It was on this day, October 7, 1996

It was a week before my 17Th birthday. I was on my way to my first period English class with Ms. Oldershaw. Everyone was already in class and the second bell was about to ring. I had walked to class the same way I do every morning, with Melanie, Kim and Darric. Mel and Kim had already gone into their classes and Darric and I were still chatting in the hall. 3 days before, Darric had rejected me when I asked him out, so I was kind of laying low, not flirting with him like I had before, I don't remember exactly what we were talking about, but I do remember that he was giving me attention and acting in a way like he wanted to tell me something. I'm sure I was all like 'OK, I really gotta go to class now, what are you trying to tell me?' Then as I turned to go into my class, Darric grabbed my hand and asked me if I would be his girlfriend. *Insert Ohhhhh's and Ahhhhh's Here*

We would spend the next couple of years visiting each other's house when we could. While Darric played football, I managed the team and brought him water and washed his stinky uniforms. You should've seen us on Fridays, we'd both wear matching football jersey's. We were so cute. We made sure to talk on the phone every single night, some nights until 2am, most nights Darric would fall asleep on the phone. We took trips with eachother's family, including me going to Louisiana for the first time. Then it was at a Christmas party at his mother's house in '99. All his family was there. His mother seemed to be acting weird towards me like she was hiding something and because of my self consciousness, I assumed she didn't like me. Then Darric pulled me into a back room, I honestly thought he wanted to get frisky and was all like 'No Way, we are in your parents house with tons of family that could walk in.' As I was trying to pull away, just like I was trying to pull away to go to my English class that morning, Darric pulled me back, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.

And that's how we began our little story. Of coarse there were some bumps or brain farts on my part is what I like to call them, but we'll save that for another day.

This morning I was going through an old popcorn tin that contained everything that we saved over the years. And some of the stuff I didn't even know what it meant, old receipts, a taxi matchbox car, a Burger king crown. Had I known, I would've put all this stuff in a scrapbook and wrote beside it what it meant. There was also tons of notes in there. I found it funny how Darric started all his notes with 'Hi Hon, I'm not sure what to write about, but you wanted me to write you a note so here it is.' And I even learned that I use to call Darric Pookey, bet he's glad that didn't stick.

It's neat to look back at how much we've changed, how much we've grown together and everything we've been through. Back then, I'm sure I thought how could I possibly love this person any more, I still ask myself that question today.