An Unexpected Development

The Saturday before he began his freshman year at Hermes High School, Philip hosted a teen social with the goal of reconnecting with his old friends after two years at Oak Hills Charter School as well as making new ones. He invited roughly twenty guests he knew mostly from Hermes Middles School and gave each invited guest the opportunity to bring one friend along. While most of the guys accepted his invitation, few of the girls came. Jocelyn and four of the other girls invited were spending the weekend in a mountain cabin together and declined his invitation. Veronica and Heidi were the only invited girls who came, but each brought a friend along. There were a total of twelve guys and four girls. Veronica brought another rather earthy friend named Cassidy whose hair went all the way down to her knees. Heidi brought a friend named Layla.

Layla truly stood out. First of all, she was quite tall. Both her parents were Dutch and she had a very slight but noticeable Dutch accent. The other girls seemed to defer to Layla’s leadership regarding whether to jump on the trampoline, enjoy the music, or go inside for the videos and guitar hero games. When two of the guys accidently bumped into one another and one appeared to have hurt the bone above his right eye, Layla led that guy inside and got him an ice pack from our freezer. Among the girls she was the most comfortable socializing with the guys and worked herself among all the guests. When a small group of guys were potentially getting too rowdy, she quickly alerted me to her concern.

Layla also invested time in Chloe who was permitted to take part in the evening’s festivities with her friend Patty. The two tween girls wanted to take Layla upstairs to show Chloe’s room to Layla, but I did not permit them. Still, Layla helped Chloe and Patty enjoy themselves on the trampoline. Then what was probably the critical moment of the evening arrived. There were a handful of teenagers jumping on the trampoline with Chloe and Patty, and someone’s foot half landed onto Chloe’s foot. Chloe sat down and started to cry complaining that her foot hurt. Philip abandoned his circle of guys chatting to get onto the trampoline to comfort Chloe, while Patty went inside to get me. Philip then picked up Chloe, brought her over to me walking on his knees on the trampoline and gently laid Chloe into my arms. Meanwhile, Layla looked on with interest.

How Layla ended up being the last guest at the party is not exactly clear. But as far as I can tell, Layla had originally planned to catch her ride home with Heidi and Heidi’s mother. But Layla instead made separate arrangements to have her own mother pick her up fifteen minutes after the party officially ended at ten-fifteen. As I was cleaning up the last of the party’s debris, Philip, Layla, Chloe and Patty were in a corner chatting amiably and passing my camera around to take silly pictures. Finally Layla’s mother arrived and I brought her inside to collect Layla. “The party is now officially over,” I announced.

Layla looked over to see her mother standing next to me. Layla was silent for a few moments, merely blinking in her mother’s direction. “Could you maybe come back around twelve-thirty?” Layla asked her mother. I offered Layla’s mother a glass of wine to give the kids a little more time to wind down, but Layla’s mother wanted to operate more quickly. Nonetheless, Layla’s mother allowed Layla to introduce Philip and before leaving Layla asked Philip for his mobile phone number. Clearly, the two had enjoyed meeting one another.

The first text message from Layla made Philip's mobile phone vibrate some time before noon on Sunday. Philip and Layla began trading text messages in the afternoon until by evening their replies to one another were almost instantaneous. Perhaps seventy five messages in total were traded. They talked about all the things two teenagers just entering high school might discuss. Layla even confided some private struggles to which Philip responded with supportive words.

Then there was an unexpected development. Layla asked Philip if he had a girlfriend. Philip coyly answered, no. Layla sent him back a text asking him out. And Philip staying coy nonetheless told her yes. And so Philip’s first romance began.