 

I text her later to meet up at a designated time. Eventually I spot her. We’re walking in the gardens and brushing against each other. I make an effort to brush her hand against mine so I can hold it again. Eventually we hold hands. I then guide her to this shaded but secluded spot. I guide her to the bench and my arm is by her waist. I can feel it in my gut that she notices this and doesn’t mind.

 

Me: “I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, I like the way you carry yourself and think you’re really pretty.”

Her: Blushing hard “thanks”

I just gaze at her lips and eyes and she is giving me this innocent smile. She leans in closer. I do the same and I go for it. I give her a kiss on the cheek.

Her: She then shyly laughs and says “You’re so sweet”.

She then holds my chin and gives me a peck on on the lips instead. I'm awestruck.

Me: “That was nice.”

Her: “I’ve been waiting a whole semester to do that” giggles

 

We sit there holding hands and listening to the birds chirping and the background water splashing from the fountains. I just wanna stay there for eternity as does she. But we know campus security roams around the gardens to prevent people from hooking up. So 10 minutes later and we head out.

 

Day 7 - 14

We continuously head to the gardens, court, and other secluded areas on campus. We now are making out in secret. Still kissing and physical touching but nothing involving her lady parts. She's made it clear she is not ready for that yet. We kiss passionately for like 5 minutes and she just lays her head on me and has her legs rested over mine.

I eventually ask her if I can call her my girlfriend and she says “My parents are kind of strict about these things. But yeah, you’re now my sweet boyfriend.” :)

 

Current Situation

We keep our relationship secret. Only us 2 meet up. None of her friends or mine really know about us.

We eventually have our first “date” outside of campus. We headed to the mall just a couple of blocks away and went shopping and ate at the food court midday during campus hours a couple of times. Things stopped during exam week but now that’s over.

It’s summer time now and I wanna ask her out more and take her places. Im tired of just texting her. The problem is her parents would probably find out she’s hanging out with a boy and start getting suspicious and could cut contact between us. And hence I’m at a dilemma now. How do I go about seeing her secretly without her parents finding out. I asked her about this and she said her mom wouldn’t mind but her dad would get angry if he found out she was seeing a boy. During the semester it was easy to cover it up as her parents knew she was on campus. But summer is different. Classes are over.