13 years Ago

13 years ago I had horrid brassy-blonde hair from excessively using Sun-In. I sat at the front of my IB English class and my teacher, Mr. Armstrong eventually realized it wasn't just because I loved Chaucer. Our school was right across from the rink, and on Fridays during tournament season I got to watch out the window, as ALL the high school boys headed into the rink dressed in ridiculous ties and either too big or too small dress pants.

I loved cheerleading, watching movies with my friends, and was still mad at my parents for moving our family to Regina. My best friend and I made lists of boys we thought were the best looking, couldn't wait to get our license’s, and thought our parents were the biggest idiots ever.
My best friend had a boy on her list I had never seen. One day in between classes she pointed him out. I can still see it. A group of boys circled at the end of the hallway, laughing, and said, "That's him, Mike Klassen". He was smiling and I agreed, he was definitely one of the best looking boys on our list.

After heading to a party with a few of those boys, I phoned her and told her we needed to talk. I liked her crush. We made a trade. The next thing I knew, Mr.Charles, our fantastic French teacher with his ear to the high school gossip channel, teased me about this boy hanging around outside my 4th period class.

Pretty soon he was watching me cheerlead, which eventually caused a problem when the coach noticed his linebacker paying more attention to the cheerleaders than the playing field.
Before I knew it I was picking out a dress to go with him to Grad.
And then I was helping him proofread his University papers, and taking the fan bus to watch him play away games on the weekend.

I watched him study for his RCMP entrance exam while I was sun tanning on my parent's deck.
Then we got our own place.

Ben.

Annabelle.

So much life.

Crazy, 13 years ago he was just that boy with the perfect smile standing with the other boys at the end of the hallway.