Chapter 2: Fall Semester

Where last we left off Jon and I were entering our senior year of high school. I was down about 60 pounds from my freshman year when I first met “pimp spray” and noticed on the first day that he was paying way more attention to me than he ever had before. I, of course, remembered him from English and knew that he was Mr. Rhodes’ son but also knew that he still ran in a preppy group (no offense to those of you who were members of his group). As fate would have it our last names put us in the same row as Jonas always started the year in alphabetical order. Being Rynders I was, of course, positioned behind Mr. Rhodes. Almost immediately we had confrontations. You see even though I am tall almost all of my height is in my legs. Therefore sitting down I have very little height to work with. Jon though it was hilarious to sit up tall, as his height is all torso, and block the overhead. I didn’t mess around when it came to school work so needless to say I wasn’t amused. He claims to this day that he was “flirting” I called it driving me crazy.

You see in my 18 years of life I never had a boy show remote romantic interest in me, which was fine by me, I had always enjoyed being friends with boys but dating was way too much drama. Perhaps this is why I didn’t recognize the so called “flirting”. The last straw was when he colored on one of my papers with a purple map pencil. Anyone who had Jonas knows that this is the “forbidden color” in his classroom. He had a Latin teacher that he couldn’t stand that always wore purple, therefore, he hated that color and it was never allowed in the classroom. This destructive coloring gave way to me popping him with a rubber band. Needless to say Jonas quickly separated us to opposite sides of the room. Can you imagine me having to separate from someone?

As the next 6 weeks approached he continued to talk to me any chance he got. I thought he just wanted to copy my lab group’s answers because of course we were the smart ones in the class. Again he claims he was “flirting”. He describes it now as the push the girl you like in the dirt and pull her pigs tails type of flirting, romantic, I know.

When it came time to start the 3rd six weeks and once again change seats I cooked up a little joke. Jonas always let us request where we wanted to sit. Jon was, of course gone on Friday attending one of his numerous debate tournaments. So I took the liberty of requesting a seat for him, at the back lab table…all alone…he he. I will never forget Jon coming into class on Monday and scouring the seating chart looking for his name. It was after the bell had rung and he was still standing at the front podium that I realized that Jonas had actually granted my falsified request. He looked at Jon and said “Mr. Rhodes you requested the back lab table, so that is where I put you.” Jon got this look on his face of complete disbelief, he of course is anything but a loner had no desire to sit by himself. But he did and it was hilarious. Every so often we would hear him call from the back, “Can I come up there now?” He sat there for the whole class period and it was hilarious. To this day he claims it was longer than a day but I know the truth.

One last story to finish up this chapter. This is the story of the moment Jon said he knew we were meant to be. There was a church camp happening in the summer that was so popular that every year people would line up the night before to get a chance to sign up. Jon and his friends had camped out on Thursday night so as to be there first thing Friday morning. When the sign ups finally started Jon was running to the window to sign up when he slipped on some gravel and fell and hurt his hand. Fast forward to class that day. I notice Jon has a rather large bandage on his hand and is moping and whining about it hurting. I asked him what happened and after laughing got a while. I said “Well there goes your date for Saturday night.”

Now if you don’t get that joke then you probably don’t have a big brother. I, however, do. Jon was shocked that I joked so nonchalantly about such a taboo topic and knew that I was his kind of girl. Not the world's best indicator but whatever works.

Spring semester coming up in Chapter 3.

BTW weight update!
As of yesterday I have lost 20 pounds! Woo hoo! Only two more days of rabbit food! Then I will have to start being good with real food. We will need extra prayers!