After the dance...
life just settled down.
There was something just right about our time together.
Everything felt...
easy.
Every morning I'd wait for her before school.
Somewhere along the way, that just became what we did.
I'd see her walking toward me, smile, take her books, and we'd walk into school together.
Dad and my brother had taught me how to treat a lady.
Maybe loved that.
Carrying her books wasn't something I did to impress her.
It was simply what you did.
By the time the first bell rang, we'd already spent part of the morning together.
Then we'd find each other again between classes.
Lunch was the same way.
We always found each other.
After school I'd usually walk her home.
Most evenings we'd end up talking on the phone before the day was over.
Then we'd wake up the next morning...
and do it all over again.
Before long, nobody thought much about seeing us together. The teachers expected it. Our friends expected it. If you saw one of us, the other one usually wasn't very far away.
Truth be told... I think some of the guys were a little jealous.
She was beautiful.
She was popular.
Everybody knew who she was.
Somehow... she had picked the new kid.
There was never any pressure between us. We'd talk, laugh, hold hands, and simply enjoy being together. The conversations were easy. The silences were easy.
We were discovering each other...
one conversation...
one kiss...
and one ordinary day at a time.
A few weeks after the dance, I asked her if she'd go steady with me.
Back then... that meant something.
Like a lot of guys in those days, I wore an initial ring with a big 'A' on it.
When we decided to go steady, I gave it to her.
The only problem was my finger was a whole lot bigger than hers.
She wrapped a little yarn around the back...
and somehow...
it became perfect.
I don't remember the ring…
But I do remember the yarn.
One of my favorite memories was my fifteenth birthday.
Mom always made birthdays a pretty big deal.
The house would be decorated from one end to the other and filled with school friends, church friends, laughter, music, and enough food to feed an army.
Then there was the cake. Mom stacked rich chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream into an unforgettable masterpiece and covered the whole thing with her famous Million Dollar Fudge.
It was spectacular.
Sometime during the party we disappeared into my room for a few minutes.
Mom had turned her old beauty shop into my bedroom, and by then it had become my own little hippie heaven.
There was a waterbed, beanbag chairs, a lava lamp, blacklights, incense, posters, fishnet stretched across the ceiling, guitars on stands, and my homemade stereo—a boom box with a record player patched into it.
We'd talk, laugh, hold each other, steal a few kisses, and act like two fifteen-year-olds who were completely in love.
We were discovering each other...
one conversation...
one kiss…
There was nothing extraordinary about our time together.
And maybe...
that's exactly what made it so extraordinary.
Most afternoons I'd walk her home after school.
Somehow we'd always end up on the porch swing.
Her house was white with natural stone across the front, and just off to one side of the front door hung a wooden porch swing beneath the covered porch.
The chains squeaked every time it moved.
The world just kept going.
Cars passed.
Kids played somewhere down the street.
Neither one of us seemed to notice.
We always sat close together.
She liked holding hands.
So we held hands.
We'd talk about school, church, our friends, and sometimes we'd talk about the future.
We talked about music.
She loved music as much as I did.
We talked about college.
What life might look like together.
The dreams two fifteen-year-olds have when they honestly believe anything is possible.
Sometimes we'd laugh.
Sometimes we'd sit quietly.
Neither one of us seemed to mind the silence.
We were just happy being together.
It was perfect.
Back then...
forever didn't seem all that far away.
For a time...