The Date (Part 1)

Have you ever found yourself captivated by someone? I mean so utterly enthralled with them, you make every excuse imaginable to see him/her? It's a weird feeling, right? That's the way I was with Stacy after I first met her. First of all, she is gorgeous. I'm talking beyond beautiful type of pretty. Her blond hair is usually pulled up into a pony tail, which always looks better to me, her green eyes are piercing, and her smile is contagious. When she smiles, I swear her eyes laugh. That really is her best physical quality. She's athletic and very well built. She's naught but 5'5", but I've seen her wreak havoc on the basketball court. I've also heard stories of her prowess on the softball field, and, man, can she sing! She seemed gentle and genuine in her faith in God, but it took me a while to know who she really is.

See, I had only known Stacy for about a month and we'd only had maybe four conversations over that amount of time. Neither one of us had much time on Sunday mornings to talk a lot. I wanted to change that, though. I wanted to get to know her. So, how did she captivate me? It's simple, I don't know her, and I wanted to. Also, she is very pretty and from what I could tell, single. Why wouldn't I be captivated by her?

It is weird, I'll give you that one. It wasn't exactly "love-at-first-sight" for me, but I definitely took notice of her. When she walked up on stage that Sunday, my eyes were drawn to her. She captured my attention while she was up there, I'm sorry to say. I was pulled away from worship, and that wasn't the last time it happened. However, I found that when my mind drifted to her, I didn't think anything bad about her. My mind was just filled with questions like: What is she like? What are her quirks? What does she like to do in her free time? Does she like NCIS? and other random questions like that.

Then, after about six weeks, I finally got up the courage to see if she wanted to go eat with me after church one Sunday and she said yes! I was so excited and wished it was that same Sunday, but I would have to wait another week for that.

Finally, the day came. I had anticipated it all week and I found my mind drifting to how it would play out. I thought we would go, enjoy ourselves immensely, talk about all sorts of things, get to know each other better, that I would impress her enough that she would start to like me, and spend the whole afternoon talking and getting to know each other.

I let her choose the restaurant, but offered to drive so we could talk more. She agreed to that and we left as soon as church was over for the restaurant. We got to our table and sat down. We made small talk and ordered. We covered several of my questions and I answered some of the ones she had for me. I had the feeling it was going well. We finished, payed, and left to pick up her car. When we reached the church again, I asked what she was going to do this afternoon, and she said she had a lot of papers to grade, so I told I would see her later at church and told her to have fun. She responded with "you too" and left. I replayed the meal in my several times that day, and decided that it followed my expectations fairly close.

It was then I decided to ask her out again, so that I night at church I did. Sort of.

"Hey, Stacy," I said when she came walking up the aisle. "Get those papers done?" Stupid question. Why did I ask that?

"Hey, Chris. Yeah, I got most of them done. What did you do this afternoon," she asked.

My mind said I thought about our meal all afternoon, but I replied with, "Nothing, really. I just watched TV." So, exciting. Well, here goes everything: "Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out again sometime? Today was pretty fun."

"Sure, look me up on Facebook and we'll figure something out. Gotta go now, though. Bye." She turned and walked off. I waited to see if she looked over her shoulder like girls do in the movies when they like someone. But she didn't.

That night, I sent her a friend request on Facebook, and waited for her confirmation. She confirmed it the next day and wrote on my wall: "Hey there, you found me." So I clicked "wall-to-wall" and wrote on her wall "I sure did. We are now officially friends."

I waited a day or so before mentioning our hang-out time, then I wrote on her wall, "Hey, let me know a time when you will be free and we can go get coffee or something."

It took her a while to respond, but she finally did....
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Now, this is your turn to get interactive! If you want this story to continue, I need you to leave a comment and write A, B, or C. There are three different possible outcomes from here, and it's up to you to choose. After a week, which ever has the most votes is what it will be. If it's a tie, I choose which way it will go. Sorry, but you don't get to know the possible outcomes beforehand. It makes it more fun this way! Please cast your vote!!! Thanks.

That Which Never Was (Part 3)

"I'm warning you now," my guide said softly. "This will be the hardest for you to see." The scene rewound and once again I found myself looking at a picture of young-me prior to asking Sarah to prom.

"Has any of the background changed from the previous two outcomes you have shown me?" I asked. "Am I still dating Liz, or not?"

"No," he replied, "now, watch."

The volume turned up so I could hear the conversation. "Hey, Sarah," young-me said. "What's up?" The conversation drifted into the meaningless for a while before young-me got to the point. I expected something similar to previous vision of this moment in time, but, young-me just said, "Hey, listen, I was wondering if you woulgo to prom with me? There is no one else I'd rather go with than you." Sarah nodded her head and smiled. She said that she would love to, and then the volume faded out.

The scene shifted again, but this time I was sitting with Kevin, James, and Logan at lunch one. We were discussing prom and the upcoming summer. James, Logan, and I all poked fun at Kevin trying to get him to suck it up and ask Alisha out on a date outside of prom. Kevin blushed bright red and said, "I will if Danny asks Sarah out." A collective "Ooo" went up from the rest of the guys. Kevin had called young-me out.

I listened intently to hear what young-me would say. "It depends on how prom goes. I don't know how everything will play out." All the guys started complaining about young-me's "cop-out" answer, but young-me simply shrugged and said, "It's true."

The scene changed again. I was back in front of Sarah's house, dropping her off from prom. I watched as young-me, once again, debated on kissing Sarah, and, once again, didn't. I was confused and turned to ask my guide what was going on, but he just raised his hand and the scene changed again. This time it was just after graduation. Sarah and Alicia had come to see the seniors off before our graduation celebration trip. James, Logan, Tyler, and Kevin were all on the bus and young-me was boarding when Sarah called my name. Young-me stopped and met her. The volume turned up so I could hear this conversation. Sarah told me she just wanted to say goodbye before we left, so young-me must have thought it was an appropriate time. "What are you doing tomorrow?" young-me asked.

"Nothing," Sarah answered. "Why?"

Young-me stammered over the words, but finally asked if she wanted to go on a date then. Sarah's face lit up, and a smile broke across her face. She was more excited about being asked on this date than to prom. The volume faded, but the picture didn't. Young-me must have been feeling bold, because he kissed her. Lucky for young-me, Sarah kissed back. The visible reactions from James, Logan, and Tyler were hilarious. They all looked like they were whooping and hollering and applauding young-me, but Kevin looked shell-shocked. I guess he knew that he had to live up to his end of the bargain.

The scene faded into black and I heard my guide say, "That sequence of events changed everything. You never left the state for college. You stayed in town and waited for Sarah to finish high school. These next scenes will go by fast, but they will be crystal clear. Brace yourself."

The scenes began to flick through as though they were pictures. Yet, I saw all of them perfectly. The first was of our date the next night. The second was of us at a party. The third was of us on our one-year dating anniversary, then her senior prom, then her graduation, our two-year anniversary, and going off to state university together. The last picture I saw before everything went black again was of me kneeling with a ring in my hand and her with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face. I didn't need to hear or be told that I had proposed and she had said yes.

"That last one," my guide said, once we re-entered the darkness, "it would have been about a year ago. This next one would have been yesterday." I could feel myself crumble to the floor as the darkness lifted and I saw Sarah and myself getting married.

Tears flooded my eyes and I screamed, "Enough! Stop!" The picture faded and was replaced with white. I was face to face with my guide.

"I told you this would be the hardest," my guide said sadly. "As you were told at the beginning, this last outcome is no longer possible, but neither are the previous two. You will always have Sarah as a friend." The guide paused for a bit, allowing this bit of information to wash over me. "You have a choice now," he resumed. "Whichever way you choose, you wake up. One choice is to wake up with no knowledge of this night and what you have seen. The other is to wake up with full knowledge. You should know, though, that if you choose to not remember tonight, you will wake up back as a senior a week before you tell Liz you are flying back to take her to her senior prom. If you choose to remember, you will wake up tomorrow and nothing except your knowledge will have changed."

I sat down on the white floor and put my head in my hands. I ran through each of the three other outcomes I was shown. One lead to a happy ever after with Sarah, but the other two lead to a life without her at all. One thought sprang to the front of my mind, "Is it better to have loved and lost, or never loved at all?" But I already loved her. She was just like a sister, and I loved her. Could I really risk giving that up? I stood back up and looked my guide in the face and said, "Let me keep this. Sarah is too important to lose altogether. Besides, she is happy now."

As soon as I said those words, I woke up. My phone was going off. I checked my text message and saw it was from Sarah. It said, "Hey. I just wanted to say I miss you. Love you big brother." A tear rolled down my cheek as I responded: "I miss you too Sarah. Have a good day. Love you." After I sent the message, a smile crossed my face.

Yeah, this was the right choice.

(The End)
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Toodles.