Thursday, October 23, 2008

how i met your father: our love story, part iii


i've gotten a little behind with our love story -- sometimes life just takes over and this is an incredibly busy season for us. if you're interested, check out part I and part II. i promise to finish our story, even if i'm still writing over thanksgiving!

we really didn’t hang out much that summer after i graduated, at least not that i remember. i was probably too busy gathering the possessions i deemed important enough to move 1 ½ hours away to my dorm room at school. and, later in the summer, he was probably busy conditioning for the cross country team. our paths didn’t cross outside of church, anyway.

i moved to college and had a great freshman year. i loved being at school and “on my own,” though i was hardly on my own as my parents paid for my car, my school tuition and my cell phone. i easily made good grades without studying much and spent most of my time making new friends. i even broke my nose (for the third time!) playing powder puff football. school was fun. there were a few guys who caught my eye – and i went on enough dates to realize i’d caught the eye of a few guys – but no one i was interested in going out with more than a couple times.

and then i moved back home for the summer. suddenly, my friends were hanging out with michael’s friends and i started seeing a lot of this skinny runner who’d just graduated high school. for the first time, this guy did catch my eye.

we hung out a lot, and i even helped michael throw a party at his parents’ home one weekend. unfortunately, i’d gotten in trouble with my parents and lost my car privileges. michael wanted me to be at the party and drove an hour round trip to pick me up before our friends arrived at his house.

his car wasn’t in the best of shape and he lost his muffler less than a mile from his home. he left it at a gas station, came to get me and then we swung by to get the muffler before getting back to his house. i was too caught up looking at the attractive man sitting next to me to realize how silly he must have felt. at the end of the night when he took me home, we stopped for a sandwich and coke. we talked a lot and laughed a lot. i enjoyed being with him.

at the end of the summer, after i’d moved back to school to be an r.a., we were both home for labor day weekend. michael invited me and his buddy jonathan to watch the fireworks with him. he picked me up, we met jonathan and the three of us hung out while the fireworks boomed over indianapolis. it was a fun night – and would have been romantic under different circumstances.

we both went back to college, michael to his freshman year at a school two hours from mine. we were beginning to spend a lot of time together when we were both home – and just barely beginning to get to know each other. but, i knew him enough to know i wanted to know him better. we started emailing a lot.

we were beginning to move past a friendship. and neither of us knew what the future held for our friendship.

2 comments:

Owlhaven said...

love the bit about the muffler...and the fact that you didn't care about it a bit

Mary

Laura said...

I'm enjoying your story!