Playing Possum

Tim finished up his first year of college and I managed to graduate from high school despite having cried through most of my senior year. We still had our occasional spats –like when I went to Panama City with a group of girls for my senior trip. Tim was not very happy. Historically, teenagers on unsupervised beach trips tend to forget the rules of exclusive relationships. Heck, they tend to forget the rules, period. Maybe it’s something in the formula for Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil or…I suppose it could be the unlawful and ungodly amounts of alcohol being consumed. Either way, Tim was convinced that something dreadful lay ahead and it involved me being tangled up on the beach with some oven-baked lifeguard.

The few days before leaving, he all but ignored me completely. I was amazed. Here he had spent a year in college and almost “fallen out of love with me” while I lingered faithfully and yet now, he couldn’t manage to trust me for one week. He knew better than anyone else that I was “a good girl.” He also knew that the girl I was traveling and staying with (one of his ex-girlfriends, in fact --not one previously mentioned in the story but still somewhat ironic) was the captain of an anti-drug and alcohol performance team at our school. But neither this nor anything I said would allay his fears. So, I did what a loving and loyal girlfriend should do.

I went anyway. One week of worry wasn’t going to kill the boy. And I had a great time. No alcohol, no life guards, not even a notable sunburn. (My girlfriend and I laughed as we had complete freedom from our parents but still spent an hour every day slathering on and reapplying sunscreen. Our moms would’ve been so proud.) I returned to my sweetheart just as I had left, only heavily freckled.

The months passed and we continued to fall deeper in love; deeper in like; deeper in…what’s that other “l” word? Oh yeah, lust. That’s the one. Suffice it to say we were steadily heading toward the moment of truth. Time to sink or swim. Fish or cut bait. Hitch up the wagon or put the horse out to pasture. Um, I believe Paul said it this way, “It is better to marry than to burn…” And it was getting harder and harder to put out those fires.

One Sunday afternoon, we were napping in Tim’s room and I roused to hear him on the phone with his best friend from high school. I picked up the conversation just as Tim was speaking in a hushed tone, “Of course, you have to be here. I need a best man, don’t I?” I froze. “Well, she has a birthday coming up, so…” Breathe slowly. I willed myself to keep my eyes closed. I didn’t hear another word of his conversation. My brain was spinning. I was so relieved when Tim, thinking I was still asleep, quietly left the room. I lay there for some time trying to gather my composure and not let on what I now knew: Tim was going to propose on my 19th birthday which was just around the corner. Now, all I had to do was wait.