The Love Story

We have been together since our freshman year of high school when we were 14 and ever since day one, he has talked to me and treated me as if we would be together forever.  In his eyes, nothing that my dramatic teenage self did was worth losing our relationship.  He says that he didn't ever even have a choice because for him, it really was love at first sight.  Here is the story:

Us at 14

We went to a private high school so our freshman class was a pool of kids who all went to different middle schools, none of us really knew each other.  He says, of course, that like most guys, his main goal was to scope out the hottest girl in school and get with her...and then, that very day, in 6th period drama class, he saw me.  We didn't talk, we didn't meet..in fact all I knew of him was that he seemed to be the class clown and the upperclassmen were calling him 'Beans.'

At the end of that first week, our school hosted a freshman-senior buddy day lunch on the football field.  As Jake describes it, during that lunch I was on the field doing some type of relay race (I do remember this) and he was up in the bleachers with his friend Eddie.  Eddie asked him something along the lines of 'have you found any girls yet?' and Jake just pointed at me from the bleachers and said 'I'm going to date her.' (Eddie verifies this story).  

All of this happened in August and I remained oblivious to it until November when his friends apparently got tired of hearing about it and decided to do something about it.  So they offered me $20 to date him.  'Sure-why the heck not?' So I started purposefully walking by him, talking to people at his lunch table, just waiting for him to ask me out and when he didn't, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I marched right up to a table of seniors that he was sitting with and said "I know you like me, so are you going to ask me out or not?" Dumbfounded, he replied "Uh..sure...wanna go out with me?"  My answer...? "Yeah. What is your name though?"

And that is our story- those immature moments led me to be sitting here next to him in our home with our puppy nine years later.  We got to grow up together, we created ourselves to fit the other.  He has always been my best friend, putting up with anything and everything that I do; he even committed to a long distance relationship for a year when I decided I wanted to go out of state for college right out of high school.

I feel so lucky to have such a rare relationship, to be in love with my best friend, and to have a boy that treats me as if I am the whole world.