The Forever Girl

"Come home with me," four drunken words whispered seductively in my ear from a guy whose name I don't remember.
Hands slide convincingly around my waist and tug our hips closer as we dance, slowly and unfittingly to the loud music playing in the tiny dive bar.

"You float like a feather in a beautiful world. And I wish I was special..."

"Who sings this?" I ask.
His eyes belie irritation and confusion as he racks his soggy brain. He rolls his eyes and replies, "Radiohead."

We are soul mates.

"I live around the corner. Come home with me," he implores.
And suddenly I'm envisioning him chatting up my sister an hour earlier. I'm conjuring up images of him in this same bar a week from now, after I've flown back home, talking to some new, nameless pretty girl who, like myself, has had one too many drinks and he begs her to come home with him.

And I'm sad.

Aren't I worth more than that? Aren't I more than just a pretty face and an easy target?

I want to be special too, Radiohead.

He kisses my neck and I get tingly sensations and I start to think for a second that maybe I do mean something to him.
"Come on. Just come home with me."

I feel like crying.

"I'm not really a one night kind of girl," I stutter softly. Too softly for him to hear.
"I'll get us a cab," he says and starts to walk away.
I pull him back.
"I'm not a one night kind of girl," I choke out into his ear. I kiss him, impulsively, on the mouth. "I'm a forever girl."

It slipped out of my mouth, an answer born of drunken sincerity, yet completely sober in its truthfulness and significance.
He is surprised. And disappointed. Probably because it's 2:30 in the morning, too late to find a new victim.
He kisses me again and walks away.
I feel sad again.

And proud.

And hungry. "Anyone want breakfast? I saw a diner around the corner."
It's not until the next afternoon as we're reliving our previous night's adventures over brunch that I realize what a hilariously profound statement I had made.
"A forever girl??" my girlfriends hoot with laughter at my phrasing. "Like, he's never going to get rid of you? He takes you home and you won't leave and you stalk him. Forever."
We are crying into our mimosas, tickled by our exaggerations.
As we wipe the tears from our eyes and catch our breath, I'm struck by a thought.

I am a forever girl.

Despite the misconstrued imaging the phrasing evokes, it's no less a true statement. And my girlfriends are forever girls, too.
Not in the creepy sense, but in the oddly-still-old-fashioned-sense.
We are the girls you want to keep forever because we're honest and true and devoted. We are wholesome and good, but also aware and smart. We hold on to our standards and stand up for what we believe.

We are special. We are forever.