As I sit here, looking at his 6’0” 190 lb. stature, I can’t help but think about how perfect he is. His 77 inch arm span, his height and extraordinary vertical leap make him prime picking for most teams in the league. His reception percentage in his senior year inspired more confidence in him than any other possible draft pick. That’s not even taking his 220 career receptions, 3000 yards and 30 touchdowns into consideration. He is one of the most sought after draft picks, and many are predicting he will be taken number one. None of that matters though. To me, his perfections have less to do with his tremendous size and ability and more to do with his piercing blue eyes, his short, crazy sandy brown hair and that smile. Oh how I love that smile. It’s the only thing that can instantly change my day for the better. His arms around me make me feel safe. His gentle personality and his kind heart make him an angel. He isn’t just any potential draft pick to me. He is so much more important than that. He is my best friend, my boyfriend, my support system; quite simply he is the love of my life. Sitting here, waiting for a decision to be made about where our lives go from here, I can’t help but look back at how it all started.
To many we were the unlikely couple. Our senior year of high school people gave us to the end of the summer before he realized he was in need of someone more girly. He was the high school football star. Popular, smart and nice- everyone thought that he and the head cheerleader made the perfect couple. The only problem was, he wanted nothing to do with her. He saw through her bubbly personality. As it turned out, he knew her better than anyone gave him credit for. I hear that she dropped out of college after her first year and headed for the likes of the Playboy mansion and a career in modeling. She left her fiancé without even a word of where or why she was going. All of this after letting her rich boy toy pay for plastic surgery, a new car and that ring. No one knows for sure, but rumor has it she took the ring with her and pawned it for close to its $20,000 value. Talk about cold hearted bitch. Instead my prince charming ended up with me, the most unlikely match.
We met sophomore year in high school. He was of course the most popular guy in our class, and he was quickly making a name for himself on and off the field. By some twisted fate, he got blamed for tagging the girl’s locker room in school insulting the girls’ soccer team, calling us all a bunch of dykes. His punishment was being a glorified ball and water boy at the remainder of our games that season. And that’s where we met. I was only a sophomore, but as one of the three captains on the team, it was my job making sure things were done right. Our coach was very hands off when it came to anything but the result on the pitch. All of the girls on the team hated Sean. They refused to give him any words of direction, hoping that he would get into even more trouble and be suspended instead of being forced on our team. I was the only one who would help him out. And even though I thought he was the typical football star, there was something about him. He was always so polite when he asked for help or instruction. He seemed genuinely interested in our games. For someone who supposedly hated us, he sure didn’t act like it.
One night after the hardest game I had ever played in, I ran into him in the parking lot. He was unusually snippy with me, and being pissed off because of our loss, I called him on it. I was partially hoping for a good argument to get some frustrations out. Instead, he apologized and began venting about how he was tired of taking the blame for everything that one of the seniors on the team was doing. It was the other guy that tagged the lockers, and tossed the beer cans behind the school. From there he continued venting. I didn’t have the heart to stop him, my listening seemed to help, and well to be totally honest, I loved the attention I was getting, even if it was just so he could get some stuff off his chest. He was one of the most popular boys in school. And even if all the girls on my team thought I was crazy, I thought he was a genuinely nice guy and extremely cute. After a while he even asked how I was doing after our heart breaking loss. As it turned out, I was right, he did like soccer. He even knew a good amount about it. His younger cousin played and he had gone to more than a few of her games. We sat on a bench talking for a good two hours after my game. It was nice. As every second passed, I liked him more and more. He was quite the guy. He walked me to my car after our talk and to my total astonishment, asked me for my number. That’s the night my life was changed forever.
He texted me later on that night and we talked well into the morning. We got to know as much about each other as we possibly could. Music, books, television and movies, there wasn’t a topic we didn’t discuss. We talked about how he would handle the guy on his team that he kept taking the fall for and what his goals were out of high school. He refused to just talk about him. He asked just as many questions as I did and wouldn’t take “I don’t know” for an answer. Sometime around 5 am he asked me on a date. I was sure I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. There was no way the most popular guy in school wanted to go anywhere with me; a tomboy on most accounts, someone who knew as much about sports as the guys in school. I wouldn’t admit that to him until sometime our senior year.
No comments:
Post a Comment