Just for Now

Allison's Journal

I fell in love with Cole before I even knew what love was.

I learned everything I know about life with Cole by my side.

It felt almost as if we fell in love in reverse. It took me less than a second to fall for him, and it took six years for us to unravel.

I never told him this, but I remember the day we met, I was dying to meet him the whole day. I had seen him playing with some toys and there was just something about him. I overheard him mention he wanted to check out the swings later, and so I made sure that was whee I was. At the end of the day, I told my Mom I needed a few more minutes before we left. I ran to the swings and sat there, trying not to seem obvious that I was glancing around for Cole.

But then it worked.

Four year old me was kind of a mastermind.

He came over and introduced himself to me, and I knew he would be in my life for a long time. I just didn't realize how long.

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I remember our first date.

I felt awful cause I didn't realize it was a date until he told me that he was going to a funeral after it, trying to explain why he dressed up.

If I had realized it was a date, maybe we could've said we were middle school sweethearts rather than high school sweethearts. I told my Mom about it afterwards. She thought it was hilarious that I didn't realize it was a date, and even funnier that he lied and said he was going to a funeral.

I almost asked him on another date to make up for it, but I was young and it felt like the end of the world to ask my best friend out on a date.

I just had to wait a few more years, anyway.

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Our sophomore year of high school, I told Cole that Justin Medding invited me to the formal.

That was one of the first lies I ever told him.

But it was worth it to see him get jealous.

Even more worth it when he asked me to go with him instead.

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I think Cole thinks I was there for him more than he was there for me.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

My parents got divorced when I was young, and it destroyed me. I didn't understand it. They didn't want me to see them fight, but it didn't make sense to me that they went from seeing loving and happy to telling me they were splitting up.

I really struggled with it, I hated the idea of only seeing one of them at a time. To spend half my time in one home and the other half in another. To maybe even eventually see them move on and date other people.

Cole's parents were pretty strict with not having anybody but their family in the house after a certain point in the night. But Cole negotiated every way he could to let me stay at their house whenever she needed to— which ended up being almost every night. It was complicated, because I didn't want to make my parents feel bad, but I just couldn't take seeing the change. It hurt too badly to see them go about their days without the other.

It was like a song that was missing the second half of it.

I saw my Dad go about his routine that my Mom's routine used to intertwine with seamlessly.