So Darn Much Going On!

In all my life, I never dreamed I could be as busy as I have been these past couple of weeks. I just told my brother on the phone, "Whenever I think back, I tell my past self to stop my dang whining because I didn't know how good I used to have it!" :) I gave my best efforts to getting this story done, and I just don't feel good about rushing to get it posted when it isn't in tip-top shape yet. It's close and I am going to post it tomorrow morning! The compliments and critiques I recieved last week made me soooo happy and challenged me in such good ways! Thank you! Thank you!
Just wait until school is back in session and I can get rid of my kids without having to tell them eighty-million times to give me some space and some quiet and to please understand that this is important to Mommy. Pshhhh. You lose kids entirely when you try and explain that something is important to someone besides them. :) Anway, the school year is going to bring lots more posts to this blog and lots more editing time to my novel!
Please check back tomorrow!

My True Love Story

Buried

Day 1820ish

Cue a week or two of the silent treatment. Cue a chance encounter. Cue Ryan pouring on his charm. Cue us. Cue the other girls. Cue fury and hopelessness. Repeat over months and months and that brings us to now. We’re nearing the end of our senior year of high school, and we’ve just had the “chance encounter” part of the equation.
“Hey Amie, I drove to school today. Come and ride home with me.”
He probably tells himself not to do this. Wait a minute, no he doesn’t. He really should tell himself not to do this, not to keep making me believe there can be something between us only to shatter it upon the lips of a hundred wanton teenage girls.
I know I tell myself not to do this.
“Okay, sure, I’d like a ride home. Thanks.”
I know my friends would want to smack me around. They keep trying to tell me how he’s poisonous for me. I know my Mom would tell me that she can’t watch me come home crying another time. I read somewhere that the most powerful magnet in the world could slow a locomotive travelling on the moon. So what happens when the magnets are attached to the front of two passing locomotives?
“I got to see my cute little nephew over the weekend,” Ryan says.
“Which one?” I ask. “Munch or Loops?” I’m showing off my knowledge of the crazy nicknames he gives them. I’ve never seen someone better with kids than Ryan is.
“Loops,” Ryan tells me. “I taught him to say, ‘I love BYU’, only he says it ‘Beee-eye-oooo’.”
I laugh a little as we pass under the shade of a couple of trees, walking alone together toward his car.
“I love his soft, chubby, little cheeks. I’m gonna be one of those crazy uncles that pinches everybody’s cheeks well into their adult years.”
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that,” I say, throwing him a half smile and a glance from the corner of my eye. Already this topic and this short walk are feeling too intimate to be safe.
“I’ve been doing this thing with my nephews and nieces called ‘cheeks’. I say ‘Let’s do cheeks,’ and they come up and put their face next to mine,” he takes me by the arm to stop my footsteps and brings his face close. “Like this,” he says, “And then we put our cheeks together… like this.” I won’t think about how his traitorous lips are within inches of mine. After all, he does this cheek to cheek thing with his little nephews and nieces. It’s purely innocent. Purely adorable. Purely irresistible… but not just to me.
“That’s a really cute line Ryan. Did you maybe use it on that girl from Price last weekend?” I say, pulling away and resuming progression toward the car at a resolute pace.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“I’m saying that story is a sure winner with the ladies. How many of us have you used it on?”
“Oh. I see what you’re implying. I don’t really need to re-use material, Amie. I do just fine with the ‘ladies’ with my natural wit and charisma.”
“Oh yeah, your charisma never fails. I accuse you of re-using material on me, and the first thing you think to do is assure me that you have plenty of material to go around and that despite the growing numbers of girls at your disposal, I shouldn’t worry myself because making them swoon is not a problem for you. I feel so much better now that we got that straight.”
I finish my tirade by letting myself into his car, and fairly slamming the door shut behind me. We both fume as we drive toward home, both of us thinking of a thousand cruel ways to fill the silence.
“I’ve been operating under a new theory,” he says at last. “It’s better to kiss a lot of girls one time, than to kiss one girl a lot of times.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you have the option to not kiss anybody at all?”
“Nope.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I mutter. “So I’m just one of the ‘lot of girls’. Just another one of Ryan’s conquests.”
I don’t pose the idea like it’s a question, but it is one. Just give me this, Ryan. Just tell me I’m not like all of the rest. Tell me I mean more to you than that. Tell me that you know you should stay away from me rather than break my heart over and over, but you can’t resist me the same way that I can’t resist you.
The space is thick with everything he doesn’t say.
There are probably better ways of getting answers than making a mockery of his cute little “cheeks” ritual, and accusing him of using it to take advantage of me, but I don’t know what they are just like he doesn’t know how I want him to respond.
Now it feels like the car is careening toward home. We’re only blocks away, and just breathing in this air makes me feel ill, like there is an epidemic I’m being exposed to. I want to purge it, but I only spit out more accusations.
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I don’t know what I’m saying. That’s the last thing I want him to do.
“Why did you give me any hope for our future? Why did you make me believe that there was any chance for us at all?” That hope was a gift, and now I’m throwing it back at him. “I’m not someone you can just keep around for convenience! I’m not just going to keep bending to your will whenever you pay me a little attention because you’re bored or there’s nobody better around! You use me! You’ve cheapened it to that.”
He pulls into his driveway, too furious, I think, to bother taking me two houses down to my own door. He turns to me, his blue eyes like ice.
“Fine, Amie. Fine. If that’s what you want to hear, so be it. You are just like every other girl. You’re just one of the many.”
My heart shatters, and for a split second, it shows in my expression. His face registers surprise, as if a part of him really thought that would be a good thing for me to hear, instead of it being my very worst fear spoken aloud.
I do something I never thought I would do. I swing my open palm toward him to slap him. Though he’s completely shocked, his automatic reaction is to throw an arm up in defense. He ducks his head a little and blocks the slap with his forearm. He couldn’t even give me that.
I throw open my car door and run for my house, holding the gasping tears in until I’m closed up in my room. I dig through the closet and pull out the box. I’ve covered it in shiny silver paper. I’ve tucked every memory inside it. Every note. Every little trinket. Napkins from restaurants, fortunes from fortune cookies, pictures, caricatures we’ve had drawn of the two of us, fancy doodles of the name Amie Gee Leonhardt. I look, desperately, around my room for anything else that might remind me of him. I throw a few more things in the box and close the lid with haste. I wipe the tears from my cheeks with the back of one hand and march out into the back yard, grabbing a shovel from the garage on my way through. I choose a patch of dirt as far away from my bedroom as I can get and I start digging.
I toss a bit of dirt away for every time I’ve looked out my bedroom window to see if his stupid light is still on and to wonder where he is. I dig deeper and toss aside another shovel-full for all of the girls I’ve had to watch him go out with. I place the box deep in the earth and I toss another shovel-full on top of it for all of the times I was sure it was over and that we’d never talk again. I think of my brother, Justin, (one of the few who still believes in Ryan and me). I think of all of the times I’ve confided in him after a fight with Ryan and how he always says, “No. I don’t buy it. This isn’t the end. It’s not over between you two.”
My energy is almost spent as I tamp down the loose dirt with my foot and I say, “This time it is over. This really is the end.”

The next afternoon, like death warmed over, I tromp down the stairs to the kitchen for breakfast just in time to see my little brother, Jordan, walk in the back door carrying a dirt-covered, silver box. I freeze, mouth agape, a look of horror to top any zombie movie on my face.
“What is he doing with that?” I shriek.
“He’s six years old, with dreams of buried treasure and there was a freshly dug hole in the backyard,” my Mom says. “What did you expect?”
“You should have just burned it,” says my brother, Jeremy.
But my brother, Justin, looks up from his cereal with a knowing smile that indicates the possible metaphor in the return of the box and he says, “She can’t burn it, because this isn’t the end. It’s not over yet.”


Author's question: How am I doing at keeping both characters likable? I mean, obviously you hate Ryan for what he's doing to me (and deservedly so :) haha), but I think a big part of the success in the "will they/won't they" stories is for authors to make sure that, as they're keeping the couple apart, they don't end up making the readers hate one or both of them. It's a tougher call on this one because it's a true story.

My True Love Story

Hero Or Villain?

Day 1700ish

“Hello?”
When I answer, I’m shocked to hear Ryan’s voice on the other end of my phone.
“Hey.”
“Heeeeyyyy.”
“How was your Thanksgiving?” he asks me.
“It was really good. How was yours?”
“Good. It was fun. I was just thinking… you should come over tonight and we could catch up.”
What? This is crazy. Ryan is calling and asking me for… what? A date? I mean, not an official date to be sure. A non-public, nobody is ever going to know about it and we’re just hanging out at his house- non-date. Not really a date, no. Not even a big deal really, so I should go ahead and tell him that I’ll come… just because I have nowhere else to be tonight, of course.
“Okay. Sure. I guess I could come over for a little while.”
“Cool. You should bring that Christmas CD we like. We could listen to it.”
A plan? The non-date is planned? I mean, it’s a small plan, just listening to sentimental Christmas music that we mutually love and that he obviously remembers that we mutually love.
“Oh, yeah. Sure. That would be fun. I’ll bring it.”
An hour later, I find myself standing on Ryan’s front porch, clasping the CD in one hand, and reaching an unsure fist up to knock on the door with the other.
He answers right away.
“Hey Sparky. Come on in. Follow me. I’m just gonna grab a blanket from my room. I’ve got everything else set up downstairs.”
I walk by the floral couch where we’ve sat together looking through family photo albums. I see into the dining room, to the oak table we’ve gathered around for meals and games. I follow Ryan up the stairs, past the 8x10 photos of each of his siblings, their spouses and their children. How often I’ve dreamed of having my picture hanging there alongside them.
We enter his room. It hasn’t changed. Here’s the light switch that he used to flick on and off every night, three times meant “I love you”. There, at the head of his single bed, just above where his head rests at night is the window he used to look out to see my light turn on and off three times in response. There’s a small weight set in the corner. He passes it to get a blanket out of the closet.
There’s a chest of drawers against one wall. On it, there’s a set of books. They all look the same, but I know one is different. One is hollowed out. I walk over to the books and just look at them. He comes up behind me, curious.
“Do you still have the secret one?” I ask.
“I do,” he says.
He pulls it out from its place among the others, and opens it up.
They’re all there. All of the notes I’ve written him. I can see my swirly writing, my hand drawn hearts and smiley faces. “You still have them,” I say.
“Of course,” he says, “Don’t you still have the notes I wrote to you?”
Of course. “Yes, I do.”
He closes the book and puts it back. Those notes are full of things that shouldn’t be unfolded and let out again.
“Come on,” he says, “We’ll listen to the CD in the basement.”
There is one large room in Ryan’s basement that has no windows. His Dad finished the room, and built benches along each wall. They’re perfect for sitting on, but they were also built wide enough to work as beds for several of the kids when they were all living at home. The walls are ornate with exotic hangings and trinkets, purchased by Ryan’s parents on their travels. The room is so quiet, and when the lights are off, so very, very dark. Some have called it the Bat Cave, and I find that perfectly fitting tonight. I’m here with this masked stranger, reasons unknown.
Ryan crosses the room and lights a candle.
It’s all too much.
“Ryan,” I say, “What’s going on here?”
“What? I just thought this would be fun.” He gestures to the candle and the CD player.
Good ol’ fun. Good ol’ simplistic sounding fun. How complicated it can be.
He motions for me to sit next to him. He covers us both in a quilt, chases away the cold winter chill in this basement room. We listen to the Christmas music and he doesn’t say much. He doesn’t talk about how last year, for a Christmas gift, he wrote me my very own love song and sang it to me with a singing voice that he was just starting to use. A voice which has now become even more pure and melodic and confident, and yet another secret weapon in his girl magnet arsenal. He doesn’t talk about how the words to that song promised forever.
His face is inches from mine now though, and I swear I see it all in his eyes. I swear his expression is telling me that he remembers it and that he still feels it too.
“What are you thinking about?” I whisper.
His eyes drift to somewhere above us as he considers how to answer. Then he gives me a half smile and says, “I’m thinking that you think too much.”
He kisses me… and I stop thinking.

The next morning at school I’m singing songs in my head as I bounce down the halls. Ryan still has feelings for me. I wonder what he’ll say when he sees me today. Will he flirt with me in front of my friends? Will he seek me out to say hello? Or will we just pass each other in the hall and share a secret look, a knowing smile.
After third period one of my friends finds me at our lockers. “Have you heard the rumors going around about Ryan?” she asks.
This isn’t unusual. People tend to want to keep me informed about Ryan and his antics.
“No,” I say, “What’s going on?”
“He kissed somebody over Thanksgiving break.”
I can’t keep my mischievous smile hidden away. “Oh he did, did he?” I say. Don’t I know it.“Yeah. He’s telling everybody about it too, like he’s some kind of hero. She was a stranger! A girl from Logan that he didn’t even know.”
The happy little song in my head screeches to a halt. My playful expression slides down off of my cheeks and drops to the ground.
“Apparently he looked through his cousin’s yearbook, found the cutest girl in there, called her and went out with her! Who does that?”
Who does that? A hero? A villain? It depends on how much of the story you know.
At the end of the day I’m walking down a near empty hallway with Tiffany. Ryan approaches me, all smiles.
“Hey Sparky, can I get a ride home with you?” he near shouts as he comes toward us.
I stop in front of him, my face like ice. “I heard about the girl from Logan,” I say. “Who needs the confines of a little black book when high schools print yearbooks? Right?”
He looks at the ground. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s sorry or just annoyed that I have the nerve to confront him about it. After all, we aren’t together anymore. Last night, somebody should have told that to the music, the candles, the Bat cave and the kisses.
“Anyway, I can’t give you a ride home… I… I don’t have my car.”I feel Tiff’s eyes steal a surprised glance at me, and then at my hand which conceals my car keys. I give her a nod, knowing she’ll play along. I can see that she’s a little uncomfortable, but mostly impressed that I’m finding myself able to turn Ryan away for once.
“Come on Tiff, let’s go” I say.
We go to our lockers to pick up a few things and as we’re making our way to the doors of the school, I see Ryan talking and laughing with two girls. It stings worse than usual. A boy named T walks toward us and reaches us just steps from where Ryan and the girls are standing. “Hey,” he says to us, “I’m looking for ride home. Do either of you-“
“Sure T,” I say, syrupy sweet and plenty loud. “I can give you a ride home. My car is right outside.”
“Thanks gorgeous,” he says and puts his arm around my shoulder. I put my arm around his waist and we walk away together. I can feel Ryan’s eyes boring into the back of me. I know he has seen and heard. I know he deserves everything he gets… but I feel certain now that there are no heroes here. In the land of Can’t Be Together, Can’t Be Apart- there are no heroes.

My True Love Story

What Happens On The Way To Vegas...

I know what you’re thinking. Or at least, I know what I’m thinking whenever I read a story about unrequited love or a couple facing so many obstacles. I think, “Do whatever it takes, move heaven and earth, love is all you need, love conquers all, love is more important than anything else.” There was one night that Ryan and I put those theories to the test. I try to remember it whenever I start to let myself get too close to him again. Yep. Whenever we… let’s say… start up a challenging game of who can catch the most fall leaves and end up in a prolonged embrace while silently repeating the words, “We cannot kiss, we will not kiss” over and over in our minds… that’s when I remember the night of our Junior Prom.
We’ve always planned on going to prom together. Ryan is very gallant in asking me to be his date, despite the fact that we have broken up. He’s a boy, and he holds all of the cards. While girls are waiting and pining and scheming for their dates, boys are biding their time, playing it cool, trying to convince their mothers to let them spend the tux rental money on video games and skip prom altogether.
The practices for promenade, the preparation, the date… it all has me tied in knots. I love him, I hate him; I hate him because I love him. I see him charming some other girl and I seethe, he charms me and I melt. We try our best to be friends, but a step too far one way puts us in a headlock, and a step too far the other way puts us in a lip lock.
So here I am at prom, walking on a fine line in heels and yards upon yards of glistening white fabric. We’re stiff and practiced and perfect through the showy part, and finally… finally… the audience begins to disperse and the students are left to dance with their dates, relaxing into the usual poor posture and occasional smashed toe.
Ryan and I lose ourselves in a sea of colored ruffles and sequins out on the dance floor. The stern look of concentration softens away from the outer edges of his eyes; his fingers rest more leisurely at my hips. We dance and we mingle.
After awhile, Ryan pulls me to his side and moves his lips close to my ear. “I hardly dare get close to you with all of the fluff and flowers between us.” He gestures to the corsage pinned to his lapel.
“I’m more concerned with what surrounds us than what’s in between us,” I say, and when my eyes sweep the room, it’s a dizzying kaleidoscope of noise and giggling girls that are a possible threat to me.
Ryan reads my expression. “You wanna go for a drive?” he asks.
I nod, and he takes my hand and leads me from the gym. We load me into the car, my dress taking up my entire seat and half of his. The lone sounds of his car door closing, of the key turning in the ignition feel so intimate and welcome.
He drives a few blocks and we pull up in front of the playground at the local elementary school. I gasp and turn to him with eyes alight. “I get to swing in my prom dress?” I ask.
“Do you want to?” he asks.
I like the way the corner of his mouth twitches into a half smile and tells me that he’s surprised that I can still surprise him.
I open my car door and jump out, carrying the majority of my dress in the circle of my arms in front of me as I run for the swings.
He walks behind me, snickering quietly at my eagerness.
I plop into a swing, kick my shoes off and start to sway back and forth, the wind fluttering the soft layers of my dress as I pick up speed. I’ve never felt more beautiful.
Ryan sits in the swing next to me, and twists a quarter turn so that he can watch me.
“Have you had a good prom?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, “Thank you for asking me. I know you didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” he says, “And I’m glad I did.”
We’re quiet for a minute, taking in the stillness around us, the twinkling night sky.
“We survived another rite of passage,” I say. “I liked dancing the first dance with my Dad. He made it a point to tell me that he’s proud of me and that he loves me.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. My Dad has a gift for always saying the right thing at the right time. I know I’m lucky. I know that not all dads say those things out loud.”
“Your Dad is a good man. I always want to be on his good side… which is the side away from where he’s pointing the many rifles in that gun safe he keeps in the basement.”
I giggle.
“He probably hates me now doesn’t he?”
“Nooo,” I dismiss this silly notion. “He tries not to get involved in my boy issues… but he does take those rifles out for target practice quite often…”
This is us. Confiding in each other, making each other laugh. We continue for awhile as more time slips away. Then he steps in front of me, debonair in his tux and bow tie, and stops my lulling swing. He helps me up and I stand facing him, barefoot in the woodchips, white ruffles spilling out around me. We look like two sweet-cheeked porcelain figurines atop a wedding cake, I think to myself. There’s that forbidden word again. Husband, husband, husband. Apparently the forbidden words haven’t heard that we broke up.
When we get back in the car, I see that we still have a good hour until I have to be home.
“Look! The night is young!” I say.
“I’m young,” he says. “Being with you reminds me how too young I am.”
“Well,” I say, reaching out to place my fingertips along the side of his face, “You’re not looking so young. You look more like a grumpy old man.”
“That’s because fighting off the temptation to kiss you is exhausting,” he says.
My smile shines brighter than my dress in the moonlight and I lean in close. “I’ll bet…” I say, “That I know just how to rejuvenate you.”
I touch my lips to his. He moves fast for someone so exhausted, his hand pressing at the back of my neck, coaxing my lips to stay. It wouldn’t have required coaxing. Soon the car fills up with the other forbidden H word. Honeymoon, honeymoon, honeymoon. I can hear the word, and I let it whisper to me for awhile. I can taste it, and I savor it. But then it’s so potent that I’m breathing it in and I reach up and push Ryan away, gasping.
His eyes are intense and his voice raspy as he says, “Can’t you see how impossible this is?”
I shake my head like a scolded child.
“We can’t stay together and then we can’t stay away from each other!” he says.
I just continue looking at him with round, fearful eyes.
“We’ll go to Vegas,” he says, as though he’s determined his recourse. “We’ll drive to Vegas tonight and we’ll get married.”
Husband, husband, husband.
“Okay,” I say, still sounding like the lighthearted girl on the swing.
“You better mean it, Amie, because I’ll do it.”
“Let’s go,” I say. I think I’m calling his bluff.
He faces forward, starts the car, and pulls out of the parking lot without glancing back at me. He doesn’t even drive slowly. We’re ten miles down the highway, headed south before I let the idea sink in.
How much of my dream would I give up? Would I give up the part where our family members stand around us smiling? Would I give up the part where Ryan has grown into a man who knows who he is and where he’s going? Would I give up the part where we look into each other’s eyes with confidence and know for certain that we’re doing the right thing?
I see a million scenes flash before my mind’s eye. I see us scrambling for some sort of makeshift wedding ring. I see us sitting in my living room, across from my parents and trying to explain ourselves to them. I see only the beginning of our problems.
Then I see Ryan in a suit and tie, a missionary name tag on his chest. I see my Mom holding her first grandbaby, with joy in her eyes and not worry. I see my Dad dancing with me at my junior prom and telling me that he’s proud of me.
“Ryan,” I choke the words out, “Pull over. Stop the car.”
He does. He pulls right off to the side of the highway.
“I understand now,” I say. “I see that this isn’t what we want and it’s stupid to wish for it.” Somehow I know he’s already seen everything I just imagined. I think he’s already thought this option through. He just needed me to see it.
He takes me home. We sit on the porch talking until midnight and I whisper to him that I’m still not giving up on the real dream. The one where I don’t have to make any concessions. I still want it all, but now I understand that love is not the most important thing. What you value and what you feel is right- those are the most important things. I still believe in happily ever after, but I have to be careful how I get there.

My True Love Story

The Stolen Moment

Day 1100ish

What was bound to happen, did happen. Could we really report to each other after each and every date, reassuring that we would have had more fun together? My ego must have thought we could, as it began to compare me to every girl that Ryan even looked at over the summer.
The best portion of my summer vacation was the two weeks I spent away, at a program that I had been chosen for, called Governor’s Honors Academy. New people, a new environment, a new way of looking at myself was just what I needed. There were amazing guys there, amazing, accomplished, funny, confident guys who liked me and who had no idea that there was a Ryan. The Academy claimed to be a program that saw potential in us and aimed to help us bring it out. It was so freeing for me to start to try and glimpse who I am and what I can become, separate from any boy or anyone else. Just me. Just me.
Now that I’m home, and school is back in session I observe even greater changes in Ryan. He has gone through a metamorphosis. Like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon… only… manlier. His confidence grows daily. He’s not afraid to be hilarious. He’s not afraid to be everything that he is, and people are drawn to that. Girls especially. He’s begun to approach every day, every minute like he isn’t afraid to fail and the thing about people who aren’t afraid to fail is- they never do.
He’s made new friends. Plenty of female ones, but also new guys friends. I’m completely intimidated by these new guy friends. They are of the kind that is so good looking, so confident, so untouchable that I want to hold my breath when I pass them in the hall at school. They know about his past with me, as everyone seems to. They’re cute about it actually, teasing him about me when I walk into a classroom by singing “Memories” or some such nonsense. He takes it well, while I concentrate on the ground and try to hide my blush.
I’m not intimidated by Ryan… at least not for the same reasons. I know him too well for that. I’m only intimidated by him because of the power he has over me, because it feels like I am hopelessly and forever in love with him.
Is it a coincidence that his transformation into this indomitable person began after we broke up? Had I been holding him back? I don’t think so. I even think maybe the opposite is true. Maybe I was a catapult. If you’ve seen that kind of admiration in someone’s eyes, directed at you, if you know that you’ve inspired it, how could you not feel like conquering the whole world?
Every once in a while neither of us drive to school, or neither of us find a ride with someone else, or the stars align or whatever… and we both end up riding the bus home from school on the same day. Today is one such day. He’s a back seat sitter. I’m somewhere in the middle. I hurry off of the bus and start the seven block walk from the bus stop to home. My stern face and steady gait say that I don’t want him to bother me; my aching heart is spinning circles around me, hoping that he will.
I feel a ping on the back of the school bag slung over my shoulder. I ignore it. It’s followed by another ping, and another. These pings are similar to the many I’ve heard outside my window at night. Ryan is walking ten paces behind me, playfully tossing gravel at my back. I turn around and acknowledge it by shaking my head, and then I turn back around and keep walking. The pinging of the small rocks gets harder to ignore as he comes closer to me.
“Hey Sparky, wait up!” he says.
I slow down just a little.
“What’s with the speed walking?” He asks, “Don’t you like me anymore?”
“Not like you?” I say with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “I would never dare venture so far from popular opinion. I’m sure my name can be found somewhere on that long list of your adoring fans.”
He lobs another piece of gravel, this time at my head. He’s got a small arsenal still in his left fist.
“…And by the way,” I continue, “Is the list not long enough for you? Do you really have to hit on my friends?”
He makes a humorously guilty face, like the ones when the sitcom husbands are in trouble with their wives.
“They’re my friends too, aren’t they?” he asks.
“No. You lost them in the break-up. They’re my friends.” But I smirk, because we both know that isn’t true, it wasn’t that kind of a break-up and maybe it still isn’t.
“We live in a small area, Amie. We have the same friends. Do you really want to try putting stipulations on who I can date?”
“Far be it for me to lessen your options, you’ve plowed through so many of them already.”
The anger that can materialize in me so quickly is pushing my feet to move faster again.
Intuitive as always, Ryan changes the direction of the conversation as smoothly as the fall breeze changes the direction it blows.
“Look! We’re almost to the tree…” he says, in the lilting voice meant to tempt me into a more carefree mood. “Its leaves are yellow and ready to fall. Let’s play our game.”
Ryan is forever making up little games. The guy wouldn’t be bored sitting in an empty white room. His imagination and competitive spirit would have him… oh I don’t know… playing basketball with a piece of lint from his pocket and the leg hole of his underwear for the hoop.
In this particular game, which has become an entertaining fall tradition for us, we throw a rock up into the branches of this large tree and then we see who can catch the most leaves as they fall. The tree grows alongside a part of the road that happens to be on a steep hill, which adds to the challenge.
He chucks the first rock, hard into the overhanging patch of leaves and a bunch start to flitter to the ground, twisting around and around, and seeming to be able to float out of my grasp in the nick of time. He catches two to each one that I catch, and I soon resort to sabotage. When he targets a leaf, I slap it away. He grabs my arm to hold me back from the next one, and when he reaches around me to catch it, I make a last ditch effort and attempt to blow it away from him with my mouth. The futility and absurdity send us both into fits of laughter. When we stop laughing, I realize he still hasn’t let go of my arm. The smile slips from my lips. I notice that the last few leaves are still gently drifting toward the ground, an easy catch. He watches me notice them, but he doesn’t look away from my face. They fall around us like little bits of magic and he takes a step closer to me. He drops his head just a little, changes his focus to my lips. But I’ve been down this road before, down this steep hill, and I can’t have him viewing me as just another of so many leaves, I can’t be an easy catch.
We have a silent conversation. I see him recognize my hesitation. I watch as his face changes to a sober reassurance that he won’t try to kiss me, but he still doesn’t release his hold on my upper arm. Instead, he pulls me closer and wraps his arms around me. I put my arms around him in return and he squeezes me closer. We stand like this for a long time, yet somehow not long enough. We steal a moment on this fall afternoon, under this golden tree. We hold on to everything that we were and we don’t talk about anything that we’re becoming. In fact, we don’t talk at all. There isn’t much we’re allowed to say under the unspoken rules of our new… situation. We just steal our moment, and then we quietly agree that we should get home. We pick up our bags, he gives me a small handful of rocks and challenges me to see if I can hit the upcoming road sign with them from this distance. Another game. Another carefree joke. By the time we reach my house, the masks are back on. We’re seventeen and we’re dating other people and we aren’t supposed to have feelings for each other… and so we pretend. But he’s better at it than I am.

My True Love Story

I answered your comments in the comments section from last week... and a picture of Ali Bigh will be coming soon. :) It's great hearing from you guys!

Three Steps To a Healthy Break-Up, Day 1000ish

In the few short months since Ryan and I broke up, I have become aware of certain guidelines that I must follow to persevere in my new environment.
Step 1. Flirt with other people.
Done.
Step 2. Hang out with and flirt with other people.
Check.
Step 3. Go on an official date, like in… a school dance, with someone else.
Coming… right… up…
In the case of Ryan and I’s agreed upon amiable break-up I’ve included the following instructions.
Step 1. Flirt with the ex-boyfriend.
Done.
Step 2. Find that even though there is a terrible uncertainty between you now, there is also an easier feeling between you and the two combined can add an extra dash of a thrill whenever you encounter each other.
Checkity, check, check.
Step 3. Continue the good feelings now that you’re both going on an official date, like a school dance, with someone else.
Coming…. right…. up…?
Sadie Hawkins. Girl’s Choice. Probably a good thing considering that all of the boys that could possibly have any intention of asking me out are not idiots and can totally tell that I’m not over Ryan. But who do I ask?
Criteria.
1. There has to be the illusion that I could fall for this new guy.
That’s right. Call me evil if you must, but Ryan is going to be at that dance with some other girl and I’m not going with a random friend of mine that Ryan knows very well is no kind of threat.
1a. He has to be attractive.
1b. He has to be confident.
1c. He has to be mysterious.

“You guys,” I say to my friends at a pow-wow in the hallway at school, “I have the perfect candidate for my date to Sadie Hawkins!”
They respond with the appropriate, surprised and excited inquiries.
“Yeah,” I say. “There are rumors all over the school. He’s moving here, staying with relatives for the school year.”
I have become very familiar with the expressions that I’m seeing on my friends’ faces. They’re expressions that would be stunned at the lunacy of the idea, but then they also know me well, so they aren’t entirely stunned.
“Soooo… you’re planning on asking out a boy that doesn’t even live here yet?” Kristin asks.
Steps to prepare for a first date with non-Ryan.
Step 1. Meticulous planning.
“He’ll be here in time for Sadie Hawkins. I talked to his cousin.”
“Did you also ask if he’s got a criminal record?”
“Or if he has head lice?”
“Or if he wears his pants pulled up over his belly-button?”
Refer to criteria number 1c. Mystery achieved.
“Yes, yes, I have all of the details I need. He’s cute, athletic, and confident.”
“Wow,” Kristy says, “This is such a good step for you Amie! You’ll be over Ryan before you know it.”
An airy affirmation escapes from my lungs. “Mmhmmm.”
Step 2. Be more convincing than that.
“That’s right. I will darn well be over him soon. Really, really soon.”
Good try. Now change the subject to…
Step 3. The date has to be super fun and action packed. No romance, just action. Not that kind of action. The kind where you’re moving too fast to think. Not that kind of moving fast. I’m talking about some kind of death defying sport or something.
“You guys, we have to do something huge for our date. Something monumental!”
“Lori says her older sister is thinking about taking us rappelling. Do you guys know what that is? They put a harness on you and you lower yourself down from a- I’m not kidding you- a cliff. It’s just you, a rope, a rocky cliff, and the possibility of you plummeting to your death,” says Tiff.
“It’s perfect,” I say.
A rope and a harness? That’s the easy way. I already rappelled down a cliff that day on my front porch, when Ryan and I broke up.
Skip a couple dozen more talks just like that one between my friends and I, and about 3 week’s time and the date is planned, the non-Ryan candidate has officially moved in and agreed to go to the dance with me. Four-wheelers are loaded onto trailers, ropes and harnesses are transported to a dark and gaping hole in the desert floor, where we will lower ourselves into a spectacular cave. Matching shirts have been purchased and I follow my rules and guidelines religiously.
Steps to a successful first, after-break-up, date.
Step 1. Do not compare your date to Ryan. Absolutely no comparisons whatsoever. Period. The end.
1a. That means don’t think about how you went four-wheeling with Ryan on your very first date and now you’re four-wheeling with someone else.
1b. That also means that when you’re sitting on the back of the four-wheeler and you’re going fast over sandy hills and well, you have to hold on somewhere, don’t think about how foreign it is to have your arms around a waist that isn’t Ryan’s waist.
1c-z. Oh my gosh, he’s so different from Ryan. This is so weird.
Step 2. Be interested in your date and be engaged in the experience. There now, see how mature you can be?
Step 3. At the dance, when you are in the same vicinity as Ryan and his hideously impressive, and sickeningly threatening date, do not… under any circumstances… look at him. Instead, operate under the assumption that he is, at all times, looking at you.
3a. Smile constantly. Not the kind where your cheeks hurt, you clown, nobody’s going to believe that. Keep it demure. That’s better.
3b. Subtly touch your date, a hand on his elbow for example, as often as you can. Tell yourself that you are not doing this to make Ryan jealous, but because it’s good for you to acclimate yourself to the feel of someone new.
3c. Attempt to steer the conversation away from the topic of Ryan, even though your date has added up comments from the rest of the group with the well-worded information you’ve given him, knows about Ryan, and finds it amusing to tease you about him. Fend off good natured teasing with denial. Lie if necessary.
I open my eyes on Sunday morning. It wasn’t a dream. I survived my first date, post Ryan. I get ready for church. It’s the one sure place I know I’ll see him. Out there- at school, at the parties, at the dances I never know if he’ll be there or if we’ll talk, but just as it was on that first week, when I was the new girl at church, I know he’ll be there in the chapel, stealing glances at me, and waiting to catch me in the hallway and say something that will make me laugh.
The chapel indeed brings many of those stolen glances from him, even prolonged ones with curiosity behind his striking blue eyes. He saunters up to me after the meeting.
“Did you have fun last night?” he asks.
“I did,” I say, implementing the well practiced smile from step 3a. I don’t return the friendly question.
He cocks his head to one side, thinking. I glance around and step aside a little as the congregation shuffles by us.
Finally Ryan leans in a little closer as if there’s a conspiracy between us and says, “I’m only going to ask you one thing. Would you have had more fun with me?”
I act properly disgusted at his nerve, but I’m tingling with the thrill of him needing to ask. It makes me brave enough to say, “Would you have had more fun with me?”
“I asked you first.”
I shake my head, masking vulnerability behind propriety. “No. Uh uh. I’m not answering that question.”
“Okay,” he says, stopping my rant with a careful brush of his hand on my arm. He pauses with the intent of getting my full attention and when I’m looking into his eyes, says, “Yeah, I would’ve had more fun with you.”
I feel my protective walls disappear like they’re made of flour in the wind. I try to play it cool, but my demeanor brightens just like the sunshine lights a room even when the blinds are closed. I allow just one corner of my mouth to lift and reveal one of my deep dimples.
I shrug my shoulders, attempting to down play the tangible emotion surrounding my response. “I would’ve had more fun with you too,” I say.
He smiles that charming, boyish grin, nods once and then, true to his word that he was only going to ask one question, he turns and walks away.
Oh yeah. I will darn well be over Ryan soon. Really, really soon. Mmhmmm.

My True Love Story

*If you missed last week's story because it was the Fourth of July, you have to go catch up. It's the next post down. Also, if you have missed any of the My True Love Story posts, you can click on the link to the right of my blog (under labels) and it will take you to only the posts with that title. Thanks for reading!


I'm Acting, Like An Actor

Day 916ish

I’m somebody else today. I’m not Amie Gee, the girl who broke up with her almost perfect boyfriend yesterday and who is now on a date with him today. I’m somebody else entirely. I’m Dame Allison Bigh. Apparently, I go by Ali. It’s very convenient that my friends and I planned a murder mystery dinner for this date, because I would rather be anyone than Amie Gee, the girl who broke up with her almost perfect boyfriend yesterday and who is now on a date with him today.
The planning that has gone into this date is elaborate, as it is part of a girl’s choice dance. We have reserved the old Presbyterian Church with its timeworn, brick exterior and its cracked walls and creaking stairs. We are in a great hall of sorts, though the entire church is quite small, and we are seated around a banquet table, with a lavish spread. Our costumes have been carefully planned. I am wearing a multi-colored, pastel, vintage dress (borrowed from a friend) with a tight bodice and a flowing skirt, a hair extension, curled into ringlets, flows over my shoulder from a low, side ponytail. My look has an old-time innocence and yet an intriguing mystique and I can’t help but be smug about how beautiful it makes me feel. Get an eyeful, Ryan, of what isn’t yours anymore.
My character writes murder mysteries and is known for her lifelike characterization of the criminal mind. It’s very suspicious. Maybe I’m the murderer. Nobody knows yet, but my part requires me to be inscrutable and sullen and that suits me just fine today.
I’m acting. I’m acting like so much more than Ali Bigh. I’m acting like a girl who is strong and who is okay. I’m pretending that the boy I’m sitting next to hasn’t heard my innermost thoughts and fears, that we haven’t spent hours talking and laughing, that we haven’t comforted each other through disappointments, and celebrated through successes… but most of all I’m pretending that he doesn’t feel so much like the stranger that he is now. He’s become a stranger because the future is unclear. He’s become a stranger because now he’s free to go flirting with that girl who had her hands all over him in class, and any other girl too. He’s a stranger because I can no longer reach out and lace my fingers through his whenever I want to. Just like that. One minute we’re as close as best friends, and the next… I’m not Amie Gee. Not today.
I sneak a look at Ryan out of the corner of my eye. To his credit, he looks miserable. I don’t think he likes this uncertainty between us much more than I do. One of the other six people is reading their part in the murder mystery, and Ryan shifts in his seat. I feel the warmth of his upper arm as it nears mine. Underneath the table, I feel him place a tentative hand on my knee.
My heart sinks into the creaky wooden floor. My eyelids lower to hide the pleasure and the misery caused by his touch. I’m not Amie Gee. My stomach isn’t fluttering. My thoughts aren’t swimming. My scalp isn’t tingling with the possibility of that hand touching my knee and where else it could end up tonight: around my waist when we walk out of here, on my back when we’re on the dance floor, in my hair at the end of the night as it coaxes my lips closer to his. What is he doing to me? It isn’t fair breaking my heart yesterday and acting as though everything is fine today. I angle my knees away from him, forcing his hand to slip off, and he moves it back to his own lap.
The date goes on this way; the drive to the dance goes on this way. His advances and my anger can be averted because we’re surrounded by friends. We don’t even have to talk much, but then we arrive at the dance. We walk in with everyone else, but our first minute alone he asks if we can go out to the car and talk.
I feel like a jelly fish, walking to the car. I want him to beg for me back and I want everything to go back the way it’s been. Even though it’s been hard, it’s still been easier than this. I sit in the passenger seat and he sits in the driver’s seat. The parking lot is dark and quiet, only the stars and a distant street light illuminate our faces.
He turns toward me, an agonized look on his face. “Amie, what are you doing? I thought… I thought we were going to try not to let this ruin us.”
“How can this not ruin us? You don’t want to be with me anymore.”
He can’t let the falsehood stand. He puts his hands on my shoulders as if he’d like to shake me. “What do you mean I don’t want to be with you? I want to be with you too much, that’s the problem.” With every word his face comes closer, his lips come closer. My eyes must betray me, silently begging him the way my heart is. I think I might see his eyes glisten a little, but then he squeezes them shut and almost pushes me away as he takes his hands from my arms and falls back against his seat.
“I can’t go on the same way. No. I’ve thought it through,” he says, almost to himself. “We have nowhere to go from here. The right thing to do is to break up and see other people. That’s how it has to be.”
His vulnerability and the fact that I still love him soften the exterior that’s been shielding me all day. I reach out and lay my hand over his. “Okay. Okay. I’ll try to stop hating you for it. I’ll try not to let this ruin us.”
He exhales like he hasn’t been able to breathe. He turns toward me again, moves his other hand to our two joined ones and grasps my hand in both of his. “Thank you,” he says, looking down, “Because this has been killing me, Amie.” His head drops to almost lie on our hands. “You’ve been killing me.”
“Will you start the car?” I ask. “I have a song I want to play for you.”
He starts it up, looking too beat to be curious. I find the right song and the notes fill the space between us. The lyrics speak of wishing a person the best, they speak of mending a broken heart, and how it won’t be easy. Then come my favorite lines, the ones that fit today so well, the ones that will fit the days to come, and that I want him to think of when he sees me across a crowded room… maybe on a date with someone else.
“I’m acting like an actor, dancing like a dancer, but when the curtain falls I always call out for you, and from the bottom of my heart I hope you never find somebody new.”
He listens to every word while studying the steering wheel. When the song ends, I reach out and turn the music off.
“Amie,” he says to me, and places a hand on my cheek, “I have no intention of finding somebody new. I still feel the same way about you that I always have.” He lets the hand fall and grabs my hand again with strength, to drive his point home. “I’m not going to get into a new relationship. I’m going to make myself do what I think is best. I’m going to date people, but I hope we can stay close and who knows- in the future…”
His sentence speeds up and then falls off, as if he’s promised himself he wouldn’t allude to our future. However, the hope of it does wonders for me. So does the idea that he isn’t about to find a replacement for me. Maybe those words will get me through tonight; maybe they’ll get me through tomorrow.
I’m not thinking about how they’ll affect my first date, my first date with someone that isn’t Ryan.

Author's note: I had to post pictures of this little Murder Mystery that I saved. I love how I've written all of our names next to our characters, and I LOVE that I got assigned the alias that was a WRITER of all things! Fate? I think so-ooooo...