Our Story: Part 3 (when will this end, you ask?? NEVER.)

and yes, we did do this to his apartment. freshman.

yes, this is a creeper picture of alex freshman year.

Regardless of the bus story and secret, Alex and I ended up becoming very close friends. I think I mentioned that at the beginning of the year, It was my goal to make almost every boy fall in love with me, and while maybe not ALL of them loved me, I did get into a couple awkward situations. One of these was with a boy named Cade in my tennis class. He was a cute, skinny red head in my tennis class. Just barely returned from a mission to Montana, he was definitely single and looking. My roommates and I invited him over to our apartment to watch American Idol with us, and he accepted. When he came over, he sat right next to me, and quite obviously made his intentions clear by holding my hand maybe ten minutes after the show had started. I couldn’t believe it! It was exciting, having never held anyone’s hand, but I remember thinking that I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted or not. And the day after that, I was full of knots in my stomach.

Earlier that week, Alex and I had decided to make dinner for each other. So the next day, I went up to his room, and he cooked for me. We talked and joked for a while, and I felt so comfortable there, I didn’t really want to go downstairs and watch American Idol again with Cade. But he was coming over, and what could I do? So I regretfully left after a little while. Cade was already there, and ready to hold some hand again. And I let him! (Let it be known that Cade was a sweet kid, and I did semi-like him, but it just never felt right. He was skinnier than me.)

I was so happy to go home that weekend and figure everything out. Alex texted me, and told me he was going home too, so we decided that we would definitely do something. On that Saturday night, he came to pick me up. We walked around Kaysville’s amazing grocery store Bowman’s (amazing to everyone in Kaysville, it’s something I will probably never appreciate). It wasn’t that interesting (because it was a grocery store?) so we went and sat in his car and talked. After a while we played rock band at his house and then got ice cream. While eating ice cream, we talked in the car. If there is one thing I noticed about Alex, it was that it was easy to TALK to him. I could talk to that kid all night, and not worry about anything else. However, sometimes it’s ok to do other things, so we went bowling with Cody and some other friends. I remember feeling awkward going bowling with Alex when Cody was there, but trying to keep things normal, and feeling like I succeeded. I’m a terrible bowler. I’m just really inconsistent. One second I’ll be getting strike after strike, and the next I’m in the gutter. This night I seemed doomed to lose. Alex picked up on that and seized an opportunity! He sat down next to me and said, “I think we should make a bet. I think if you lose, I get a kiss.” I sat there, grinning stupidly, and having no clue in the world what to say to that. I mean, I was definitely thinking NO. But I liked him, so I didn’t want to say NO forever… but tonight was not the night! Then he said I had to pick what I wanted if I won, and that was even worse. Because there was so much pressure to ALSO say I got a kiss. So I just said I didn’t know what I wanted, and we left it awkwardly at that. And then I lost terribly, but Alex must have known the bet didn’t go over well, because he didn’t press the issue.

The next week on Tuesday, Cade was supposed to come over again for American Idol. This was something I dreaded with all of my heart. I literally felt sick all day. When I get anxious about things, I don’t eat very much, so I made myself a tortilla for dinner and felt sorry for getting myself into this situation. Right as I was taking a bite, I got a text from Alex asking if I wanted to come eat spaghetti, and, well, I accepted, of course! The only problem was… I didn’t actually go back to my apartment to see Cade. Remember the whole talking for hours thing? Yeah, I let that happen, and I let ignoring my roommates mean texts happen, and I let Cade sit down in my apartment waiting for me for hours. I was a huge jerk, and I knew it. But I couldn’t help myself… I was definitely falling a little for the boy who stole the bus.

My roommates forgave me for my transgressions, and I ended up going country dancing with them and Cade the next night to make up for it. He danced really close with me on the slow songs, and it was just something eighteen-year-old-never-done-this-before Madeline couldn’t handle. Cade wanted to have a DTR with me, and I told him (not very regretfully) that I wasn’t interested in anything with him, and I was very sorry. I went home for the weekend again, came back with a new hair cut, Alex came over, and we talked until 3:30 in the morning. 

p.s. are you bored yet? because i could read this over and over again.