When I was eleven years old, the boy next door and his friends, would yell silly boyish comments at me as I walked each weekend along this very drainage ditch, to get to my friend Megan’s house.

Nine years ago, after nearly a decade of admiring one another silently from a distance, the boy next door and I spoke face to face for the very first time. We had our first kiss in the early hours of  New Year’s day, 2000.

Ten Years ago today, we shared another kiss, that sealed our vows before God, our friends, and our family.

Eight years ago, we moved into this very house, just on the other side of the fence from the drainage ditch, with the boy next door’s parents. They opened their home to us so that while he finished college, I could stay home with our first little pumpkin… a boy.

Five years ago my Einstein of a husband, got his first job, as a degree wielding software engineer.

Four years ago we had our second little pumpkin… a baby girl.

Three years ago we were saving up to buy our first home, and walking through open houses on the weekends.

Two years ago we had our third little pumpkin… another boy.

One year and seven months ago my Einstein was laid off, as his company gradually downsized from fifty employees, to less than ten.

By nine months ago our house savings was completely gone, spent on groceries, outings, and items purchased without caution, never believing it would be so hard, or take so long, to find another job.

Six weeks ago I planted seeds here in the yard, on our side of the fence, together… the boy next door, I, and our family.

Last week I discovered a pumpkin flower growing here.

Yesterday I saw the flower had closed and wilted.

It was so sudden, so quick, and so unexpected. I never even got to take a picture.

Last night, aside from the loss of the pretty orange flower, I mourned what would have been the due date of the little life we lost last February.

It was so sudden, so quick, and so unexpected. I never even got to hear the heartbeat.

Tonight, while taking pictures in the garden, I noticed where the pumpkin flower has wilted, there is a new little baby pumpkin growing.

No new little baby pumpkin growing in me yet, but Lord willing, perhaps some day, there will be.

Four weeks ago our unemployment checks stopped coming, and we didn’t know where our next dollar would come from.

Two weeks ago my Einstein started his new software job, for the same pay he was receiving when he was laid off.

Today, on our Ten Year Wedding Anniversary, I’m marveling at the twists and turns life takes.

There are so many things that have happened which I never could have predicted, while on weekend walks along a drainage ditch, as a girl.

…The miracles we’ve witnessed.

…The uncertainties we’ve been carried through.

…The losses that have left us so broken hearted, we couldn’t see life beyond our tears.

…The indescribable joy that comes through new seasons full of hope.

…How two people can meet, talk, kiss, fall in love, get married, and create a whole little garden of life and love, of their very own.

Our love does not grow tame or in perfection.

We weather storms and suffer loss.

Our garden does not always yield the symmetry and sweetness of roses.

Sometimes here, you’ll find bent leaf and tattered petals.

At times we’ve displayed the harshness of thorns, and the ugliness of weeds.

It is endurance and commitment that has kept us growing even through the winters.

Forgiveness and grace are the secrets of our continual amending through each season.

The warmth of heaven comforts and brings growth.

The cool living water soothes our thirst on this dry uncertain earth.

And though each season is unpredictable, how wonderful it is to grow alongside someone else.

Through every uncertainty, to no longer walk alone.

To lean on the strength of another through the storms.

To find shelter beneath another in times of suffering.

To entangle tendrils around another, so close.

To wake up with another, and walk each day as one.

When thorn and thistle come our way, we are pained to be sure, but not uprooted.

We are planted deeply together.

We are planted well.

We are planted in Him who holds us steady.

Our commitment is to each other, to our children, and to God’s plan. As we keep that focus, our love keeps growing…

expanding…

deepening…

taking over.

Even through the storms…

Even through the draughts…

Even through the loss…

Our love grows wild.

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They were on to me.

They wouldn’t leave me alone about the Boy Next Door. They asked question after question trying to get me to admit I was interested. And… after several minutes of beating around the bush and avoiding any detailed or direct answers to their questions, I gave up.

“Yes… if he asked me out on a date… I’d go.”

My friends were giddy. It had been a while since I’d been willing to admit interest in any guy, and they were really excited about the idea of the Boy Next Door and I, hitting it off.

So was I.

The very next night, again as I was getting ready to close up shop at the ceramic studio, who should come waltzing in but… the Boy Next Door. Word travels fast in a small town and amongst friends, which is part of why I was trying so hard to keep my mouth shut. I knew the moment I let my friends know I was interested, word would get back to him. But clearly… by this stage… I wanted him to know. I was ready. Nervous… but ready.

Ready to take a chance. Ready to put my feelings out there. Ready to see if this guy who I’d had my eye on since I was eleven, as an unapproachable older hunk, would actually give me the time of day.

So now here he was. Just him. Just me.

We made small talk for a few minutes chatting about things for the life of me I can’t remember now, because I was completely focused on the fact that the Boy Next Door was standing in front of me… looking at me…. talking to me. He could have been talking about quadratic equations at that moment and I would have appeared completely interested, while at the same time being entirely oblivious to the actual words that were comin’ out of his mouth. I was so enamored with him and so giddy he had come to see me, as he talked, all I heard in my head was, “He’s here. It’s him. He’s here. Why is he here? He’s here. He’s so cute. He’s here. Why is he here?”

“What time do you get off?” he asked.

“In about half an hour,” I answered.

“The new mall is open. Have you been there yet?”

“No,” I answered. “I can’t actually believe this town finally has it’s own mall.”

“I know. Well, I’m kinda hungry and I was thinking about checking out the food court. Some of the guys might meet me down there. You should come by when you’re off work.”

“Sure. That sounds good. I haven’t eaten either.”

“Okay… I’ll see you there.”

It wasn’t an actual date… but that didn’t matter. I was elated. I didn’t care that our other friends would be there too. All that mattered was that he had taken the time to come see me, and ask me to join them.

Butterflies… dancing.

Heart… fluttering.

Cheeks… flaming.

Mouth…involuntarily, uncontrollably… smiling.

As I quickly swept the studio and speedily washed all the paint out of the brushes, I’m pretty sure my feet were just a few inches off the floor.

To be continued…

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But each week, the Boy Next Door had come back. He quickly became a regular at the Sunday night College Bible study, and also within my circle of friends. We’d quickly begun acknowledging each other at school and we chatted between classes and sat together to eat lunch amongst other friends.

The more I got to know him, the more I liked him.

The conversations between us came naturally and were always fun and easy. I began to think about him constantly when we were apart. I began snooping and inquiring whether he was going to be at certain gatherings before making my decision of whether or not to attend. I loved being around him and he seemed to enjoy being around me… but I wasn’t sure.

There were always a lot of other girls around, also vying for his attention. It seemed like he was treating me different than the others, special… but maybe that was all in my head. Maybe that was just what I wanted to believe.

Things moved very slowly over the next few months and that was fine by me!

Well…

Most of the time it was fine.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I just wished he would make a move… grab my hand, ask me out… something!

But I was also scared.

Scared to get involved again.

Scared of getting hurt.

Scared…. Scared…. Scared!

And besides that, I had a strict personal policy for myself of not dating any guy who I didn’t already know really well as a friend first. The couple of times I went out on dates with guys who weren’t friends first, the experiences turned out to be uncomfortable disasters!

Nope! Not for me.

Friends first, and then we’ll see what happens from there. So going slow with the Boy Next Door, and taking time just to get to know each other was a good thing.

And for five happy months we were nothing more than friends.

But then… on one December evening… I let the cat out of the bag.

To be continued…

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It all started when one morning before heading off to High School, The Boy Next Door noticed a promotional brochure from my private school sitting on his kitchen table. It had come in the mail, and strangely enough there had been a picture of me in it, sitting under a tree, reading a book. He was captivated.

“Now there’s one cute girl,” he thought while munching on his Cocoa Puffs.

“She looks young, but she is gonna be one good lookin’ girl when she gets older.”

No one else in the family paid much attention to the brochure, not even enough attention to throw it away. For that reason it managed to somehow hang around the house for years like the Forest Gump feather blowing from one pile of useless papers to another. The Boy Next Door took the opportunity to glance inside it at my picture again and again.

When I was twelve or thirteen, my younger brother became very good friends with The Boy Next Door’s younger brother (The Professor). Apparently they walked to and from school together almost every day and spent many afternoons playing together at our house. The Professor remembers exactly what my eighth grade bedroom looks like and I don’t remember ever having even seen him during those days when everyone tells me he was at my house regularly. Nor do I ever remember hearing his last name…. And if I had heard it, I would have FREAKED OUT! to know that The Boy Next Door’s younger brother was in my home.

Oblivious… completely oblivious.

I guess I wasn’t very tuned in to my little brother and his friends at that stage. I was too consumed with own social life to pay any attention to them.

One day The Boy Next Door was even with his mom when she came to pick The Professor up from my house.

She says she came to the door, while The Boy Next Door waited in the van. Can you imagine the scene if he’d been the one to come the door and I would have been the one to open it? My jaw would have hit the front stoop!

Apparently (I have no personal recollection of any of this) I answered the door head tilted to one side glued to the telephone. I got the message that she was there to pick up one of my little brother’s friends and I turned to go get them.

Being the “always-on-the-lookout-for-a-good-match,” matchmaker that she is, The Boy Next Door’s mom said to him when she got back in the van,

“The Professor’s friend has a really cute sister.”

“Mom! Stop. She’s too young,” was the reply from The Boy Next Door.

“No she’s not,” said his mom.

No answer.

You know how anxious teenage boys always are to take advice and share their interest in girls with their mothers. The truth was that me being thirteen and in jr. high, and The Boy Next Door being a Sophmore in high school on the verge of getting his driver’s license, at the time, did seem to him like a huge age gap.

But as we grew up in the same little town he continued to notice me. At football games, movie theaters, school plays… he saw me. And all that time I was noticing him too. I knew his name, and he knew mine. But neither of us ever spoke to the other.

Some time after I had graduated high school, we were both attending the same local Junior College… still not speaking…. But noticing.

While on campus one day he was in the student lounge with a friend, when I came in, with a group of people. He remembers exactly what I was wearing, exactly how I looked, and exactly what he said to his friend while he was watching me from a distance.

“Now that’s the kind of girl I’m going to marry. That girl right there.”

And I thought I was the stalker in this story!

Some time after that, one of my friends from the college Bible study had met The Boy Next Door and a friend of his, and had invited them to come on Sunday night. They were considering coming but they asked,

“Who’s going to be there?”

She began to list people who regularly attended, to see if any of her friends were also friends of theirs.

“Josh, Mike, Nikki, Jay, Ben, Christin, Rachael….” She probably continued with the list, but once she said my name, The Boy Next Door says that was all he needed to hear.

He’d be there.

And now here he was.

Of course at that moment I knew none of this.

We made a little small talk and I noticed he didn’t have a Bible with him. Naturally being the good Christian I was, I would HAVE to sit next to him so he could share mine.

I guess, in his opinion, I wasn’t so young anymore. I’d grown up a bit and so had he.

A few months had passed since our first exchange of words on that Sunday night, and by then we had spoken often, seeing eachother regularly in group settings at friend’s get-togethers, Bible Study, and at school.

One weekday morning when his jeep was in the shop, his mom was dropping him off for class. They pulled up to campus in her van and she was carrying on and on talking to him about something. He was looking out the window and suddenly he couldn’t wait any longer to interrupt her.

“Mom! Mom! You see that girl over there?”

“The blonde?”

“Yeah. That’s Rachael.”

“Rachael as in The Professor’s friend’s sister? That Rachael? The Rachael that was too young?”

“Yeah. I gotta go Mom.”

“Go! Hurry! Go!”

To be continued…

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The group officially met on Sunday evenings for actual bible study, but a lot of us had grown extremely close and hung out together several nights a week. Many from the group had become my circle of friends while remaining in my hometown, and attending community college, after High School.

It was summertime and the Sunday night crowd was always different, with regulars out of town for vacation and mission trips, and others who attended college out of state popping in because they were back home for the summer. Feeling some ownership in the group, when new faces appeared I tried to greet them, make them feel welcomed, and help get them plugged in by sitting with them or introducing them to others.

I was bopping around socializing with everyone before worship started when I saw him walk in.

I was paralyzed.

I was like stone, except for the butterflies in my stomach and the fire rising up my face. My mind just kept repeating, It’s him. It’s him. It’s… “the boy next door.”

I had had a crush on him from a distance since I had been eleven years old. I’d never spoken to him, never introduced myself, never had a reason too… until now.

This was my chance.

After all, it was kind of like my job to welcome people… so why not him? It wouldn’t seem out of place. It would make complete sense for me to finally walk up to him and say,

Hi, I’m Rachael. I’ve seen you around town my whole life and I’ve never spoken to you and I’m so glad you’re here and I think you are soooooo HOT, and… and… here he comes…. Oh Rachael get is straight… you can’t say all that… be cool, just be cool… umm… um…

“Hi Boy Next Door.” (I didn’t actually say “boy next door” I said his actual name.)

Oh my gosh. Did I really just say that? Did I really just say his name out loud? Now he’s going to wonder how I knew his name. Oh I blew it, I blew it. Now he knows I’ve been staring at him, stalking him since my childhood.  He can see into my soul, he knows everything, I’m…

“Hi Rachael.”

Whoa.

I froze.

The butterflies froze, and I swear they dropped their jaws and just stared at him.

He just said my name.

I didn’t tell him my name.

To be continued…

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I washed away my past and my pain in the Jordan River where Christ himself had been baptized and I felt an assured sense that God’s plans for my future were fantastic ones.  That trip was a perfect honeymoon with my Lord after a year of renewed courtship with Him. It was a year in my single life that I will cherish forever where I had the opportunity to set everything else aside and soak God in. He lavished me with His Words and His love in a way that fed my soul and repaired my heart.

When I returned back to California after my time in Israel and arrived back to my little hometown and pulled into the church parking lot we had previously departed from, everyone on the bus started to buzz. There were giggles and a whole lot of pointing out the windows and then, it seemed everyone was staring back at me with giant smiles on their faces. I stood up and tried to see what everyone was acting so goofy about.

Standing there, holding a big sign with my name on it… you know… the kind of sign you see in the movies when someone at an airport or train station is waiting to pick someone up? Standing there, with that sign, bearing my name,was a young man who had missed me while I’d been gone.

Thinking about how he looked that day, standing there smiling, in his Tommy Hilfiger shirt, dark jeans, sunglasses on looking so cool, so tall, so strong, so handsome, and waiting for ME… eagerly. The memory of him that day, how he looked, how he made me feel… it still sends butterflies swirling in my stomach just as much now as it did in that moment.

Waiting for me there, to give me a ride home, was the “boy next door.”

To be continued…

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My father has always been an unbelieving agnostic who becomes visibly uncomfortable at the very mention of God. My mother is a quiet Christian who took me to church as a very small child on an irregular basis, but couldn’t keep up with it while juggling everything else. There was never any prayer or Bible reading or the teaching of Bible stories in my home.

My mother always kept me in private schools growing up. She had a very difficult childhood and learned to take care of herself and her younger brother while still in her early teens. She put both herself and her brother through college and they each became successful, self sufficient, hard working adults. Education was of the utmost importance to my mom and teaching us to be self reliant from the beginning was her goal.

When I was in the 5^th grade we moved to an area where the only private grade school boasting a college-preparatory curriculum was a Christian one. That was fine with my mom, and she enrolled me. Immediately there was a very obvious difference between myself and my Christian peers.  While out on the playground other kids in my class would fiercely correct me when I took the Lord’s name in vain. They all knew songs and stories I had never heard and they’d never been allowed to see many of the movies I talked about.

I quietly tried to fit in with my Christian classmates, trying not to let them know I was any different than they were. I had a lot to learn about God and Jesus, prayer, and the Bible, but little by little I was gathering information and developing an understanding, as I observed the Christian teachers and students around me.

The summer before 8^th grade Jesus got a hold of my heart for the very first time. After a couple years of being surrounded by Christians in school I’d grown quite fond of the faith I saw in many of my friends. I went to church camp that summer and committed to becoming a Christian myself.

Over the next few years things were quite rocky at home between my parents, but I had some amazing families at my school and church who took me under their wings and trained me up in what it was to be a Christian, how to study my Bible, how to pray, and how to know God personally. I went on a few Mission trips, attended church on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, went to Church camp each summer, and tried my best to live my life like a Christian should. It wasn’t always easy though, and I didn’t always succeed.

When it came to dating I had more freedom than I knew how to handle at that age and boys often became far more of a focus than God.

Now broken hearted at nineteen God was reeling me in. He began to teach me how to keep my focus on Him at all times, through all things, instead of compartmentalizing His reign in my life to Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.

I began to meditate on the Bible constantly. At that difficult time in my life, reading God’s word was no longer a chore I tried to remember to do so I could check it off my list. Instead, reading the Bible became something I craved. I began to see God’s words in a whole new way and the Bible became like a beautiful love letter written from God to me.

I spent warm days out on a blanket in the grass enjoying His creation and memorizing scripture.  I spent quiet evenings on my bedroom floor in candlelight, discovering new promises in the Psalms and talking to Him, feeling His love and Spirit surround me and work to heal and renew me.

I found a group of girls through my community college Bible study who were interested in setting dating aside for a while to focus on the Lord. We became a regular group, meeting once a week at my house for Bible Study and we each made a six month commitment to not dating.

We poured ourselves into books like

“I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Joshua Harris,

“Lady in Waiting,” by Jackie Kendall,

“Passion and Purity” by Elisabeth Eliott, and

“Finding Your Knight in Shining Armor” by P.B. Wilson.

Boy could I tell some stories about those six months!

You will never see guys coming out of the woodwork trying to date you and your friends like you will when they all get wind that there’s a group of Christian girls who have adamantly, unwaveringly sworn off dating. It makes sense now, but in the moment we had no idea what a sport we had created amongst the sex that just can’t resist a challenge.

I don’t think a single one of us made it through that six months without some major relationship entanglements with guys, but a few of us, at least two of us, credit that time with having dramatically shaped us for our husbands and for our futures as women who will forever pursue a deep and meaningful relationship with God.

For those of us who had always needed to be in a relationship, needed a guy at our side, or who had our worlds revolving entirely around belonging to a guy, this time in our lives taught us that we didn’t “need” a man. We didn’t “need” anyone but the Lord. And once we got that figured out, once we understood who we were as individuals, and the purposes God had for us, we were free to enjoy much healthier, balanced relationships with the opposite sex.

Having a guy in our lives could begin to be a true added blessing instead of a dependency. We were able to choose a boyfriend, and let go of a boyfriend, using discernment and discretion instead of blindly staying in bad relationships because we didn’t know who we were without them.

To be continued…

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Somewhere along the way I had picked up the idea that you should never date a guy you couldn’t see yourself marrying… so I didn’t. I took every relationship very seriously and never even set foot into one without first agreeing with myself that this was someone who had everything I needed in a husband.

I think that is good advice to give to a nineteen year old and above for whom marriage in the very near future can be a possibility if that is their desire. But, to tell a thirteen year old that she ought not date a guy unless she is first sure she could see herself one day marrying him, puts a young girl’s mind and heart in a very serious, very dependent, very devoted, place that it has no business being for several years. And when that kind of relationship ends… a relationship that is far too emotionally committed for high school, well… in my case… it devastated me to my core.

By the time I turned nineteen I had had my heart broken to a degree that it remained so for the better part of a year. I didn’t have any plans for my future other than becoming a wife and mother. When those plans disintegrated because of the breakup, I felt completely lost. And that is a terrible state to be in!

To not know who you are at nineteen or where you’re going because all you’d ever seen yourself as was belonging to a guy, is not a healthy place to be. But, that’s where I was. I had no college plans, no career plans, no direction for what to do now with the rest of my life.

My world was turned upside down.

In one moment I became completely devastated and completely lost. I was in a cloud of numb confusion except for when I was in excruciating, devastated, heart ache. I had some really great friends who spent the first night after the breakup with me through all my sobbing, and sleeping from exhaustion, and waking up only to start sobbing again. They got me out of the house and bless their hearts… jumped into a lake with me fully clothed, and swam around for a while, just to let off steam and have some laughs.

But most days after that were filled with hours upon hours of me just being alone.

Finding another guy was not an option at all. I wanted nothing to do with dating.  I was too scared.  How could I ever get close to a guy again?  How could I give my heart to someone and believe we would be headed toward marriage only to have it handed back to me in pieces?

I couldn’t even escape my loneliness when I went to work. I was a hostess in an off the strip resort restaurant.  When the hotel was busy with guests, so were we.  But on many days during the week we had no guests at all in the hotel, and not a single person would come into the restaurant.  As a hostess, that meant long hours of me standing by myself, behind a podium at the front door, in total quiet, alone with my thoughts, my broken heart, and a whole lot of questions.

All I could think about was him and what went wrong.

I couldn’t see any solution for my broken heart, or any hope for my future, beyond his saying he made a huge mistake and needed me back forever. That would heal the pain. That would show me my future again. That was the only possibility I could ever come up with to fix my life. But when he broke up with me, he made it VERY clear, that was NEVER going to happen.

I was drowning in memories of us that were sinking me lower and lower into misery.  I had to find a way out.  I needed a lifeline to lift me from this deep loss and set me on a path toward a new future.

With nothing else to do, nowhere else to turn, and a heartache that no one and nothing else had been able to heal, I took my broken mangled heart to God and begged for His help. I couldn’t see any hope. It was a tiny speck of faith that allowed me to lay all of this before the Lord and believe He could make it right, but that was it… that was all I had. Just a speck. Just enough to get my broken self to His feet.

I had no idea that the itty bitty ounce of faith I placed in Jesus at that time, would lead me into what would become one of the most dear and treasured seasons in my entire life.

To be continued…

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My friends and I continued on in true Jr. high fashion to have all kinds of confusing crushes and experiences with rumors of returned affections and rejections in folded up notes passed between friends.

Thanks to my sixth grade boyfriend I had discovered the world of talking to boys on the phone and I loved it. In Jr. High I spent much more time getting to know the boys in my class on the phone at night, than I was able to while at school.  At school the boys had to keep up their reputations. They were too busy teasing and cracking jokes to carry on a real conversation with a girl.

Even though I wanted to be popular, wanted to talk to boys, and wanted to be liked by everyone, being outgoing and interesting didn’t come naturally to me. I approached talking to boys on the phone with a lot of thought and purpose, hoping to win them over and cause them to like me.  Before I would call them, and just in case they would call me, I kept a notebook by the phone in my room filled with lists of questions I could ask, and things I could talk about to keep the conversation interesting. I didn’t want to have any awkward moments of silence.

I had plenty of girlfriends who weren’t allowed to call boys on the phone but at my house there were hardly ever any rules. My mom always felt that I had such a strong will, that if she buckled down and bound me in by a bunch of rules, I would completely rebel. Instead her mantra while raising me was to carefully “Pick her battles” and talking on the phone and curfews were never two of the things she put restrictions on.

Girlfriends who had restrictions at their house about talking to boys on the phone got to enjoy conversations with them while staying the night with me. After we would hang up, we would day dream about who we wished would ask us out, give us a single red rose, or be the giver of our first kiss. We even came up with code names so we could write about the boys in notes at school and if found no one would know who we were talking about. Each boy had a secret name and each boy had at least one popular song from the radio that if brought up amongst us girls we knew exactly which crush it referred to.

I am so grateful that most of the conversations from those Jr. High phone calls never turned into complicated romantic relationships, but instead produced true and lasting friendships with now, men, who have become like brothers from my childhood. To this day some of those boys from Jr. high remain cherished among my Facebook friends and I often see them a couple times a year at get-togethers.

Those boys have filled my prayers for over two decades as I have watched them become husbands, fathers, creative entrepreneurs, and ministers of the gospel, and it all began over the phone… in Jr. High.

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He tried to drag me under the mistletoe for a kiss once, at a Christmas partyI had at my house. I dug my heels into the carpet and became like an elephant being dragged toward a mouse. I was terrified of being kissed and I was panicking about my mother being just around the corner in the kitchen. I got away from him and we didn’t talk for the rest of the party.

We were still dating though.

On Valentine’s Day at school I gave him a jumbo size Hershey’s Kiss and he gave me a little gold bracelet in a white box. I wore the bracelet every day with pride.

Over spring break my family and I went on a house boating vacation to Lake Powell and I was out of school for an extended week after the break. When I returned I had several friends coming and telling me that Ryan had been sitting with Betty ever day at lunch while I was gone and that he liked her.

I was mortified.

I didn’t know what to do, however… my friends made it clear that there was only one thing that could be done… Ryan must be “dumped”.

If what people were saying was true, and Ryan really had started liking Betty, then I might me the one getting dumped. I had to dump him first and I had better do it soon.

Once I set my mind on dumping him, I felt empowered. Wow! This was just like a movie. I knew this part well. I puffed out my chest with pride.

I would not be treated this way.

Boy did he have it comin’!

When it was time for P.E. I hid in the bathroom to avoid meeting him for the usual hand-holding walk. I arrived to P.E. late, snuck into the locker room, changed, and caught up with my girls only P.E. class.

Through out the time my friends and I were supposed to be running a mile, we instead walked, and plotted, and planned.

It was decided. The breakup would happen as soon as P.E. was over!

I changed out of my P.E. clothes and headed with my friends out in front of the gym to wait for him. We were all very excited. I was the only one of us whom had, had an official boyfriend for so long and the thought of a real breakup unfolding before all of us was very dramatic.

I hadn’t spoken to him in two weeks. We saw him in the distance and as my girlfriends stepped off to the side to watch the saga unfold, I smiled at him to lure him over. He fell right into my trap and walked up to me.

“Hey,” he said kindly with a smile on his face.

“Hi,” I said, “I have something for you.”

I held up my hand with a closed fist motioning like I had something tucked inside to give him. Perhaps a gift brought back from my vacation.

He held out his baseball glove ready to receive what I was offering. Into it I dropped the little gold bracelet he had given me for Valentine’s Day.

His eyes quickly met mine with a question in them and I was ready with the well rehearsed answer.

In the most dramatic and scorned tone I could summon, I hissed,

“I don’t want this if you don’t want me.”

And with a flip of my hair I turned on a dime and headed up the hill with my friends.

“I never liked you anyway!” He yelled after me.

His harsh remark didn’t even make a dent at that moment. I was on a high, giggling with my friends about the dramatic, very grown up, event that had just taken place. I felt like a mastermind.

When we got to the top of the hill, we turned and looked back down to see him coming up. He was now with his friends and it was clear the word was spreading about what had just taken place. He was ranting and raving a bit and as he passed our campus lake (more like an oversized pond really) and he threw the bracelet into it.

That part actually stung a bit.

I finished the day of school surrounded by my girlfriends who had all moved on to other subjects.

When I got home I cried for an hour about the fact that he threw my bracelet in the lake (pond), and that he said he never really liked me, and because I suspected he liked Betty more. I felt rejected and I couldn’t see how my heart would ever heal.

To be continued…

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