Love Story

 A and I, summer 2012

I fall into things too hard, and too fast.
But I believe that sometimes in life, you just know.
And not taking advantage of those knowing moments?
Kind of a waste.

So when A and I met in September of 2011,
I wasn't expecting anything.
He was just some guy I sat next to first thing in the morning a few days a week,
and besides, I was seeing someone else at the time.
But we started talking*
(*herein meaning that he bugged the living hell out of me until I started
paying attention to him and he got my number)
and I began to sense those little pinpricks of interest.
More like stabbing pains, but whatever.
And I still had a boyfriend.

It wasn't until October that those stabbing pains turned into a realization that I really needed to do something about how I was feeling,
which was that somehow,
between all the late night studying and grocery store runs and random texts and the walks we went on around campus talking about everything,
I had really started to like love him.
Oops.
So me being me, I lost a lot of sleep trying to figure out the best thing to do and was terribly dramatic and said things like
"but I would never date you! I'm graduating in six months!"
For some reason he still stuck around and was my friend and didn't try to push anything
(although he has since told me that it was torturous and all his friends were making fun of him for being respectful and waiting for me to be ready).

And once I got my head on straight and realized that while I liked the other guy,
I loved A,
there was no sense sticking around in something that would have eventually made all three of us very unhappy.


So we continued doing what we had always done, which is to say,
picking on each other and studying and going for late night walks,
but we threw some new stuff in there and tried out kissing and dates.
Finally, one night after we went to Chipotle for dinner, we were standing outside on the curb
(Rather, he was standing on the curb and I was looking up at him, glaring, with my hands on my hips)
and we had been arguing debating about the technicalities of dating
because he thought it was stupid that he had to physically ask when we'd been together for weeks anyway and I just wanted him to ask already.
So I said something very sweet and feminine, along the lines of
"Would you just grow a pair? All you have to do is ask!"
And he said "Do I seriously have to?"
And I said "Yes!"
And he asked," Fine! Do you want to be my girlfriend?"
And I said "Um duh?"
He got down off the curb and I took my hands off my hips and we hugged and he said something like, "You're ridiculous, you know that, right?"
And I was all, "Yeah yeah yeah, get in the car, it's cold."

And we haven't looked back since.