University of Miami
Professor Pamela McCluney
Spring 2009
another. We were both under eighteen so it was mandatory for us to take a thirty minute break every four hours. On one of my breaks, I went into the small room in the back where we were required to eat our food, to find him eating a chicken sandwich. After talking for our whole break, we joked around that we had just had our “first date.” We exchanged numbers. During our “date”, I found out that he only lived a mile away from my house. We got out of work at the same time that day so I gave him a ride home. We talked the entire way to his house and even after we arrived. I was captivated by him. While talking for over fifteen minutes in a parked car, he asked me out on a real date. I happily replied yes. The next night we met at the bowling alley to play a couple games of pool. I let him win. We both had a great time and I couldn’t stop smiling. We went back to the car and as we were talking he took one of my hair ties from around my arm and put it around his in a flirty way. In return, I took off a black elastic band inscribed with the word “desire” from his arm and put it around my wrist. Caught up in conversation, we both forgot to give back the objects to one another at the end of the night. For the next month, we saw each other every day for multiple hours each day. I had tried to give him back his band many times but he continued to tell me to keep wearing it. He explained to me that he had gone through a rough time in the last couple months and one of the things that got him through was the elastic band. This “emblem of light” meant a lot to him and now he wanted me to have it. I wore it proudly. People at work noticed the transition of the item’s location and started talking. We had tried our best to keep our relationship a secret and not to mix our personal life and our work life. We had been together for awhile and both really liked each other. I could see that the way people talked about us troubled him and was starting to wear him down. We started to fight and argue. After a couple days, he told me that he was going through family issues and that he couldn’t handle a relationship. I wasn’t as hurt as I thought I would be. Later that week, I took off the black elastic band and placed it in the cup to accompany the bracelet and chain. By this time, breakups barely fazed me. I continued along, happy in my single existence, until I answered the call of an unknown number to hear the voice of someone I hadn’t spoken to in six months. He needed my help. Dead set on joining the Army, he needed to pass the math portion of the test to get in. He knew that I was good at math since we had dated briefly the summer before. With light brown skin with short black hair and passionate brown eyes, he looked exactly like The Rock from WWE. Standing over six feet tall, he was built and could lift me only using one arm. Much like The Rock, he dreamt of being famous and becoming a professional wrestler. Even though his
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