High School Heartache - Part 8

Ok Kat, here it is. The installment that you've been begging for. For anyone else who has just stumbled upon this, we're taking a little trip down memory lane and visiting some of the more notable relationships from my youth. If you would like to catch up, check the right hand side under "My Favorite Posts" and you'll see the first 7 chapters. And now, back to our story...

Eric

It was the summer of 1991. I was working at a church camp and relishing being away from home for 10 weeks. Talk about sweet freedom. I had spent most of the summer pining for a certain fellow staff worker and drowning my sorrows with the melodies emanating from my Walkman. As I dozed by the lake on most afternoons, I thanked my lucky stars to have this opportunity to bask in nature, without a care in the world. It was heaven.

As the summer came to a close, I made arrangements to meet a friend upon my return to civilization. School was about to start back and she had eyes for a guy that she had met earlier that summer. She wanted me to meet him and I obliged. (Anything to get out of the house for an evening) Little did I know that this evening out was going to be the start of a whole new direction of my life.

As I approached my friend "G", there he was. Tall, dark & handsome. He wouldn't make eye contact with me at first. When he did, I was blown away by these piercing eyes. He flashed a quick smile and then sat and listened to G & I catch up on a summer's worth of gossip. I couldn't stop looking at him. He was so quiet, so painfully shy. And so hard to read. Was he bored to tears? Did he think I was pretty? Was I ever going to hear his voice?

He sat patiently for what I'm sure was at least an hour while G & I "girl-talked". He did finally interject a couple of witty comments here & there, but for the most part, he just observed. I didn't really find out that much about him during our meeting. He told me that he went to a school close by and lived a pretty good distance away from me, but there was something about him that was intoxicating. I left for home that evening wondering "What just happened?" I was about to get the answer I was hoping for.

G called me the next day and asked the million dollar question. "So, what did you think? Are you interested?" Duh. Apparently my starry eyed gazes and puddle of drool weren't indication enough. "Yeah", I replied. Now, I know what you're thinking. I said that G was the one that had eyes for Eric to start with. I think that it was partly true, but in the end, she realized that they would never be more than friends. And so, she then stepped into the matchmaker role. She gave him my number and then the roller coaster ride began. We talked on the phone incessantly. Long conversations about our very different backgrounds and our many common interests. There was 1 story in particular that still gives me the shivers to this day.

When I was about 8 years old, I had an obsession with cats. My very first cat was a black & white mixed breed that I loved dearly. She met an untimely demise while I was away at Girl Scout camp one summer, but I never forgot her. When Eric & I met, he had just lost his beloved cat that he had loved since he was a little kid. When I told him what my cat's name was, he froze. And what he said next, sent me reeling. His cat had a Cherokee name because his mother's side of the family was Cherokee Indian. The translation of his cat's name, was my cat's name. This had to be fate.

{to be continued}