Memories of an Orthodox High School Romance

When I first saw her, I already had a girlfriend. She was so different -- small and tan, her slightly Asiatic features making her exotic among the other Jews. A ba'alat teshuva, she had a mysterious past. Word of her unusual intellect preceded her, and she quickly joined the circle previously made up of only the smartest boys. Since I had a girlfriend, I decided that I must set her up with a friend of mine.

That didn't work out.

A year later, when my girlfriend and I had broken up, I befriended her. We sat next to each other in advanced physics and played card games the oblivious teacher couldn't see. We started getting together in the evenings to do homework, and homework quickly gave way to long, interesting conversations.

I was drawn to her spirituality. Unlike the kids I grew up with, she had chosen to be frum. Where the rules and rituals were habitual for us, she found meaning and beauty. Ironically, it was she who taught me what it meant to be religious.

She wanted to be shomeret negiyah* - no small feat for a 16 year old girl in a coed school. We were falling for each other, but we were careful to never cross that line. Her spirituality notwithstanding, we found every possible way to violate the spirit of the law if not the letter**. I'd put a pillow on my chest and she'd rest her head on it while we watched a rented movie. We'd lie on the oversized couch for hours looking into each others eyes, tasting each other's breath, but never kiss, never brush aside that stray hair with our fingers. We'd drift off to sleep sometimes and I'd wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning to sneak back into my house.

Once, my parents left town and she stayed at my house, parking her car around the corner so the neighbors wouldn't see. We got into bed together, careful not to touch, and I turned off the light. We both made the kissing sound as we had gotten into the habit of doing, and somehow, in the sudden darkness, our lips met accidentally. We laughed it off and spent a sleepless night without touching again.

Then it was the summer after graduation and we'd spend evenings taking walks and continuing those deep conversations you can only have when you're young. We'd have picnics in the park and on July 4th, we watched the local fireworks from her bedroom window.

The time we spent looking into each others eyes grew longer, our lips so close I could feel her breath. After the summer, I was leaving, and my imminent departure lent a poignant intensity to those moments.

I wanted more than anything to kiss her, to touch her, to make love to her. But some feeling of responsibility managed against all odds to keep my instincts at bay all those nights as we almost-kissed but remained frozen an inch apart for hours.

This situation would have been unsustainable if not for that constant sliver of doubt in my mind. Every night I wondered if this was the night we'd touch. I knew that I couldn't violate her wishes to remain shomeret negiyah no matter how silly it seemed, but her signals were becoming more and more mixed.

One day, we went swimming together. She had a pool in her backyard and we were alone together. Seeing her in a swimsuit was almost too much. Her legs, her breasts, the wisps of hair escaping the suit between her thighs. We'd clearly gone far beyond violating the spirit of negiyah and I was starting to think we'd finally touch each other. When, in the pool, we stood inches from each other and I stopped in the water between her outstretched legs, I came so close to kissing her, but couldn't do it without a clear signal. Eventually, I went home.

The next evening, we sat on her porch in the swinging bench, talking. I was leaving in a few days and we were starting to miss each other already. It was getting late, and I'd promised my parents I'd be home by midnight, so I got in my car to go home. She came up to the driver's side to say goodnight, and I rolled down my window.

She said, "I want to kiss you so much," and I said, "Can I kiss you?"

Complicated feelings came and went behind her eyes and she said, "I can't tell you it's okay, but if you kiss me, I'll kiss you back."

Being responsible is one thing, but no conceivable God could hold me responsible for falling for that. I kissed her, after six months of waiting, after six months of imagination. She opened the door and climbed into my lap.

Five hours later, at 5:30 in the morning, her mother knocked on the car door. Being an unusually liberal and areligious woman, she was happy to see her daughter enjoying herself, but my father had woken her up with a phone call, wondering where I was. I had to go home.

We had another few days together of heaven on Earth, and then I left for yeshiva***.



* "Shomeret negiyah" means that she didn't touch boys, not even to shake hands.
** By no stretch of the imagination should this be taken to mean we didn't violate other laws -- particularly that of yichud, or not being alone together.
*** For a year after high school, I went to a yeshiva, or (single-sex) school of Jewish learning, in Israel.