Once upon a time, two people met in a totally non-romantic way. I was homeschooled for the first half of my life, and instead of going to a high school, I took classes at the junior college to get both high school and college credit. Because Beej is in the marine reserves, he went to the same college in his free time. On the first day of fall semester, I was sitting in my Spanish class and I spotted him. I kid you not, I thought he was a model. (Partially because he was tan and ripped, and partially because he was wearing all Hollister.) I paid close attention as the professor called role, waiting for his name to be called. I memorized his name: Benjamin Wu, planning to sit next to him the following day. Unfortunately, he wasn’t there. I figured he had dropped the class, but a week later he showed up. I later learned he was a marine and had a week-long drill, and he’d been waiting to come back and talk to me (because he’d been paying attention to the role sheet as well).
The first conversation we had, he asked to borrow a pencil. Super lame right? I thought so too. The second time we talked, it was after I’d told the class about how my legs were all cut up because I’d fallen off a roof during an airsoft battle the previous day. I guess that warranted a second conversation. After we got to talking, we discovered that not only did we live in the same town (pretty crazy since our town is small), we lived in the same neighborhood! He spend the next few days texting me fairly frequently, and to be honest I wasn’t sure whether I should be flattered or creeped out. But I hated taking the bus, and he offered me rides, so I decided to give it a shot.
He started waking up early every morning to take me to school. I had 7am classes. His didn’t start until 11am. The more we talked, the more I realized we had in common, and the more I was surprised by his intelligence. He’d been all over the world, he knew a lot about every subject I brought up, and he had goals beyond community college (thank goodness). Shortly after, we started hanging out after school. I’d sneak out every night to hang out with him and his best friend and fellow marine, Ryann. Let me tell you, those two have the biggest bromance ever. But I didn’t mind being third wheel, and the times we spent together were amazing. Wine, scrabble, hot tubs, The Big Bang Theory, rock climbing, and lots and lots of potstickers. For a few months, everything was completely perfect.
Alas, alas, as all good things are bound to, my perfect life took a turn for the disastrous. I lost all trust in Bj and our relationship completely tanked. We were both devastated. I declared I would never speak to him again. My best friend held me to it - I would have died without her. And it worked for about two months. After lots of failed dates with other guys, countless messages from Beej, Valentine’s Day gifts, etc., I began to weaken. Everywhere I turned, I looked for him. I heard our songs, craved the food he used to make me, missed him singing to me, longed to be myself again. I couldn’t get the last lines of one of Bj’s messages out of my head. “I’m not going anywhere. You ruined me for anyone else, Laura, and I’m sorry I was too myopic to see it sooner. So take your time, I’ll wait. I don’t give a damn if you tell me I’m a fool for embarking on such a course. I want you, just you. And I’m not budging.”
I caved. In my defense (or not), I was very drunk when I called him. He was about to leave for Mexico. The conversation lasted until 5am. The day he returned from the trip, I left for LA for a week. Two weeks later, we spent time together for the first time in months. He’d brought me tons of presents from Mexico. We made blanket forts, went stargazing, danced around to our favorite songs (or I did while he laughed at me), drank cider, roasted marshmallows (on chopsticks using his toaster oven because he didn’t have real skewers or a fireplace), danced in the middle of the street, even looked at a bunch of expensive wedding rings, just for fun. I lived a movie. I kept bracing myself for the other shoe to drop. But it never did.
In the beginning of relationship round two, we fought constantly. I had a lot of emotional baggage and so did he. We were complete opposites emotionally and had no idea how to communicate. I didn’t truly believe that he loved me and it caused a lot of friction between us and frustration on his end. But sometime this past summer, I don’t know what happened. It wasn’t anything I did. It wasn’t anything he said. But everything clicked. I had done enough bitchy things, guilt tripped him enough times, spent enough miserable hours on the phone, and he was still willing to fight for a relationship. He did love me. I believed it. Suddenly all the work we had put into the relationship for months made sense. We had learned the ropes.
I have NEVER been happier. He is the most important thing in my life. He spoils me to death. He bends over backwards to do everything he can to communicate that he cares about me. Dresses, shoes, dates, nights in, nights out, forehead kisses, long phone conversations, eight hours of driving every single weekend to see me… countless examples of his determination.
People who know us ask me how we’ve only been together for a little over a year. People who don’t know us ask me why I think we’re so serious. Let me tell you, when you are with a person for 18 out of 24 hours of the day on a daily basis for a year, you get to know them VERY well. I’ve seen him in such a wide variety of situations, as he has me, that it’s almost impossible not to act like we have been together for much longer.
I know in the future we will fight. We’re both extremely skilled at pissing each other off, and sometimes it will be painful and hard. But that doesn’t scare me at all. I have no doubt in my mind that what we have is worth it. I am beyond excited for the future with him. The story doesn’t end here.
Want more boyfriend mush? Check out my blog about our relationship here. :)
