So sorry for the length of time in between posts. It's been a busy summer!
Over the next few months, Drew and I became better friends. At the youth leaders' Christmas party, which I attended as a student leader, I realized I had a crush on him. I felt like the silliest girl on earth -- because it was like
every other girl in the youth group also liked him -- but he had such a dynamic, magnetic personality, that it seemed out of my control!
One of my friends somehow got his phone number and showed me with the biggest smile on her face, ready to share if I wanted it, too. Not that we planned on using it, ever, but we were giddy with the possession of something so personal. I didn't copy it down, though; the only way I wanted that information was if Drew gave it to me himself.
And a couple weeks later, he did. We were at some youth event, and it was so nonchalant. Like, "Hey, in case you need to reach me, or in case we get separated, here's my cell." (I, of course, gave him mine in return.)
I was so triumphant... and completely aware of how idiotic it was!
And then he started texting me, which was just becoming popular. We had an ongoing argument over which texting method was faster, ABC (which he used) or T9 (which I used); it finally resulted in a text-off... in which T9 won. Duh. We also exchanged IM screen names at some point and we would chat while he was in one of his law classes. (Not recommended, y'all -- Drew claimes that was the only class he didn't do well in.)
For my 17th birthday, he got me a little dreidel, which was kind of an inside joke between us. I still have no idea where he found one in
March, but he somehow managed it.
People started asking me about him and it was
always awkward. How was I supposed to respond?! "Oh, yeah, I really like him, but I'm 16/17 and he's 23!" Plus, he was always really friendly to
everyone, so I never felt like I got special attention from him. In my mind, it was always completely one-sided. I mean, it would be weird if he liked me back, right?!
In May, Drew went back to Texas for the summer. The first two months of the summer, we talked on the phone regularly, maybe 5 nights a week. I got home from work between 11 and 11:30 every night and he would call me and we would chat late into the night.
And then one day, I asked myself what I was doing. I knew if we kept talking this frequently, I was going to start liking him
too much and that it was going to hurt a heck of a lot when the inevitable happened. Suddenly, I became convinced that he was going to meet someone that summer. He was probably even going to come back engaged.
So I decided to cut the friendship off then and there. I stopped answering most of his calls, and when I did pick up, I never allowed the conversation to last more than a couple of minutes. My friend and I were going on an overseas missions trip in July, and I kept making excuses that I needed to pack or prepare.
Finally Drew got the hint. His calls tapered off, and so did the texting. And by the time I left for Bulgaria, I felt like I was completely over him.
I'd love to say I had a hard time letting him go, that he was hard to forget, that I thought of him all the time. But if I'm honest, I hardly thought about him at all the rest of the summer.
The first time I saw him at church that fall, I felt a little zing of excitement, but I quickly pushed it away, firmly telling myself that we weren't friends anymore.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) for me, nobody had ever told
Drew that.
