As I was packing my bags for my sophomore year of college, I couldn’t help but think how much I had changed over the summer. I know that many people say that you go through many changes during your first year of college, but for me, it happened in my own hometown,
after
my first year.
Looking back, I remember the afternoon that I had pulled back into town. I arrived back in my small Midwest town on a quite Thursday afternoon. I was glad to be home. I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed being in a place where I could “be in the limelight.”
I had graduated the previous spring as the top student in my class. I had participated in many different things in high school and had been relatively successful at many of them. By the time I graduated, I thought that I had racked up a pretty impressive resume: All-State football, All-State Band (that’s right, I was both a jock and a band geek), Valedictorian, Student-Body President, etc., etc., etc. Because of this, I was very well known throughout my community, and I truly enjoyed that.
I had changed some over my first year of college. Unfortunately for me, it was all a physical change and it was not for the better. Throughout high school, I always considered myself slightly out of shape and overweight, despite the fact that I played both football and basketball. Even though I thought that I was a little overweight, I still considered myself a good looking guy. I was a little short at 5’9”, but I had other features to make up for my elevation problems. I had blonde hair that always seemed to look okay, but not great. My best feature, though, was on my face. I am still told today that I have the most beautiful blue eyes. I do not know where they came from, but there are times that I thank God for giving them to me. However, even with the intense practices and competitions, I never seemed to be able to lose my baby gut. When I returned from college, I was a nice robust 225 pounds. Although it was not a ‘fatty’ 225 pounds, at only 5’9”, I thought that I looked entirely too big. I tried staying active during the semester, but I only seemed to manage to get into the gym once or twice a week. Of course, snacking on foods until 2 or 3 in the morning trying to study for a test didn’t help much either.
Before I returned for the summer, I had decided that I was going to try to lose some of the weight that I had gained. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but I knew that I could do it. The very first day that I was home, I began working out quite intensely. After about two weeks, I began to see some progress. It was small, but it was not even close to the change that I would soon begin to see.
Something that I have not yet mentioned is my love life, or lack thereof. I know that frequent dating is often associated with college students, especially the dating of several different people. As for me, I did not see a girl all year. My last dating experience came when I was a junior in high school. At the time, I told myself that I was better off without a girlfriend. For the most part, that was true, but there were times when I
really
wanted a girlfriend, if you know what I mean.
When I did return home for the summer, I expected my love life to proceed as it had for the past two years: non-existent. Boy was I wrong!! Of all the things that I had planned on changing during the summer (physical appearance especially) my relationship with the opposite sex was definitely not on the list. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a girlfriend. I just did not expect to find one in my small community. I had lived there for 18 years, and trust me; there wasn’t much of a selection.
Things all began to change at the end of June. By that time, my physical exercise was beginning to pay dividends. I did see some change in my appearance, but the major changes occurred elsewhere. All of a sudden, I had more energy and confidence. This was probably the main reason behind the major changes that were about to come.
One day when I was in the grocery store, I saw a girl that I had gone to high school with. Her name was Liz, and she graduated a year ahead of me. Liz was what I called “a looker.” Liz was not the most beautiful girl in the world, but she definitely did not do badly. She was a little short at 5’1” but had some meat on her bones, so she did not look like a pencil. She had a round face with short, curly “dirty” blonde hair. What made Liz “a looker” was not her overall body build, but it was the features that she possessed on that body. Liz had a wonderful smile that I could have stared at for hours. I still do not know to this day why I was so fascinated with that smile. She had nicely toned skin that was always darker than the season called for.
What really set Liz apart, though, were her chest and her ass. She had one of the most perfectly shaped asses that I had ever seen. It was very round and it swayed ever so slightly as she walked. Not only was it the perfect shape, but it was very firm also. When she would wear her tight cheerleading shorts at school, I swear that she would give me a hard on just by walking down the hall. As I said, Liz also had a very nice chest. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what it was about her breasts that made me so attracted to them. They were not overly large, probably a nice full B, and I had no clue as to their shape or texture. All I knew is that they were framed on her body absolutely perfectly and that I took notice of them quite often when we went to school together.
Despite the fact that I could hardly look at her without thinking of her sexually, I did manage to say a few words to her. We stopped and said hi to each other and went our separate ways. When I went to check-out, Liz was in front of me. This time, we struck up a better conversation. We had been friends in high school, but we did not “hang-out” or anything. She was the girl who always had a boyfriend and was always concerned about her appearance. By the time we had reached the check-out counter, we had been able to have a good conversation. I found out that she was doing well in school and that her and Mark, (her long time boyfriend) had split up about 4 months ago. She said that she was going to be in town for the summer and she said that she hoped to see me around. After she had checked out, Liz said goodbye, left the store, and I did not give one more thought to our conversation.
Two weeks later, I saw Liz again. By this time, the weight was really starting to come off and I was feeling pretty good about myself. This time, I saw her at a local gas station. She was filling up her Jeep Grand Cherokee as I drove up in my Jeep Wrangler. I jumped out and began to fill my tank. Once I had the fuel going, I went over to say hi again. Liz was a little surprised to see me, but she greeted me with a nice smile. After a few minutes of chit chat, she invited me to join some other friends of hers (and mine) to go see a movie that night. I thought that it sounded like a good idea so I agreed to go.
When I was getting ready for the movie that night, my mom told me that I had an odd bounce to my step. She asked me if I had a big date, but I told her that it was just a bunch of my friends going out to see a movie. When I met my friends at the designated location that evening, I piled in with a couple of other guys that I had gone to school with. Being from a small town, we had to drive about an hour to get to the nearest descent movie theatre. Once we arrived at the theatre, I saw Liz and some other friends jump out of her Jeep Cherokee. The rest of us made our way to her vehicle and we entered the theatre together. When we found our seats, Liz sat down in the seat directly to my left. This surprised me a little because I was sitting on one end, and her girlfriends were sitting at the other end of the row.
After the movie had been running for about twenty minutes, I realized that it was going to be rather boring. Thus I began to space off, paying no attention whatsoever to the movie. Approximately twenty minutes later, I felt a light touch on my left hand. I didn’t even bother to glance over, thinking that Liz had just brushed against me as she was shifting in her seat. Once again, I felt another light touch on my hand. When I glanced over, I realized that Liz was looking at me. At first, I was a little confused, because I did not know what she wanted. To my surprise, she reached out and took hold of my hand. Before I had a chance to react, her left hand was around my bicep and she was leaning on my shoulder. A few minutes later, she was asleep. I did not blame her, because the move was a sleeper. During the last hour of the movie, I could not stop thinking about what had happened. While Liz was sleeping on my shoulder, I was running all the scenarios through my head:
“Was she attracted to me? No, that couldn’t be it, could it? She is probably just bored and tired, right? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she really does like me!?”