It only took one look. One single look for me to fall completely in love with this boy that I didn’t even know. He wasn’t the kind of guy to go join the football team and whose only talent was binge drinking and swearing. His demeanor was more gentle and shy than outgoing and loud, but I swear those blue eyes of his could hypnotize you if you looked long enough.

I, on the other hand, was equally shy and the thought of going and talking to this boy made me want to vomit. He was a new student and already had a group of other new students that he socialized with. There was absolutely no way in hell that I was brave enough to talk to him and at this point he didn’t even know I was alive.

Awkward. Seventeen. Band geek. Tiny. All very appropriate words to describe me the very first day I met him. His name was Drew, and that’s all I knew. One day, however, I got my chance to talk to, and hopefully woo, him.
A mutual friend of ours was graduating and she was having one final party for all the members of the marching band before she went on to march professionally with an elite group. Personally, I hated these parties. It was nice to spend an hour with my friends and then I was ready to leave. These parties never worked like that though. If you left, everyone knew where you lived and there was a very good chance that someone would show up at your house and make you come back. However, I heard that Drew was coming and so I just had to be there.

I could’ve thrown a brick at him that said, “Please pay attention to me” and he still wouldn’t have figured out that I was incredibly interested in him. My golden opportunity came when he walked onto the deck where I was sitting with a friend and said, “Could whoever drives the purple Kia come move it? I need to leave.” Me! Me! That was me! My heart was racing and I tried not to smile like a complete psycho. I slowly grabbed my keys so that I wouldn’t seem too anxious to have thirty seconds alone with him. I internally decided that, when we were away from everyone, I would ask him for his phone number since school was over and we wouldn’t see each other again until July.
That didn’t happen.

At the last minute, I lost my nerve and didn’t see him again until July.

Once July rolled around, I thought my opportunity was back again. However, this time there was a girl. She was tall, blonde, tan, and an incredibly talented artist. She was also one of the newer students and he clung to her. I later found out that they worked a summer job together. Lovely, I thought. I knew that there was absolutely no way that there was nothing going on between them. I was completely right.

Four very long months went by and they finally broke up. In those months, I “dated” a boy who didn’t have much interest in me. That was okay because the feeling was completely mutual. We were basically just friends that kissed and occasionally yelled at each other. We broke up not long before Drew and the girl that was basically Barbie broke up.

Once again, I had an opportunity.

Once again, I blew it out of fear.

I waited almost the entire school year to try again with Drew. He was clearly completely oblivious. Prom was coming. It was my SENIOR prom so it was clearly important to me. My sisters constantly told me that I just could not go without a date. So, once again, I set my sights on Drew. My friends and I had a huge group organized for prom, and I decided to ask him to join.

In my high school, there was a common area where all of the students had to stay in the morning before the bell rang. The morning I decided to ask him to come to prom with me, I saw him standing in the same place as always. His beautiful blue eyes, dark brown hair, and “Senior” jacket looked equally as terrifying as Michael Myers or Freddie Kruger. I decided that no matter how scared I was, I was going to ask him.

I couldn’t do it alone. Drew’s best friend had been helping me find the courage to ask him to prom and he was nice enough to actually stand beside me while I asked. Once again, I messed it up. “Drew,” I said, “so we have this big group going to prom, and I was wondering if you’d like to come?” Looking back on it, I should’ve just said, “Will you go to Prom with me?” but that seemed too scary. As it turns out, he didn’t understand that I wanted him to come with me as my date within the group.

Everything seemed completely lost. I had been trying for nearly a year to get this boy’s attention, and I messed up asking him to prom. That took real skill to mess that one up. I had this beautiful purple dress that I was going to wear. I didn’t know purple was his favorite color until one day we were sitting in class together and he told me that he had rented the vest for his prom tuxedo in dark purple. I laughed and told him that my dress was purple and we ended up having the exact same color dress and vest.

It felt like God was shining down on me. In the two weeks leading up to prom, Drew looked at me and said, “Well, since we’re going to be matching anyway, we may as well go to prom together. As dates.” My day was made and I’m certain I was grinning ear to ear for the rest of that day.

I was persistent with a boy that, for no known reason, appealed to me. I didn’t know him initially. It wasn’t a girl-next-door story. But, we learned that we had a lot in common and started dating casually just to see where it would go. Now, we’ve been together for a year and I couldn’t be happier with the boy I fell in love with at first sight.