A Love Story . . . the Prequel

Ten years ago, I met a boy. We stood in the parking lot of a church building early in the morning, ready to embark on a service project. The youth of our stake was combining with the youth of a local Catholic congregation to essentially rebuild a town. Guadalupe, Arizona. The place where love is born. 

But, back to that morning...I was introduced to this boy by his loud/obnoxious/charming best friend who I knew from my seminary class.  The sun was shining, everyone was talking, his best friend was asking if I had glitter on my face ("Um...maybe there's some in my makeup?" I remember saying...) and holding most of my attention.  But, in small moments, I sized him up. Quiet, cute, funny, guarded, observant, tall, friendly. Never the center of attention...just directly outside of it, enjoying himself, sure of himself in a very quiet way...standing there with his hands in his pockets, his eyes squinting against the sun. Again, I can't say that much of my attention rested on him that day since his best friend and I were in the early stages of a mutual crush, but I do know he was there. That I noticed him. That I knew I was comfortable with him. That he was silently strong and good.

Fast forward to about six months later...we had spent the summer together.  That mutual crush between his best friend and I grew to be a relationship. He and his best friend were inseparable. Me and his best friend were inseparable. Therefore, we became joined at the hip by default...but what an enjoyable default it was.  I came to trust him as a consistent buddy, the guy I hung out in the background with when the pressure of being the girlfriend of the most energetic guy in the world became a little much and I needed to just observe a little. I was a bit of a fish out of water at the time...new relationship, new friends, new "frenemies" (the group of girls that had been consistently flocking around my new boyfriend for approximately two years, working for his attention...and now, here I was, a year younger than all of them no less, daring to have won his interest without trying...by the way, I am really excited to have worked in a trendy word like "frenemies." I feel like Lindsay Lohan.) I joked around with him, called him when I was feeling insecure about his friend's feelings for me and sat next to him at parties because he made me feel comfortable. I also, at one time, knee'd him in the groin and locked him in a closet. But that's a whole other story...

By the time we'd known each other a year, the friendship had grown to a point of a sibling-like closeness. He was always there. I was always there. Consistent is the word that keeps coming to mind. We just always...were.  The year had brought a lot of interesting experiences and, for me, stumbling blocks. But he was always around, making me feel like I was okay.  Granted, I was pretty wrapped up in a relationship with his best friend for that year...most of my world revolved directly around that. But as wonderful as I remember that relationship being, it was still a relationship. And I was still just a sixteen year-old kid. So...needless to say, much of the time I was a bit up and down, a bit silly, a bit cross-eyed and confused.  I know now that he went through periods of instability too but he never showed it.   He just continued to make me laugh and, more importantly, laugh with me. When I was with those two guys, we laughed a lot.  It felt like family. Even when he would "flirt" with me too much and his best friend would punch him in the leg. Flirting doesn't really happen in families but punching sometimes does so...yeah...

Our second summer together was different. We were all just a little bit older, grown-up mentality setting in a little bit more...well, for me at least.  My boyfriend had graduated. I had just a year left of highschool. I knew the basics of what I wanted after that but all the details were a little shaky. Isn't that a funny phase of life? I get sick to my stomach just thinking about the transition from junior year to senior year.  July in particular. Highschool relationships may be highschool relationships but when you try to transition out of them, especially as the only one who wants to do so, it's rough going.  It was at his house, during a movie, that I asked his best friend if we could go talk in the other room. It was his face, and the face of another good friend, that I looked back at as I followed my boyfriend out of the room to make him no longer my boyfriend, that I looked to for support and reassurance that I was doing the right thing for both of us.  It was him that stayed back the next night and hung out with his best friend while the rest of us went out to watch fireworks. It was him that gave his loyalty to both of us and helped us keep our friendship strong when it would have been easier to just stay away. He did all this just by being who he was. By being there.

Our senior year rolled in and brought with it an opportunity to build a friendship based on more than my relationship with his best friend. He transfered schools and landed at mine. Now it was him I walked the halls with...all our other close friends were either graduated or off at cosmetology school for half the day (Katie.) (By the way, I meant that to sound accusatory...but I'm not sure why...my hair wouldn't be near as manageable if it weren't for you...) He kept me sane through a year of senioritis/anxiety about graduating, crushes popping up all over the place (he even gave them all nicknames...sometimes nice ones. Sometimes not so much.), and too-spicy cafeteria chicken sandwiches that I always thought I could eat but never ended up being able to. I kept him entertained, I believe, and hopefully supported as he deserved to be. I was nice to his nose-ringed crush who drew strange pictures on his backpack and admired his firebird.  I talked him up to cute girls (like he needed it...though me hanging around all the time probably made him hard to get to...) and gladly went to homecoming with him. I kept him well fed (too-spicy cafeteria chicken sandwiches) and kept him from getting bored. Keeping up with me, my analytical mind, my emotions and my sign language presentations that I needed to practice was like a full time job for him, I'm sure. He also went to class sometimes.  On the weekends, we hung out with his best friend and the same friends we'd been hanging out with for what now seemed like forever (and for him, pretty much had been).  At school, he laughed at me when I tripped, told me when the guy I liked was looking or not, gagged when I ate cream cheese on everything, threw a chair when a guy in the cafeteria was harassing me and made fun of me openly in seminary.  Then, we graduated. 

The year after highschool is the year our relationship grew the most. I think it's because that is the year we fell madly in love. 

The end.

No, no, wait...the thing is, we hadn't fallen in love with each other.  He fell in love. I fell in love. Separate stories, though intertwined in a way because we were each others' sounding boards, support systems, reality checks.  Seems everyone we usually hung around with was gone...missions, marriage, school, etc. We both found ourselves out in an almost-adult world, still in touch, still with each others' backs but suddenly wrapped up in other people. Then he left on his mission. He wrote home about how wonderful this girl was and how scared he was she wouldn't be there when he got back. I wrote him about how wonderful this guy was and how scared I was that I would trip next time I was with him.  He wrote home about daydreams, plans and prayers. I wrote him about adoration, romantic hikes and almost holding hands.  He wrote of doubts and striving to be worthy of her. I wrote of laying awake at night and not knowing if I should make my feelings known.  We both wrote about other things too but we were both too drunken with infatuation to talk of much else.  I reassured him. He cautioned me. I told him she sounded great and I was rooting for him. He told me that I sounded absolutely beside myself and he was rooting for me (just be careful and don't let yourself get hurt).  He got a letter about an engagement ring. I got "just friends."  We both wrote about tears, devastation and heartache. He put his head down and got to work.  I moved away for a while.  Then, slowly, we wrote of other things. Lots of other things. Once a week, other things. For the rest of the two years he was gone. We talked about everything and mostly, nothing.  I had never known another person so completely and, by the time he got home, we were best friends in a way that could never be reversed.

Also, by the time he got home, we were back where we started. Me, in a relationship with his best friend. Only, this time, engaged.  Him? The best man, of course.  The first time I saw him, I hugged him. The second time, I cried.  I told my fiance that I wasn't sure how to keep being best friends with my best friend when it was also his best friend and . . . it just all seemed so complicated. Now? Not so much. But at the time, I wanted so badly for things to be able to change but also stay the same. My fiance looked at me and said, "JC loves you. He will always love you and you will always love him. That doesn't have to change. We will all always be together, even if it is different than it used to be."  

We got married.

Fast forward to nearly two years later. I am in labor with my first baby...for twenty three hours I am in labor with my first baby. Who is there with me? My husband. Who else? Our best friend. Consistent, I tell you.  Granted, he leaves the room during exams and what not and goes home to sleep at night.  But, most of the time, he's there. Sitting next to my husband, watching tv, eating jack-in-the-box (even though I hadn't eaten for nearly two days) and talking about how attractive he finds Tyra Banks while I deal with contractions.  It's all kind of a blur but I'm pretty sure I completely disowned the both of them during those hours. BUT...when a sweet baby girl with dark hair and eyes is curled up in my arms later that day and I hand her over to her "Uncle JC" for the first time, I decide he can be part of the family again. (I had already re-owned my husband while he held my hand through the pain earlier) Because, though she had sleepy, scrunched eyes through everything else on her first day here, when she found herself face to face with him, she stared. She hardly blinked at all. Just stared. It was clear she knew who he was.  Silently strong and good. Just like I knew the first time I saw him.

Our little family of three had a happy summer. We saw "Uncle JC" here and there but it was mostly just the three of us, enjoying our home, enjoying being a family and spending lots of time together.  It was fun to be in a new phase and though I felt a bit disconnected from the world, it was okay because I was figuring out how to do this thing called mothering and working hard at being a good wife.  There was lots of love and lots of smiles.  And lots of celebrating being parents by getting excited about all the little things. Then, some big things started happening. We decided to sell our house and move, decided he would go to school for two years, decided we would have another baby. The day he enrolled in school, we called our best friend to see if he wanted to meet up for dinner and hear about all of our exciting new plans. "Sure, my girlfriend is out of town, I could use something to do." You have a girlfriend??? "Yeah. Nothing special though." Oh. I see. ...wait...what??...The rest of the night revolved around catching up on topics like that and arguing over whether Pei Wei's Orange Peel Chicken is too spicy or not.  It was really good to be together, the three of us again. Well..really..the four of us. But Bethany mostly just sat in her carseat and stared at JC like usual.

About a month later, JC broke up with his "nothing special" girlfriend on a Wednesday night. That same night, I made a fancy dinner for my husband to celebrate the three year mark of him returning from his mission to the Philippines and also the fact that we had just found out our second baby was expected.  The next morning, he moved on to another mission. His time on earth was ended in a quick and unexpected instant when a truck crossed over the yellow line and hit his car head on.  This, like many other parts of our story, is a story in itself and there is little I can say to shed light on all the things that were said, done, felt, etc. at that time.  On that day, and after, so many were there. So many offered comfort.  So many gave strength by just being there.  But one of the memories burned into my mind's eye from that time is walking into the arms of my best friend...who had just lost his best friend...and just staying there and feeling his comforting, consistent heart beat.  Silent. Strong. Good.

I'm still there.

This month, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary. Since we've been married, we've stood as sturdy as we could. A lot of the world around us had fallen apart when we started our life together.  It seems like, since then, we've been busy rebuilding things, watching them fall back apart again sometimes, welcoming some change (babies) and resisting some as well, fighting to stay not only on our two feet but holding hands in the meantime.  Smiling if possible. Fighting for our family. Fighting for our faith. Fighting to keep our heads above water.  The fight can be hard but it's not really about that.  It's about us. Ten years we've been in each others' lives. Three years we've been a part of each others' forever.  Nothing can stop us from living the lives we want to live, building the home and family we want to build. Getting to that point where we will be with our other best friend again.  There's a lot of work to be done and, it sometimes seems, a lot of battles to fight.  But there is so much joy to be had. I'm going to keep tripping over my own feet, ordering food that is too spicy for me and seeking him out to sit next to when I am feeling overwhelmed.  He's going to keep making me laugh, being a consistent friend and calling me out on my obsessive tendencies (even if it's not over boys anymore...).  

And he's going to keep flirting with me.

Because, now, he's allowed.