A Work In Progress...

In high school I met this guy. He would have been someone for my mother to drool over if she were my age, sandy hair, blue eyes, dressed like a geek from another planet. He was a great student, a good kid all around, never stepped out of the box in the public eye, or even at home. He was an average Joe.

Apparently I met him at a party of a mutual friend, and when I say party, I mean birthday party full of snacks and watching her favorite anime. Her name was Abigail and she was one of the most magnetically attractive people that I had ever met. Her personality was sparkling and she was gracious and loving to everyone she met; I guess she had attracted him as well.

I don't remember a lot about that night (my brain tends to block memories of the good quality) but the parts I do remember were me being my dorky self, and also being the type of person who would rather be one on one with someone instead of being in a group so I asked him if he wanted to go outside with me. I vaguely remember sitting on the curb and talking, but I don't know about what. And I remember sitting in his SUV listening to music, and being pretty sure he was showing off, but I don't remember the music. And I remember hopping around on the grass and 'killing' it then he would 'bring it back to life'; I remember his smile and I remember my thoughts of 'this guy needs help with something'.

I think I was sixteen when we met, and that was the year I had looked my best, and that was the year before I had decided to leave to go and live with Jared.

We met again at the homecoming dance. I had cut my hair at some point in time, and there was a fading red streak in the front of it that just happened to match my outfit. If I didn't stand out enough in high school for being one of the tallest women, and the one known for being slightly scary and the leader of the 'outcast' group I most certainly made an impression then. I wore a kimono, and even though when I got there, and I felt all sorts of foolish for being the only one not in a skimpy dress I was still myself. Many of the teachers there commented and I'm sure later laughed about it together later but I wasn't there to fit in.

I think I danced for maybe a total of thirty minutes, and were there for a few hours at best. I remember meeting him again, in the cafeteria I think, and remembering his face, then I remember sitting on a bench near the doors leading out to the weight room and track and talking. I can remember the color of the lights on his face, and I can remember talking about Jared a bit as I was prone to do but I don't remember the rest of our conversation. At some point in time we got up and did a walk of the caff, and I saw a lot of my friends whole I greeted with bubbly enthusiasm and then the rest of the night is blank in my head.

I couldn't tell you when we met again, but I can tell you that we met often, and I enjoyed being with him more than he could imagine.

It was well known that he had a rather large crush on me, but I was never romantically interested, and most of the time I was giving him a hard time about not living his own life, and not going out and having fun.

There was something about him that reminded me of my other friends that I had acquired in high school. He needed help, and I was hell bent to help him. He needed to be let out of his restricting box, he had a light in him that was completely smothered by his parents, and by himself, and the person he showed everyone everyday wasn't who he was in the inside.

I argued with him every time he said he had to leave, he would say 'I don't have a choice.' or 'I can't stay, I have to go.' in which every time I would angrily respond that 'everyone has a choice, always, don't say you can't do something when you can make the choice to stay with me. To have fun and live.' In the end, he always left and I was always angry. At him, at myself for asking him to stay when I knew he wouldn't, for making the things I remembered the most the things that meant the least to me.

His parents hated me, they met me for a total of three minutes the first time we met, and right off the bat you could see that they loathed me. That made things harder than they had to be. If he told them he was with me, they'd be angry at him for making poor decisions, if he lied to them and told them he was with someone else he'd spend his time thinking of them finding out.

To take his mind off of my unavailable self I tried to set him up with as many girls as I knew. There was Freidi, a German exchange student who gave me the dragon on the necklace I wear all of the time; I think if she could have stayed, they would be getting married today. They were perfect for each other, both smart and good looking, and she had a warm glow about her always. Then there was Andrea, who I'm glad he never hit it off with, she was too young and oddly mature at the same time and there is no way he would have been able to handle her. At some point in time it was Kassie, who he never went for, then there was Samantha who was going to go to prom with him but ditched him for Brad who used to be Andrea's boyfriend, and Andrea ended up being his date (That's a story for another day). The last one I tried to set him up with was someone he hadn't met in person, that was a mistake for many reasons. She was too strong for him, he wasn't brave enough to be able to go and see her or call her or anything, and that was the first real crack in our friendship whether he noticed it or not.

I was jealous, but I'm unsure why. I think it was because he was my friend first, and now that he was claiming he loved her and whatnot he kept pushing me farther and farther away. Her relationship and mine stayed the same for the most part (but this story isn't about her). By then I think I was living with Jared, so I wouldn't see him anyway, being seven states away.

At some point in time we kind of stopped talking, I'm sure we talked once in a while in between things, but between his first relationship in college before the last girl I set him up with and him always talking about his relationship, then with various other things that happened in his life we lost touch. I didn't try to talk to him, and he didn't try to talk to me. His parents got their wish.

I guess about a year later, I had talked to him off and on and we talked quite a bit again, I told him he should come and visit me at my apartment. Jared and I were over, and I was still grieving for that fact. I was living alone and I spent my days going to work at McDonald's and my nights going to school. I made no friends outside of work, and every weekend I had off I went to my grandparents house.

He came to my apartment three times, the thing I remember most about those visits was it being pitch black, and I had gone out and bought glow sticks. We were wearing them and dancing around like idiots, laughing and having a great time. I also remember being in the bathroom with him, his hands on me pushing me back against the wall and his mouth on mine as his hands roamed where ever I'd let them.

I cried. I cried because it wasn't Jared, and I cried because I wanted it to be Jared and that was a shitty thing to do to my friend. Though he was male and I'm sure at the time he wouldn't have minded my reasoning to let him live a fantasy I didn't want to hurt him that way.

We tried it again, and yet again I still couldn't get passed kissing him. It didn't feel right even though it had to of been a half a year or longer since Jared and I were through.

We had watched a movie, a hilarious movie that wasn't supposed to be that funny, I don't remember the name of it but the penis robot was too much at the end and we couldn't stop laughing and staring in horror.

At some point in time we fell out of touch again, even though I'm sure we had conversations and another visit or two in between, I can't recall them in my head.

I went to college, many miserable things happened to me, Jared asked me out again which lasted a whole two weeks. I couldn't stand the pressure I felt like I was under all of the time with him, and I do mean literal pressure. My heart hurt all of the time so I told him I couldn't do it, he agreed and we broke up mutually and evenly that time.

Meanwhile I can't say what he had been up to in college, except for making a new close friend and getting laid quite a few times I believe and then one night, not horribly long ago I saw him online, and I said hello.

We talked a lot then, and I helped save his relationship that he was having trouble with because fixing things is what I do best, and in the end, I ended that relationship myself when something inside of me clicked.

He was with the wrong woman.

I ran over it in my head again and again, what the hell was wrong with me? I didn't want him! How could I want him?! It was the dorky guy from high school, the one who was crushing on me who I had set up many times and who could never live up to my expectations because not once did he stay for me.

It didn't add up in my head and so I made a decision to go and see him before he graduated.

He thought he wasn't going to be able to see me, but he made it work somehow. It was so very awkward at first, I didn't hug him when I saw him, and I'm sure I looked oh-so-great in my travel clothes. We went to eat sushi then stashed my car at a hotel since I didn't have a visitors pass.

At some point in time it suddenly wasn't awkward anymore and I can't remember the last time I had so much fun. We goofed around and wrestled like we did in high school, played games and walked around campus and at some point I kissed him. The look on his face was so comical I can't believe I kissed him again without cracking up. He was unresponsive and having what looked to be a damn hard time processing it.

It wasn't awkward feeling, I didn't feel dirty or out of place when he kissed me back. It felt painfully right. I should have felt like a slutty little home wrecker, he had a girlfriend but I didn't fucking care, it felt right and I felt right and his hands on me felt right and I could have cried with the relief of it all. For those few days, he was mine.

Anxiety consumed me when I left, because he didn't want to leave his girlfriend, he wanted to give it a chance. I told him he had to tell her, that it was her right to know and I felt like a slimy, nasty slug. I had ruined a relationship, I had ruined some poor girls heart.

In the end, he broke up with her. We didn't start dating for a few weeks, then I decided I wanted June 1st to be the first day. Hey, easy to remember and nothing else interesting happens in June.

It's amazing, how I don't feel guilty now that I ruined their relationship. Apparently it had been on it's way out anyway...but still, doing something like that wasn't like me. But then again, maybe I'm not the same person I thought I was.

All I know is, is that when I was with him, he wasn't the same as he used to be. He basically looked the same, with his great smile and pretty blue eyes, but he dressed like a normal human and the confidence he lacked in high school was there in person, and the attraction that I never had for him was suddenly there, clinching my stomach in not so uncomfortable ways and making my heart beat faster when his fingers would tangle in my hair.

Now we're together, talking on the phone nearly every night much to his mother's extreme displeasure which she voices every now and then, but he has yet to back down and agree to her asking him to just not call me. She doesn't know we're dating, and the thought of her knowing kind of scares me. I already ruined one of his female relationship, I'd rather not ruin the one most men hold above all others.

We've already had our rough spots, it being a currently long distance relationship which I cannot stand having again, and with the fact that neither one of us can afford to go and see the other at the moment. But we're trying and I have no doubt we'll get what we want in the end. Hey, I'm Kate the Great, I can handle this, no problem.

It's a work in progress...