This Scene in Heartstopper Reminded Me of When We First Started Dating
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Television shows have the power to transport us to places we never thought we could go. But sometimes, they take us back to a time and place we never want to forget.
Ever since we watched Heartstopper a few weeks back, it’s brought up a lot of nostalgic feelings, especially for me regarding when PJ and I first started dating. Though it’s been 12 years, I can still remember some details like it was yesterday.
In the second episode of Heartstopper, titled “Crush”, Nick and Charlie start spending more time together: playing with Nick’s dog, making snow angels on the ground and messaging each other nonstop, all while developing deeper feelings for one another (without the other one knowing yet). It’s a beautiful episode that, much like the entire season, hits you right in the feels. It’s like you’re there with them eavesdropping on these tender, special moments of a budding romance that only come in the beginning stages of love; the getting-to-know-you-better phase; the trust building phase. The phase where you find out what’s acceptable and what’s not, what’s too soon to do and say and what’s a welcome display of affection.
The episode reminded me of when PJ and I first started dating- the early days of our relationship. It had maybe been three weeks, and we weren’t even official yet. It was new, exciting, exhilarating and scary, with every move we made together having to be calculated in hopes that no one would find out I was seeing him. I wasn’t out to anyone yet, so my stomach was constantly in knots having to hide the fact that I was kissing PJ every day.
I say “every day” because we were spending every free moment we could together, meeting up after classes and after work, sometimes at his mom’s house (a safe place for us) and sometimes at night after I got off work in my car at the top of the motel hill.
I was 19 and he was 24. I wasn’t sure where this was going, or if it would even go anywhere, I was just taking it day by day and hoping we got far enough that I could call him my boyfriend, preferably sooner rather than later. The moments spent with him felt like a dream I couldn’t wake up from, and more importantly, a dream I didn’t want to wake up from. When I was with him, life made sense. I made sense, for the first time in…well, ever.
One day, after meeting up at his house and said hill in the motel parking lot, I suggested he come over to my house for the first time. I should clarify that it wasn’t really my house, but the house I lived in with my mom, brother and younger sister. Remember, I was 19 and a sophomore in college working a minimum wage job with little time for anything else other than school and work. I was so excited: PJ McKay was going to be in my house, possibly even in my room for the first time ever. The possibilities were truly endless.
The details are a little fuzzy, but what I remember was we were up in my room on my bed, just lying there talking. It all still felt like I was going to wake up at any moment from the best dream of my life, so I savored every part of it as much as I could. In that moment, there might as well have been no one else in the world. Just us. Because nothing and no one else mattered outside my bedroom door, and life was, for a little while, perfect.
That is until I heard a car pull into the driveway. I immediately shot out of bed, heart racing. I peered out the window to find my brother home on his lunch break. I was in a panic. He couldn’t see the two of us alone in my room otherwise he would know something was up, and I wasn’t ready for him to suspect anything just yet. I wanted it done on my own terms.
PJ and I bolted down the stairs as I quickly tried to think of something casual and non-suspicious for us to be doing. Making food? Cleaning the living room? Sitting on the couch talking? I chose the least-suspicious thing I could think of: playing video games.
Which brings me to the scene in Heartstopper and how it correlates to our story. As soon as I saw Charlie and Nick on Charlie’s bed playing video games, it immediately took me to being 19 and falling in love with PJ, because suddenly we were back on my brother’s bed playing video games in an effort to not look like we were doing something else as he walked in. Watching the scene brought so many feelings of nostalgia and they came rushing back all at once.
When my brother walked in, he found us sitting on the edge of his bed playing video games, since his room was where the XBOX lived. I don’t think he was suspicious of anything, but he was probably wondering why PJ McKay was in his house on his bed, of all places, playing video games with his brother. To be honest, I would be wondering that, too, if I were him.
But I think for the time being, we had successfully fooled him into thinking we were no more than two friends hanging out. It would be a few more weeks or so before I would come out to him and the rest of my family. Those early days of hiding our relationship from the world and pretending to be no more than friends, in a way, made it kind of special, because we were the only ones who knew about it and it was just ours, nobody else's. Once we finally told everyone, though, it made it 100 times more special because it felt real and good to be honest about who I was, who we were, to the people that mattered most. It was the most important and exciting time of my life at the time, and I cherish those days deeply.
TV and movies and music and books have the power to take us to different worlds and time periods and allow us to be a part of other people’s lives for a while, transporting us to places that, in some cases, we would never be able to go on our own. Heartstopper took me to a time and place that I never want to forget, one that feels so long ago, yet somehow like it was just yesterday.
A lot has changed since we were the two guys sitting on my brother’s bed playing video games. Nowadays we like to sit on our couch in our house and watch TV shows, but never forgetting where we started and how far we’ve come.
