About Us: Part III - The Break Up

...We returned to College Station after junior year Christmas Break the day before school began, and Jeff invited me to his place. To break up with me. He had gone out with someone at home over the holidays (mm hmm), and realized he just didn't want to have a girlfriend anymore. Or whatever. You know how these things go. It really, really sucked, because I was completely unprepared. Usually you have a clue it's coming, but to me, it was totally out of the blue.

Jeff and I had Personal Finance AND Thermodynamics together that semester. BLAH. Couldn't he have broken up with me when we were making our schedules? Worse yet, in some sort of twisted display of feigned maturity, we decided to sit together in Finance- he, Stephen and I. That led to a few very ill-fated "dates with the ex." Not smart on my part. I was just hoping he would realize what a huge mistake he'd made. Yes, my wise friends insisted I pull my dang head out.

I did go out with a few guys that semester. Around May, I started seeing John, with whom I was working in the Deans' office. He had another girl he dated back home in Waco, so while we were not totally exclusive, we were inseparable in College Station. We both worked and took classes that summer, so I was at school rather than at home in Houston.

One summer weekend, when John was in Waco and I was at the Dixie Chicken with girlfriends, Jeff randomly appeared. He was visiting from Dallas and playing pool with his buddies.

Our interaction began with silly, across-the-room smiles. At some point I made my way to the pool tables. The flirting got increasingly intense, each of us sort of daring the other to take it one more level and one more level. Eventually, we ditched the friends.

The next day, he went home to Dallas and I returned to my regular life. There was no talk of getting back together, on either of our parts. I think we wrote each other one back-and-forth note to say "It was fun. Glad we got to resolve things..."

Soon after that, John and I amicably ended whatever it was we were doing, and I was back into "playing the field" mode. In August, I began my senior year. WHOOP! Senior fall was great. And I wasn't crossing paths with Jeff anymore. He was off my radar completely.

Then, on November 8, I was diagnosed with cancer. I was immediately sent to MD Anderson in Houston to have staging tests, and I cannot for the life of me remember how Jeff even knew. Someone (maybe I?? I really don't have a clue...) must have called him.