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Mom’s hovering. She was never exactly close to her
parent’s again, but eventually they had at least a surface comfort
whenever they were together. She wondered sometimes at their
reaction to her. Did they ever think, even for a moment, that she
had liked it? She never asked. She didn’t really want to know. She
was afraid of what their answer may be.
    It only got worse as she endured her teen
years. She was not very outgoing, so she didn’t have a lot of
friends. She couldn’t relate to others her age, and they all
thought she was a little strange. She wouldn’t date. She turned
down every boy who ever asked her out. Some thought that she was
cold, and they accused her of being a snob. She obviously thought
that she was better than them. They didn’t realize that she had
always assumed that they were better than her.
    High school had been a living hell. She was a
little shy and unsure. She didn’t know that her emotions could be
misconstrued as snobbish. Still, others attributed her lack of
interest in boys to something else. One day she overheard some
other girls talking in the restroom. One of them stated that maybe
she liked girls. After all, one of the best-looking guys in school
had asked her out, and she had turned him down. By the end of the
week her theory was all over school. Complete strangers were
calling out gay jokes in the hallway.
    She met Drew her senior year at college. She
had been sitting cross-legged under an extremely large Oak tree,
eating a turkey sandwich and reading her World Civilization text
book when he sat next to her. Without her wish or invitation. She
bit back her annoyance at the intrusion. Since starting at
university three years earlier, she had become a pro at letting
down cute guys easy. She really had no desire to date.
    “Hey,” he said. His curly brown hair fell in
his eyes and he shoved it back off his forehead. He smiled at her.
His smile was not arrogant or even flirty. Just a casual smile.
    “I hope you don’t mind, but would it be
alright if I sat here for a bit? Do you see that girl over there?”
He asked, nodding toward a blonde girl who looked to be walking
toward the library steps. “She’s my ex-girlfriend. She’s been
hinting at getting back together, even though she dumped me.”
    He chuckled.
    “I thought that if she glanced over here and
saw me sitting with you, it might cool her down some. I don’t
really see the point in picking up where we left off. You
know?”
    Sarah stared at him.
    “Okay, okay. She’s not my ex. I don’t even
know that girl. I see you sitting her a lot, and you seem kind of
lonely. I thought maybe you could use a friend. That’s all. I
promise.”
    He seemed sincere. He did not seem like he
was trying to flirt or use a line as an excuse to sit next to her.
His blue-green eyes had the look of a guy who was shooting
straight. She sighed. What did she care if he sat there? It was a
free country. She went back to eating her sandwich and writing
notes in the margin of her text book.
    “You know,” he said after a few moments, “You
can’t sell the book back to the school if you write in the
margins.”
    “I don’t intend to.” She said with a small
shrug. “I want to keep this book.”
    They spent the next hour talking about
history and another after that talking about majors, the best place
off campus to eat, and a hundred other things that sprang into
their minds. At one point she thought he was going to ask her out.
She was preparing to turn him down, although part of her was sad at
that prospect. But he didn’t ask her out. He just changed the
subject to how his roommate was a theater major and he was sick to
death of hearing him run lines from Hamlet.
    He finally stood and dusted off his dark
brown corduroy pants. He said it was a pleasure to meet her and
that he would see her around. With a wave he sauntered off toward
the student union. She sat and watched him go with a weird feeling
of being let down.
    The next