a love story

I've been thinking about love stories lately.  I have a great one.  So great that a student of mine told me that she plans to make millions when she makes a movie all about the boy who would give a girl all of the answers to US History during 6th hour English.  Don't worry.  The conversation was totally educational.  It was all about prereading skills and how we can make reading more powerful if we set the scene first. 
But that wasn't the take-away message for my student. 
It was that her teacher, who in the movie version will be a chemistry teacher not a biology teacher, fell in love with the boy next door because he was smart and found his way to her heart with a few American History facts and a knack for making her laugh.

Of course this young lady doesn't know about the rough junior high years or the cold winter hours flirting in his sister's car, waiting for a ride home.  Or how he was always willing to help hang posters with the cheerleaders and somehow managed to be there anytime the (who was just a really good friend and would listen to his girlfriend troubles and occasionally make her blush) girl needed a boost.  The girl in the story is rather short, you know.  Or how she killed his mojo when she said that they were so close that she thought of him like a brother.  Or how he threw caution to the wind and asked her to a movie a couple months later and got so nervous he said the wrong name of the movie!  Or how they went to prom together in their junior year, only to end the night with a peck on the cheek.  And then how he told her best friend that he was giving up!  And she had to make the next move, asking him to go for a drive.  And of course she would never know about how when he kissed her she said a million times over that she needed to remember every single detail about this because she knew right then and there her life was changed forever. 

True story, people. 

No, this student doesn't know all of the ups and downs of that early courtship.  And I'm sure I don't remember most of it.  What I do know is that I freaking love our love story.  Boy moves in next to girl.  They work through the awkward puberty years and build a friendship that lasts a life time.  They realize that friendship was only the beginning.  Twenty years, two kids, two cats and a dog later they still find things to talk about and dreams to dream about and laugh together every single day.