She was a 19 years old college freshman, and a simple one at that. There was nothing amazing about her and her best feature was her eyes. They were also her mother’s eyes. She looked up then to meet them. They were sitting together, her and her mother, in the small café, their sundaes melting. It was suppose to be a party sort of meal because tomorrow the girl was starting college.
College; It sounds like such a simple term. It’s not a hard word to spell, nor is it a hard word to understand. Yeah that’s what some might fall for, but anyone who’s gone through it or even just starting, they know the real truth behind it, and in this I am not referring to the spelling part. Let’s try to get down to the understanding part and the idea that everything happens for a reason, which is what this story is all about
It was somewhere in the middle of January, only 12 hours away from her first day of college and she was spending her time at the ice cream place. Her mom and she had spent the day looking back over her education experiences up to now and thinking on about the long road and lay ahead. Her chosen field was that of Early Childhood education, not a really very paying one, but an interesting one never the less. She looked up to her mother at this point and asked her if she thought I would be okay starting out now. The answer given was a rather long one. A thing about parents, not matter what the question the answer is always a long one, whether you need it long or not.
The actual happenings of the first day were rather fast paced. Computer class first, not a big favorite but she did find herself enjoying sitting there in the back surrounded by all these college boys. Next was Lunch time, there is something very wrong about walking into the community college cafeteria and not knowing a blessed soul. Then it was time for intro to college writing class. Leaving the building that day she couldn’t help but think why am I even going here? Almost every friend she had was at UT or bowling green.
The days past and soon it was her second time in intro to writing. This time they were asked to write and essay, it was simple enough, and she made it look good. This would prove to have a cause and affect the cause come 2 days later when the phone rang. It was her intro teacher. Seems her paper had appealed to her as rather advanced and she wanted to kick this poor girl out of the class….and into a higher level writing class, better known as composition I. the more advanced writing class.
Now she had the entire weekend to think this all over and to tell you the truth it took less than 30 seconds. Back at school after a quick signature she was off to get rescheduled.
So now here she was a rescheduled college freshman, and it was time then for her NEW class to start. She stood there in hallway out side room 160, trying to get a glimpse of the inside. She had never been the NEW kid before in anything and was now about to head into the snake pit.  As she headed in every head in that room was on her. It was kind of creepy. Two girls to the right were giggling, more than likely because she had caught the teacher in mind sentence. A guy with a shaved head kind of smiled and gave full attention, as did one guy sitting in the front row. The guy sitting next to him, closets to where she was standing looked at her for a second before diving back down to his paper. It was like an episode of the twilight zone... The teacher was giving her blank looks as she squeaked out in probably one breath “I just got transferred from the other class, the other writing class and they just put me in this one today.”
She found herself sitting by the two giggling gals. It was official her new life had begun. But hold on here this was only the beginning of something else.

After 2 months she wasn’t getting lost anymore and even was starting to get to know some people. April was now dawning and it was spring. It was also time to take a few things into account. Almost everyone had dropped out of her classes by now, which can tend to happen a lot in college classes.  In computers it was down to 8, math was down to 3 and comp was done to 7. She really had the one entire side of the room to herself.
Only this was a bit of a problem, when it came time to do any group work. she  was sadly singled out as the one to get shuffled from group to group and then came the day they were once again engaging in this activity. She had just completed working with 2 girls and wasn’t really looking forward to doing so again. So she could now either work with the couple of the back seat, or the two single looking guys up at the front. She had gone to nickname this group the M&M group mainly because both guys were named Michael. She mostly was thinking that as she volunteered to join this guy group and found herself sitting BETWEEN the Russell Crowe look like Mike and the Buffalo Bills cap yielding Mike. The bells rang and the day was over. Well not really, in fact it was about to get a little strange. Back on the topic of this Buffalo Bills cap yielding Mike, he had always seemed to her to be the quiet type. In fact she hadn’t really heard him say more than 10 words all semester. It was this that was running threw her mind when she was packing up her bag and heard some one say ‘Do you always carry that cd player?” Yes it was the Buffalo Mike and yes she was surprised by this, and also slightly confused.
She nodded back “yeah normally I do, I just like having it with me.” Buffalo Mike smiled a small smile I’m the same with my laptop.” She smiled back at him and they set off down the hallway together.
  It was in those first two sentences that something had happened. The girl despite years of thinking she’s be better off single and alone had fallen in love with this guy. It was completely unplanned on but it was also something she knew was right and  every girl knows that once you’ve laid eyes on a guy that image sticks with you so here her she  was now a 3 months in rescheduled college freshman with a Buffalo Bills cap yielding Mike on the brain. Whew. After having one sunlight (I can’t say moonlight) walk with Buffalo man she wasn’t satisfied. And like any other sane person she was now willing to go many lengths in order to get more interaction with him. She became one with the clock and started to leave class right when he did. If he left before her she would run, and yes I do mean run after him. It was a crazy summer romance in the making only problem being they weren’t actually dating.
It was now may and this was going to be a busy month.  Along with all this love on the brain she was also taking up the role of party planner for her parent’s big 25th wedding anniversary. To say that she wasn’t a thoughtful child would be very wrong and she had been working hard for weeks to throw her parents a great surprise party. Now the great day was nearly upon them and to top it all off she was still facing the problem  was spelled out:M-I-C-H-A-E-L.

She was thinking it was real love and wanted to keep him in her life, and still she was afraid to. She still wondered about the single lifestyle she once looked forward to and not to mention that there were still other guys she found to be cute. Who was to say he was really the one for her. Would choosing him really change her life for the better? She was running out of time with just 2 classes left. Even with that she still wondered why he had never asked her out. Why should it be her made to do the dirty work? Besides he had always acted towards her more like a friend than anything else What if she went and asked him and he said no. It was a huge risk, a daring one, but could she take it on?

~~                                                               III
The anniversary flowers were sitting on the table. The card and present she had bought were right by them. The looks on her parents faces priceless. That was how the morning of the big day had played out. Everything had gone perfect. But then she still had class and a certain task to perform.
Each hour, each tick of the clock brought her closer to Michael and the choice of what to do. She waited for him outside the classroom her mind racing, and he was running late and it was time to head in. Having a bad feeling she side stepped and saw him sitting there in the room already. He had cheated! A chance gone she headed in. The teacher had their assignment ready in hand. They were looking back at the reports they had written almost a week ago and were now going to be reading each others, then write some comment backs to them on the paper.
The task was started and nearly complete when Michaels paper landed in front of her. She read through words she couldn’t understand, and then glanced up at the clock. Her parents were going to be picking her up in a few minutes and they would all be going out to dinner with her grandma’s. She looked back down at the blank paper, thinking dozens of thoughts. Holding her breath she neatly wrote: if you ever want to go out sometime give me a call (419)555-1245. It was short simple and to the point. Now all that had to happen was up to him. She was about to hand over her life to a guy who worshipped the buffalo bill. Well perhaps worship is to strong a word, and she wasn’t really handing over her life, but that’s how it felt to her. This all dawned on her just as she handed the paper to the person by her, and she felt the paper slipping out of her grasp, no time to do any erasing now
Then she watched as the paper was passed back up to him.  She waited and watching in horror as the paper the one bearing her name and number went into his folder. Alarms were going off as class ended and she set off after him in hot pursuit. She caught up with him and blurted out, “are you going to look at your paper?” He replied back with a cool shift of the backpack “Nah I’ll look at it later.” But she wasn’t giving up. “Why not look at it now?” It must have been the desperation in her voice. He turned towards her, giving a funny look. He looked surprised, enlightened and could it be a little amused. Still he unzipped the bag and took out the folder. As he flipped the paper over to read it she stood there, crossing her fingers and saying a few Hail Mary’s. It wasn’t like she hadn’t planed on it ending this way. She had seen it coming; she had known it could happen. It was still not completely planned on and that was what made her question whether or not she heard him right as he looked up at her from the paper and replied back with, “I think we can do that.”

The End

AUTHOR NOTES: This story is not fictional, it's actually based on how my husband and I met over 12 years ago :) I've hope you have enjoyed this story, please review