rhapsodic.org is a weblog by Valette Keller

keep this boy

It was ninth grade biology class, and my partner and I shared a lab table with his partner and him. While my partner and his partner flirted, he and I did all of the work. I only remember two specific moments that involve him: having a friendly race to see which of us could skin our fetal pig the fastest and cleanest (which I totally won), and a friend teasing me in class that he liked me. The latter incident was probably what prompted me to black out his face in the yearbook (something I did not remember until my Senior year).

In tenth grade, I again became aware of him through a junior friend who sang in the swing choir with, and then briefly dated, him. I recall sitting with Katy Stephens (Katy, where have you gone?) in the hallway and him plopping down next to us; the very edges of our separate social circles were brushing. I also had a car and became best friends with many of my classmates, so thought little of it.

In the eleventh grade, our social circles overlapped quite a bit as he dated a younger, but closer, friend of mine. They went together all year and into the summer; she really wasn't ready for a relationship and didn't enjoy spending time alone with him. Consequently, we spent a lot of time together as a group, and most of that time was in my parents' basement. That spring I took a class trip to Paris and came back with a new idea of style that he couldn't help but notice.

The summer after eleventh grade found him and his then girlfriend having separately decided to break up, yet neither wanting to be the one to initiate the process. I helped her say what she needed to say and helped him cope with that. He spent more and more time in my parents' basement without her or the group. My mother made several comments about the two of us, comments that I dismissed as quite unfounded.

Twelfth grade threw him and I into Calculus class together, and I helped him float through it. Our first kiss was on my parents' back porch like the clich� that it must be. The group survived the transition, but we did less and less with the group. My mother's most famous comment was made that fall (and yes, Mom, I know your eyes are widening at the prospect of me sharing this with the entire world), "If you do not keep this boy, I will."

I am so very glad I kept him.
Happy fourth anniversary, sweetheart.