Thanks to Kate and Brillig, y’all get to read more of this jazz!!

I moved a lot growing up. I went to four elementary schools, one middle school, and three high schools…one of them twice at two different times. This made for interesting friend situations, and interesting dating situations being the new girl a lot. Typically, I was cool with the guys that found the new girl fascinating, and avoided the girls that felt threatened by new meat. My junior year found me in Texas halfway through the school year. I was pissed about having to move away from my friends…again. That Spring, I got asked to Prom three times…cause I was the new girl…and said no three times because I didn’t KNOW ANY OF THE GUYS! I decided to go stag to a party with a bunch of my guy friends and have a good time there instead. Deep down I wanted my friend to ask me. He was the bishop’s son, a slight rebel with dark curly hair, kind of the cool guy at school, and he drove a ‘66 Mustang. We had been hanging out a lot since I had moved in, but everything was very platonic. We were comfortable with each other and that was my main reason for wanting to go with him…alas, he asked some popular girl and I kept saying no to the poor guys who had asked me. That year ended and we hung out all summer playing frisbee golf, driving around in the Mustang, playing WWF in the rain in the muddied grassy area by his house, swimming in his pool, hanging out with the other LDS kids, and not so much as holding hands. It was nice to have a friend with no expectations.

We started our Senior year that Fall and Homecoming was the buzz. It was a huge deal at that school and especially in Texas where football is more important than school itself. In the South they have this CRAZY tradition where the guy who asks a girl to Homecoming gives her a GIANT silk mum with a ton of ribbons and dingle-hoppery things hanging down to mid-thigh or knee. She attaches this somehow to her shirt and wears it to school on Homecoming day. It is a status symbol if there ever was one in High School. The girls who didn’t have mums would have rather stayed home from school that day than be seen without one. In return, the girls made arm garters for the guy who asked them and the guy wore his. Much to my relief, my buddy asked me one afternoon while we talked on the phone. It went something like this:

J : “So, my mom’s making you a mum right now.”

MVD: silence

J: “So, would you wear it if I gave it you?”

MVD: “Um,”

J: “Are you gonna go with me to Homecoming or what?”

MVD: trying to sound calm, “Sure, whatever. That’s cool.”

I gotta say, I couldn’t stop smiling that day. He picked me up as usual that morning and we did the pinning ceremony at my place. We drove to school and I tried to act cool, but man, I couldn’t stop smiling. I walked the halls that day with my head held a little too high while my GIANT mum tickled my face and the hundreds of ribbons swung around my legs. Later that night at the football game, while I sat in the stands with some of the girls who had been decently friendly to me, J waved me down to the field so we could hang out while he took the game photos. I was shocked because the WHOLE school saw him and saw me walk down there and it was the first time I felt like he didn’t care if people saw me with him. I was beginning to think that he might actually LIKE me, as a GIRL, not just as his frisbee golf buddy. I don’t know why I cared, but maybe I was just desperate for a friend and a family like his, and I didn’t want all of it to go away.

The next day was the dance. My mom was crazy about modesty and the only dress I could pick was a black velvet number that went to my ankles. It had a high neck and wide shoulder straps, but she insisted I wear the matching shrug that went with it. I knew that the rest of the girls would be wearing strappy, sparkley numbers and I was not looking forward to being the one going to a funeral. She insisted on doing my hair and it was huge. I was kind of embarrassed, but couldn’t argue with her about it. J came to pick me up for dinner and we traded corsages, took the necessary pictures and left. He didn’t say a word to me as we got in the car and immediately my self-consciousness started to set in. We got to dinner, met up with our group, and no sooner had we sat down than the waitress came up and took our drink orders. J whistled loudly at her and winked, elbowed me and told me she was hot. My face felt like it was on fire as the rest of our group looked at him in shock. One of the little hoochies in our ward, (tiny, blond, and tiny, used to date J) made sure she sat next to us, and he turned to her and said, “Gosh Bri, you’re looking totally hot tonight.” Queue me wanting to walk home. I somehow finished dinner without punching him and we headed to the dance. He immediately made his way to the top of the bleachers with his friends and I wandered out to the dance floor to hang out with the colorful-sparkly- strappy-dress-wearing girls. J and I didn’t dance once. After the dance we headed back to his house with the group and settled in to watch a movie. I was fuming still and seconds away from calling my mom to come get me. If he didn’t want to go with me, WHY DID HE ASK, I kept saying to myself. Just then, Bri came in the room, walked right up to the couch we were sitting on, and skwiggled herself right in between J and I. He threw his arm over her shoulders and my fist twitched. I got up, went to the other side of the room, sat on the floor, watched the movie, and saw only RED. FINALLY the night ended, he drove me home, and I walked in pretty much without saying goodbye. My heart was broken. I was so confused. But mostly devastated at losing my best and only friend. We didn’t speak for weeks, and finally when my mom went and talked to his dad and told him the story, we sat on his front porch and talked. I cried. I told him that he had been a total jerk, and that I missed my friend. Under his breath, he said he missed me too. After an hour or so, we hugged and I walked home. We spent a memorable Senior year hanging out like nothing had happened. January came and he told me he was thinking of graduating early and heading out to BYU for Spring semester. In true Platonic buddy fashion, I went to my school counselor that very day and told her I wanted to graduate too. Together we said goodbye to high school and began our college days living 30 seconds away from each other in the dorms and making fun of each other’s dating escapades. One early morning, I stood in the airport with his family and we cried, not being able to hug, but heartily shaking hands because he was leaving on a mission to Italy for the LDS church . I didn’t feel a bit ashamed as I told him I loved him in the only two Italian words I knew. He smiled and nodded back knowing what I meant and that humiliating Homecoming date soon became a thing of our long-forgotten platonic past.