our love story, part ii

After we left the conference in Atlanta, I don't think either of us really believed that we would see the other again. The contact information had been exchanged but that was probably as far as it would go. Or so we thought.

A little time passed and I couldn't shake him from my mind. I kept thinking about that really cute guy I met and wanted to get to know him better. One day on my way home from school, I decided I would call Andrew to ask if he would be interested in chatting on AIM. Why I called instead of just messaging him, I still don't know. I remember my nerves when dialing his number, the scenery around me as I drove and the surprise in his voice when he answered. He was in the car with his friend Matt, now a groomsman in our wedding, and he later reported to me how he had told Matt about the conversation afterward and was shocked that I would have called.

We began to get to know each other chatting on AIM and then decided that it was time to meet again. To appease my parents and to make the date easier, we brought our friends along. Jonathan and Lindsey came along as our buffers. What if we didn't like each other? What if it was amazingly uncomfortable? Well, it wasn't. The chemistry was there and it all began. We would meet every other week in Douglasville because it was the mid-point between our homes. Each week, normally on Sundays, we went to a movie and then followed it with a lunch or dinner at Olive Garden.

I fondly remember our first dinner at Olive Garden where Andrew was shamelessly flirting with me as any 16 year old would, by throwing ice at me. At the time, I didn't know what that meant. After dinner, I remember asking Lindsey what she thought. Did he like me? Was he worth all the effort? She answered with a resounding "YES!" to both questions.

After that, the chatting and dating continued. We exchanged our likes and dislikes, pictures, etc. I still remember the first time Andrew rode in my car. We were driving from the mall over to Olive Garden and decided to split up in the cars. When Andrew got in, his curiosity got the best of him and he started digging around. To my complete embarrassment, he found the picture of him that I had printed off and put in my arm rest after taking it to school to show my friends. He laughed and I think this was probably the first time he realized just how much I liked him.

Though we both knew how much we liked each other, there was something in the way. Andrew had always been enamored with his best friend Julie who was in band with him, who had been his girlfriend and different points in time and who he idealized. Because I didn't want to be heartbroken by a guy who was in love with his best friend, I tried to help him win her while secretly dying inside because I LIKED HIM! I wanted him to by MY boyfriend. In my friendship with him, I eventually won him over.

After about a month of "dating", Andrew and I decided it was time for him to visit me at my home and have some of our home grown steak since he loved steak so much. He was supposed to come after a band competition in Macon and I had been cleaning all day when I got the phone call that his beloved van had broken down and he wouldn't be able to make it. I remember how disappointed I was but then how happy I was when he finally came on March 2, 2002. (I am not that weirdo that remembers every single date but Andrew wrote it down on "our box")

Not quite one week (6 days, actually) after his trip to my home, I visited him at his home. We were watching a movie, lying on his couch when I turned toward him to talk and we had our first kiss. I remember how happy, nervous and excited I was all at once. He was a good kisser...whew! That same day, Andrew's best friend Andy came over to meet me and it was my first test with the friends. I passed.

At the end of March, I took Andrew to my junior prom with my friends and we all spent the night at my house afterward. He later told me that when I fell asleep in his arms while watching tv on the sofa in the playroom, he looked at me and knew that he loved me. On March 31, while chatting with Andrew on AIM, he told me that he loved me (how appropriate for two 16 and 17 year olds in a long distance relationship). I didn't tell him the same in return. In fact, it took a conversation with my best friend Shereetha to show me that though we were young and it seemed impossible to find someone whom you loved at that age, it was real. She told me that in our 11 year friendship, she had never seen me happier, seen me smile more or heard me gush over a guy like I was doing.

The rest of the school year was spent driving to each other's homes on the weekends, going to Andrew's prom, graduation and graduation party and getting to know each other better. While we both realize that the "I love you" we exchanged back then did not mean nearly what it means now, it was the love of two teenagers that carried us through some hard times that no one ever deserves to experience.

To be continued...