I first met her when I was a freshman in high school; we both had geometry together. She was a couple of years older than me, and I figured I didn’t stand a chance. I was the model for self-esteem back then, not that much has changed over the years.

Her name was Aimee, she was an Annabel, and a girl I thought was cute. However, it never went any further than that; at least not for three and a half more years.

Come to think of it, I’m not even sure how it happened — I think it was at a party at Gabe’s house.

Gabe and I go way back; we met in the third grade. It was our first year at Sacred Heart, and neither of us really knew anyone. Somehow we realized that we didn’t live that far away from each other and we started hanging out, or rather I should say I started getting Gabe into trouble. If I was the poster child for “no adult supervision”, then Gabe was the poster child for “my mother is way too overprotective and is giving me ulcers due to her worrying all the time.” We got along swimmingly, and to that effect I added a whole new dimension to Teresa’s worrying, and to Gabe’s Pepto-Bismol use.

At the party, we made hunch punch, and that was the night I started drinking again.

For those of you who don’t know — I gave up drinking a few years earlier; due to various circumstances I had been introduced to that sort of thing early on in life (six or seventh grade). By the time I got to high school and more specifically out of my freshman year, I had grown bored with that sort thing. However, most of my friends were just discovering alcohol (amongst other things). I figured it might be fun to be sober, and just enjoy watching, laughing at, and laughing with my friends on their road to self-discovery.

Back to this night at Gabe’s; I was still officially sober, but for some reason I decided that eating the fruit out of the hunch punch tub wouldn’t violate the principles of my sobriety. I’m not sure if you guys are familiar with hunch punch, but one of its main ingredients is Everclear a.k.a. grain alcohol which is 190 proof, or in other words 95% alcohol by volume. Needless to say, I got a pretty good buzz just by eating the fruit floating around in the tub. The eating of the fruit could be a red-herring, but I think with a good buzz comes confidence. Therefore, I must attribute what happened in some part to it. Of course, a good buzz can lead to stupidity too, and this night it led to both, but the latter is another story all together. For what ever reason (and let me assure you this isn’t the norm), I came across calm, cool, and collected, and this chick (Aimee) was for some reason attracted to me. At this point we’d known each other for a few years; we traveled the same social circles; but we had rarely said more than hi to each other in all that time. Nothing more than her noticing me happened that evening, in fact, like the oblivious male that I am, I didn’t even notice that she noticed.

The next day Gabe calls,

“Hey man, what’s going on?”

“Oh not much, I’m probably going to work on my brothers motorcycle. Why what’s up?”

“Oh nothing really … Hey I think Aimee has the hots for you.”

“Huh, what are you talking about? Why do you think that?”

“’cause man she seemed to be all into you at the party last night.”

“Really!? I didn’t notice.”

“Well I bet she calls you today.”

“Yeah right (dripping sarcasm).”

When we hang up, I think, “I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”

Since I was going to be in the garage getting dirty anyway, I figured there was no point in showering until afterwards. I spent 3 or 4 hours that Saturday replacing the sprocket and chain on my brother’s bike.

Aimee didn’t call.

Momma yells out the back door, “Jamie, someone’s here to see you.” I figured it was just Gabe. I didn’t comprehend the fact that she was announcing someone to me. I said, “I’m in the garage, just send them out.”

“Jamie?”

I freeze and mumble, “Aimee?!?” under my breath.

“Hey what’s going on? Your mom said you were out here.”

“Yeah I’ve been trying to fix my brother’s motorcycle … I’m just about done. What’s up?”

I was dumbfounded. I’d like to say I wasn’t caught completely off guard, I mean after all Gabe did try and warn me. I think I was just standing there with a horrified look on my face; Unshowered, dirty, I knew I looked awful and I was mortified. She says, “What are you doing later?” Still groping for some shred of composure I respond,

“I’m not sure, I don’t really have any plans. I’ll probably just go to the Center or something.”

“Well (long pause) I wanted to see if you want to do something.”

“Really? (still a bit unsteady) What did you have in mind?”

“Oh I don’t know … we could just go hang out with everyone, or whatever.”

“Yeah, okay.”“I’ll come by around seven and pick you up.”

“I’ll be here.”

“See you later.”

“Yeah, see ya.”