15 Years Later... Our Love Story

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who moved into a neighborhood that was completely devoid of life. Her family had moved into a new house that her daddy built and they were among the first ones in the subdivision. Her next-door neighbor used to be a nice boy just her age who would let her boss him around. Now her next-door neighbor was a pile of dirt. The girl and her sister tried to make the best of their new situation. They discovered a branch just low enough to swing over the pile of dirt. They made leaf imprints in the newly-poured concrete driveway. That made their mom mad. They had fun, but they longed for a new playmate or two.

One day, the little sister was looking out the window of the new house staring at the pile of dirt when she happened to glance toward the sidewalk and saw a boy riding his bike along it. Her eyes went all big *dramatization* and she turned to her sister, who was busy spreading frosting from a can on a graham cracker, and hollered, "There's a kid out there!"

Frosting and cracker forgotten, the girls rushed down the stairs and out the door, nearly bowling over our poor, young bicyclist hero. He was a nice boy with hair so blonde that you had to squint when you looked directly at it. He and the girl were in the same grade, and they soon became fast friends.

It turns out that the boy had a younger sister for the girl's younger sister to play with, which worked out very nicely. The boy and the girl played together all the time. They even had each other's phone numbers memorized, which was pretty significant since they were six and barely had their own phone numbers memorized. They played imaginary games and the boy used his karate skills to protect the girl from imaginary monsters. He was her hero.

The days went by and the boy and the girl grew bigger and were now in the second grade. The boy told everyone in their class that the girl was his girlfriend. The girl punched the boy in the face. The younger sisters dared the boy to kiss the girl. The girl punched the boy in the face. She was young, after all, and she wanted to play the field.

The boy and the girl grew up way faster than their parents said was allowed. The girl went to a different school for a while and the boy cried cause his missed his best friend *dramatization*. One day the girl grew taller than the boy so he decided to be a total butthead and he and the girl weren't friends for a few years. The girl was still pretty nice to the boy though because her mom said she had to be.

The boy and the girl worked real hard and graduated from high school. Their moms threw a joint graduation party for them, and they moved away to school together. The new place was cold, and they didn't know anyone else there. The boy and the girl hung out a lot and reminisced about home.

The boy moved away for two years to California. The girl stayed at school and wrote the boy letters and he wrote letters back and they reminisced about home. One week, the boy wrote, "I have had a crush on you since we were in first grade. Didn't you know?" She didn't. But one day, she realized she had a crush on him too.

The boy came home from California and took the girl out on their first real date. It was the best date ever. EVER EVER. The girl was all starry-eyed and kept missing her mouth with her spoon at breakfast the next day.

And there were a lot more dream dates where that came from.