Yankee Drawl

Posted By jayna on April 30, 2008

Thank God I stumbled across her site in my reader today, and then clicked my way on over here. Otherwise, I would have had to write about something boring, like our new car. I’ll save that till tomorrow. You have fair warning.

Long, long ago, I was a band dork. I was a young, greasy faced, attitude filled rebel and I loved the bad boys and troublemakers. The bad boys of band, that is. And not just any band . . . marching band. I loved them for the amusement, for the thrill and for how freaking cute they were. And they loved me like one of them.

I first met the husband when I was a freshman and he was a junior. He was just one of the guys, and I was just one of the girls. By the next year, we were running in the same circle. For the next two years, he dated one of my best friends.

They were the perfect high school couple, the kind you expect to get married and start having babies. So, when I was a junior and our circle of friends started getting smaller and smaller, I thought nothing of it. After all, I was one of the guys, hanging out with him and his best friends -off-roading, having bonfires, hiking. Then, one by one, there were less and less friends when we hung out.

I clearly remember the turning point when the light bulb went off for my 17 year old mind. It was a warm May night and the husband, his best friend and I were out driving around like we used to do when gas cost 99 cents a gallon. After stopping to check out a new park, we were walking back to the truck. The husband turned to me and asked if I knew how to balance a sack of potatoes. Falling for it like a ton of bricks, I said no. Laughing like a maniac, he swept me up and threw me over his shoulders and ran back to the truck. I was hooked. 30 seconds of being tossed around, feeling him close, and I was a goner. A goner that was in deep shit.

At that point, the husband was still dating my best friend, and as far as everyone knew, their relationship was full of rainbows and sunshine. And then a few days later, it wasn’t. And I had to pick sides.

I was the good friend, not talking to the husband, commiserating that he was indeed an asshole . . . for three whole days. Innocently (seriously, so very innocently, I was so naive), I went over to his house to hang out as usual. And that was when he shocked the hell out of me and told me he liked me and asked if we could go on a real date.

After scraping my jaw up off the floor (because I was obviously blind and never thought for a second that he might like me the way that I liked him), I told him there was no way in hell . . . or, maybe . . . well, wait a while, it was too soon, I couldn’t do that to my friend. Waiting lasted a whole two weeks before I gave in to pestering (I can’t lie, I loved making him beg). Before we took that huge teenage step that a first real date is, I went over to my best friend’s house and had The Talk. The talk where I asked if she’d hate me forever, she said she knew this was coming, and the prediction that we would never stay together.

June 2, 2000 is the first night the husband asked if he could kiss me and I actually answered yes. 8 years later, we’ve obviously figured out a way to stay together. And the best friend? I think she only hated me for a year or so, or she’s really good at hiding it when we talk now.

Categories: She Writes!
Tags: The Husband