Dear Future Husband

March 21, 2019

Dear Future Husband,

I took a chance.

And I'm glad I did.

These past few days have felt like there was a hole in my chest without having Grant to talk to.

He texted me the first night and I texted him back, then in school I avoided him, and now I'm worried he thinks this means we are broken up. I mean, it looks like that, but I didn't want this to be a breakup.

No, this wasn't fair to me or him, especially him, and I couldn't keep going like this having a half relationship.

At this point, I didn't care what my family thought, and if they said I couldn't see him anymore, then I would fight for him. I would make them see that this was good.

Today in school I was going to go up to his locker and talk to him, but he wasn't there, and I didn't see him during his free period where we usually met.

My heart sank. Maybe he was done with me. He had waited long enough and he was done sitting around waiting for me to man up.

Fifteen minutes before field hockey practice ended I looked around feverishly for him to no avail. Maybe he wasn't avoiding me, maybe he was just home sick today. Maybe-

There he was, walking past the field carrying his duffel bag, his sweaty skin shining in the sun. He didn't cast a glance towards me, like I had done to him yesterday.

I couldn't control myself. I hadn't seen him all day and I knew he would do the same thing tomorrow if I didn't do something right now.

In the middle of the drill we were running, I dropped my stick and ran over to where he was walking, jumping the fence of the field to get to him.

"Grant," I said, jogging to catch up to him. He stared straight ahead, trying to pretend I wasn't there even though I could tell he was biting his cheek. "Come on, please look at me."

He kept staring straight ahead. "So you're talking to me now?"

"I'm sorry, I really am. I was being stupid and irrational and I shouldn't have tried to control you. Us. I was wrong."

He kept walking and I continued to keep my pace with him. I was hoping at this point he would just forgive me, but I wasn't surprised when he didn't. Everything had been on my terms so far, including this, and as much as it hurt me to say, I said it. "If you want to be done with me, that's fine. Maybe we are already done, that's fine, but I didn't want to have an open end. Frankly, I don't want us to end, but I understand if you want nothing to do with me anymore. I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

He stopped, looking over at me, taking a deep breath. His face was expressionless, and my heart was pounding from the suspense of what he was going to do next. "There's no way in hell I'm done with you yet." At first, I thought that meant he was going to wreak havoc on my life for the inconvenience I caused him, but that just didn't seem like a Grant thing to do. "But you're right, you were being stupid and I accept your apology. To be honest, I was being kind of an asshole too, but I don't really want to talk about that anymore. Now can we just stop all of this and be together for Chrissake?"

I smiled, wrapping my arms around his sweaty neck and kissed him hard. He didn't like PDA, but in that moment it was only appropriate, it was our official announcement that we were dating. I heard some of my teammates squealing while my coach angrily blew the whistle, and I knew that they knew, which was exactly what we wanted. I knew my sudden exit from practice would earn the whole team a few extra suicides, but that didn't matter to me. This was worth it.

He was worth it.

He pulled away after a few moments. "You should probably get back to practice. I'll be waiting in the car."