The Story of Us

Aaron has been in Cleveland for the past week to train with his new company. It's quite remarkable how much I miss Aaron when he leaves. I always knew he was a fabulous guy, but the minute he leaves town I start yearning and pining like I've never yearned and pined before. I love that boy.

When you combine the increased amount of time to blog and the fact that I miss Aaron like the dickens, you get the story of us.

It's a long one (but for reals), so I'm going to break it down into segments.

Aaron was 18 and I was 15. Aaron and his buddies decided, as they usually did, to crash the Oakton Stake dance, despite being from the neighboring Centreville stake. Aaron noticed me at the dance. I don't remember seeing him there but did find out from my friend Nicole that he had seen me and thought I was cute. Nicole mentioned to me that he had asked for my number and she had given it to him. The next night he called. I remember being so nervous that this guy got my number and wanted to talk to me, but I ended up being surprised at how easy the conversation was.

As much as I'd like to say that the stars aligned and we knew we were destined, that didn't actually happen. I was only 15 so dating was off the table, and I was kind of "with" someone at the time. An I-like-you-you-like-me-so-we're-together-but-not-dating kind of thing.

The first time I met Aaron in person a group went to his house to watch a movie. At some point in the evening we all ended up doing the thriller dance in his laundry room with a strobe light. I knew we were going to be great friends.

We talked a lot on the phone. Talked about who we liked, who he was dating, what we wanted to do with our lives. He played games with my family, dropped off snickers bars in my mailbox, and let Nicole and I kidnap him.

In the back of my mind I knew I liked him, but I accepted the fact that nothing could really come of it. Aaron got accepted to the University of Utah for a summer semester that started in May. He was graduating early and moving a month before my 16th birthday.

My Not-So-Much boyfriend called me one day when he caught wind that I was spending a lot of time with Aaron. Conversations of "Do you like him?" and reassurances of "No, we're just friends" played out. In the middle of that phone call Aaron surprised me with a visit. He was coming to say goodbye before he moved. I told him it wasn't a good time, and he should come back later. He drove 25 minutes to surprise me, and I blew him off. Needless to say, he did not come back. He moved to Utah days later. A month or two after that his parents moved to Hong Kong. I can honestly say that I never thought I'd see him again.

The next fall my boyfriend and I broke up. I, apparently, was devastated. All I wanted to do was be with my siblings who were all in Utah. Off I flew to the beehive state.

Aaron called me and asked if we could go out while I was in Provo. I said sure. I was really excited that he was going to pick me up in his camaro. When he showed up he had this tiny blue Chevy Cavalier, I was bummed.

For our first date we watched The Ring with all of my siblings, so romantic. We split off from them ot get something to eat. I wasn't hungry and assured Aaron that I truly did not care where we went to eat. We went to Taco Bell. At the end of the night when I started getting out of the car Aaron says to me "Hey Kara, can I kiss you on the cheek so that when you're famous I can say that I kissed you?" I leaned in, he kissed my cheek and that was that.

He left a few months later to go on his mission to Taiwan.

Aaron wrote me a letter while he was in the MTC, but I don't think I ever wrote him back. My freshmen year of college, my roommate Jillian and I went through this phase of writing to missionaries and day-dreaming about how we were going to marry them. She and I always had crazy ideas

One of the missionaries I reconnected with was Aaron. I mean, who wouldn't want to reconnect with this guy.

I wrote him two letters at the very tail end of his mission, one of which, according to Aaron, was very forward.

Aaron's Dad transferred him to BYU while he was on his mission. When he got to Utah he got my information off of BYU's stalker-net and called me. I was so excited to see him. I blew off ward prayer to catch up with him and watch a movie.

He picked me up at the Cannon center. He was wearing a black track suit and I remember thinking "He looks nothing like he did in high school."