continued from [Part 1]

Kevin and I had become good friends that first week on campus. He was a “local”–and a very smart one at that–so getting his help to find my way around campus, to edit my first college papers, and to tell me no one uses floppy disks anymore was much appreciated. He was super funny and really easy to talk to. He made me feel comfortable and totally at ease–not an easy feat, people, not at all.  

So when this guy called me right before my choir retreat and asked if I wanted to have dinner with him in the DC (dining commons) I didn’t think twice. Of course I could eat my dinner with the one person who seemed to be able to calm me. My mind was going a hundred miles an hour by the time I met up with Kevin, and never once did I think he wanted to have dinner with me because he liked me. 

I was oblivious, and honestly, it was probably better that way. 

For the next month, Kevin kept showing up. We had a class together a couple times a week, so we always sat beside each other. He came over to visit “my floor” (why would he come to visit me? We were just friends.) during “open hours” each week. He invited me to his birthday party that his college friends were throwing. I declined because I had “too much homework.” 

(Side note: To this day, he’s still upset I didn’t go to his party. I confessed that the reason I didn’t want to go was because I wasn’t a part of “the group” that was going to be there. I don’t like feeling awkward, so I avoided it altogether. Now, I feel a little bad.) 

At the end of October, our Core Group headed 4 hours north for a 3 nights of straight-up rustic camping. No tents, no toilets, no electricity. One tarp. Some rope. An outhouse overlooking the river. AT THE END OF OCTOBER IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN. It was freaking cold, my friends. Despite the awful sleeping conditions and the frigid temperatures, I still had a great time–solely because Kevin volunteered to do every activity with me. We scrubbed potatoes together, we killed the dinner chicken together (you read that correctly), we washed dishes together, we canoed together. And yet, throughout the entire weekend as we made references to our future, I was very deliberately referring to our separate futures. No leading on, here. Nuh uh. 

The next week, I started realizing what everyone else had seen weeks earlier. I was smitten.