The Story of Us: Part I

If this sounds familiar...well, then I guess you know :)

But I met Husband Freshman year of college. He was very tall, thin and slightly nerdy in that church boy comb over, goes to bed at 11 kind of way. Me, I'm small, barely 5 ft, long dyed red hair, black/green/blue finger nails and a style that hovered between hippy, goth and grunge. Looking and knowing the two of us you never would have put us together.

I went off to college in love with a boy. The people on my dorm floor were used to me talking constantly about Boyfriend. How wonderful he was, beautiful he was and how he was everything good in the world.

As the year progressed Boyfriend seemed to forget about me. He stopped saying he loved me, then he told me he thought perhaps we should see other people. I consented and went on my very unmerry way. But there was this boy other boy on the floor, Deagon. He was dark and full of something not quite right. He was malice and pain and self indulgence. In my pain for the loss of Boyfriend I went to him and handed myself over.

It was like cutting, only I was cutting my soul. I had lost everything good in the world, what else did I have to lose?

Then, as I spiraled downward into this reckless and painful relationship, I reached out to Boyfriend for help. I stood in the dark shower pleading over the phone with him about how I felt dark and scared and alone. He didn't understand, he told me he loved me and that caused something inside me to break. I didn't think he loved me anymore, if I had been with Deagon while he loved me, what did that make me??

I freaked out, I told Boyfriend I was scared and sinking. He called me crazy and he said didn't think he even wanted to be friends with me. And then I forgot how to breath. A big hole opened up in me and I wanted to break into little tiny pieces.

I don't remember how the conversation end. I hung up and I slowly walked down the hallway. I went into Husband's room, walked past him and Deagon without saying a word and sat in their closet. I wanted to avoid my Rainbow Bright on Crack roommate while I was hovering near total breakdown.

Husband came in and crouched beside me. He didn't say a word, he put his arms around me and the sobs just poured out. But as his arms circled me, they held me together and kept me from falling apart. All of my anguish melted from me while I was held in his embrace. That is what planted the seed in me. The comfort and safety I felt in his arms.

At some point I left the closet and fell asleep with my head in his lap, until he had to leave me to sleep at 11pm (rumor has it that he was afraid of turning into a pumpkin). That was the whisper of our beginning, although nothing romantic came about till much later.

to be continued...