Our Story: Trouble in Paradise

After Rick screened me, I was feeling very excited about what was potentially happening between us. I had been trying to ignore my feelings for him because my love life was already complicated at the moment. But then, something else happened that made my feelings for Rick even harder to ignore. For it to all make sense, I need to tell a story that happened that summer before...

I was riding in the car with my brother, Mike, and his wife, Audra. It had rained a lot that morning, but it had cleared and the sun was shining in a cloudless sky. The pavement was still wet and the reflection of the sun created a bright glare. As Mike was driving, he glanced over at Audra, reached in his glove compartment and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. He handed them to her and said simply, "You're squinting."

For some reason, this moment really stuck me. I thought it was so incredibly sweet that he would notice something so small. I decided that if a man is sensitive enough to my needs to notice that I'm squinting, then he is a man worth marrying.

Fast forward to the week Rick screened me. A our ward was having an activity and I rode with Rick and some friends in his car. It was a rainy morning, but the sun broke through. The sun was reflecting off the pavement and I was squinting. And what did Rick do? Without a word, he reached into his glove compartment and handed me some sunglasses.

At this point, I decided that Rick was the one for me. I didn't care if I was on the "rebound". I didn't care if the timing was wrong. I liked him.

I was feeling pretty optimistic about things until Tuesday, January 25th. I had come home from class and quickly started on making a nice lunch. Rick and I usually got home around the same time on Tuesdays and I thought maybe if I had some "extra" food, he might want to have lunch with me. I watched and watched out the window, but he never showed up. But my roommate Kristen eventually came home. Here is what I wrote in my journal...

"I came home from school today and my roommate Kristen told me she had a conversation with Rick during class. [They had a class together.] She claimed he said that he didn't really know me very well and that he thought this other girl Mindy was more his type. He said he was worried that I am not over Jeremy yet and so on. "

I was really upset when I heard this. I felt foolish for having misread Rick and his feelings for me. I had wondered here and there if there was something between Rick and Mindy. It seemed like she liked him and they had been hanging out quite a bit until I came around.

Several days earlier, Rick and his roommies had placed an "ad" in the announcement section of our ward newsletter as a joke. It said that their apartment was in dire need of some lemon bars. You know what happened? Within just a few hours, Mindy shows up, while I was there with the lemon bars. That really irritated me. I thought, "What, did you start making them the minute you saw the ad?" Of course, being the jealous and competitive type, a few days later I made them something way better than dumb lemon bars out of a box: lemon cream pie from scratch. That was kinda catty of me, but I couldn't help myself.

First the lemon bars, and now this. Mindy had officially become my nemesis.

After my roommate dropped the bomb on me, I sulked around my apartment, feeling confusion and disappointment. I also felt a little hostility towards Mindy. OK, a lot of hostility.

That night, Rick showed up and asked if I wanted to hang out at his apartment. I reluctantly said yes. We spend the evening goofing off with his roommates as usual, but my heart wasn't in it. I kept wondering why he was with me and not with Mindy if she was more his type.

Late that night, Rick walked me home. He kept stalling and it was obvious that he wanted to say something. He eventually came in and we finally really talked. At BYU, this type of conversation was commonly referred to as a DTR (define the relationship). We both admitted that we liked each other, and Rick explained his hesitancy with me. He said that he was concerned that Jeremy was still an issue and he was afraid to get hurt.

He also said that afternoon he went to Mindy's apartment and they had a talk as well. (So that's where he was.) She told him that she missed him and wanted to know what was up with him and me. He told her that he liked me. He also said that she bent over and accidentally farted during the conversation. That made me feel nice and smug.

If Rick were to tell this version of the story, he would deny the whole Mindy thing. He would deny that she liked him, or that he ever liked her. He would also deny ever saying that Mindy was more his type. He doesn't deny the fart part of the story.

We agreed that we would take things really slow. We wanted to make sure that we were sure about our feelings for each other, and that I was sure about how I wanted to handle the Jeremy situation.

I went to bed that night feeling happier than I had in a long time.