Week 7: When You Least Expect It

Rain pelted the windshield as I drove north on I-75 on that unusually cold, rainy August morning. My hands gripped the steering wheel tight; my knuckles were pale white the whole way there. I drove four hours to spend the weekend with my best friend, Katie’s family at their cabin on Lake Avalon. I was twenty-two at the time, and my mother still wanted me to check in every hour to make sure that I was safe.

 I got there around ten a.m., and the sun was just beginning to peek out from the clouds.  The rain had stopped, but there was still a chill in the air, so we decided to hang in the house for the day. I brought my luggage in from the car and carried it up the two flights of stairs to the room that I was staying in. Once I was unpacked, I walked into the kitchen and there you were. You wore a blue and maze sweatshirt with the University of Michigan emblem on it, and a pair of black soccer shorts. I extended my sweaty palm out to greet you. “Hi,” I said. “My name is Rachel. It’s nice to meet you.” You smiled back and said, “Nice to meet you, I’m Tom.” I will never forget that look in your eye. It’s hard to explain; almost shy, but confident at the same time.

               We played ping pong, and I somehow mustered up the courage to play against you. You were good but didn’t let me win like I wished you did. I know you well enough now to know that it isn’t in your nature to let me win just because.

               After dinner we went on a walk through the woods. Your sister yapped our ears off, like she always does, in hopes of us joining in on the conversation. I never understood why she asked me to come to her family’s cabin, she was married after all, why did she need me there, too? But when I walked in that day, I understood. It was her mission to set us up.

               I’m an introvert, but I’ve never been necessarily shy. But there was something about you that made me nervous, and I was more reserved than I ever had been before. We talked, and laughed, and enjoyed our time together, but there was something holding me back. It was probably the fact that you lived in New York City at the time, and I knew that it would never work out between us. But still, I had a little bit of hope.

               The last night there, you carried your young cousin up to bed after she fell asleep during the Hundred-Foot Journey movie. Something in me made the decision right then and there that you would be the man who I would end up marrying. I wasn’t sure how or why it would happen, but I was certain. I had just broken up with my “boyfriend”—and I put boyfriend in quotation marks because he certainly acted like anything but a boyfriend—and I didn’t want to date anyone for a while. So, maybe it was a good thing that you were going back to NYC the next morning, and I was returning to school.

               A week later, Katie had asked me what I thought of you. I played it coy and told her that I thought you were nice and very cute. She told me that you felt the same way, then dropped the bomb that you were moving home soon. I felt excited for a moment but didn’t let it show. Seven weeks later she texted me that you were going to be at her Halloween party the following evening. That was even more of a bombshell than learning you were moving home “soon” because I didn’t realize it was that soon. I was excited and nervous. Mostly nervous. But that night we talked, and then hung out for the next few weeks with Katie and her husband, Alex until you got the courage to ask me on a date. And then two years later, you asked me to marry you.

               If there is anything that I had learned that weekend is that you never know when you will meet—and I don’t mean to be cheesy but— “the one”. I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship again, but I took a chance and it ended up being the best decision that I had ever made. It’s so true when they say that you find true love when you least expect it.