A Love Story: Piece by Piece Part 3

I failed to mention in my last post that upon moving to Louisiana, I discovered that I was painfully shy, so you can imagine, all the more, the shyness that came with my transition into teenage-hood with the move to Tennessee. I always knew I was shy, but it didn't show in elementary school because I had been there for five years and was friends with everyone, but being completely out of my comfort zone brings forth a high level of bashfulness in me.

I started my life in Franklin by finishing the last month of 8th grade at Page middle school. I was instantly befriended by a girl who lived just down the street from me, which lead to making friends with the rest of the neighborhood kids our age. We all hung out for the entire summer, and I became particularly fond of one of the boys who was really sweet to me but I didn't dare flirt with him, especially because my best friend had confided in me her feelings towards him. However, (of course there's a 'however') he was not quite the goody two shoes I was. He smoked. He stole wine from the model homes in our neighborhood. He smashed the neighbors' pumpkins at halloween... I'm sure the list goes on. I had a huge sense of being torn because I liked him, but I didn't want to like him. I will never forget, one day we were all headed home from hanging out and he decided he wanted to walk me home. The second that everyone else was out of sight, he threw his arm around my shoulder and we started the walk up the hill to my house. "So.................." he said. "Wanna make out?"

You can only imagine the pitter patter of my heart after hearing those words. Not out of excitement, but out of SHEAR TERROR. What can I say, boys scared me.

"Uuummmmm, haha, NO."

"Come ooooon. Let's just go in one of these houses being built."

"I gotta go, bye!"

And as my story continues, you will notice that this is how I regularly dealt with boy situations.

We still hung out for the rest of the summer, he was still kind to me, and I still crushed on him. But I kept a very safe distance between he and I.

Then there comes the big first day of high school. Oh, Centennial High school. I made best friends with another girl pretty fast that I met in wellness. She was boy crazy- but freshman girls are supposed to be boy crazy. I was the opposite of a normal, typical teen girl starting her freshman year. But anyways, her boycraziness was fun. I went right on along with all of her crushes and we would write letters back and forth every day: "So and so said hi to me today! So and so looks soooo cute today! I love so and so!" Whoever she was liking at the moment, well I liked him too.

And then one day...........

We were hanging out on the bleachers in wellness and she's just sitting there talking and talking about this boy and how cute he is and how much she likes him. Finally, I'm like "WHO are you talking about? WHO is Hunter?"

She was surprised. "Heather, are you serious? He sits right next to me in class...." and pointed over to him.................................