February turned into March and we were both getting ready to go on our first missions trip. He was going on one with Chi Alpha and I was going on one with the BSM. Mine would take up the entire week of Spring Break so we hung out as much as we could before leaving. At this point we had no intention of dating and I was beginning to consider Kaleb to be one of my best friends. A few nights before I left for South Padre Kaleb kissed me. We shared our first kiss when we were just friends and it was a game changer for me. Yea he's pretty bold, y'all. I thought it was no big deal at first but then I went away for a week, came back, and I realized how much I liked him. He had been praying for my trip to go well while I was away and didn't communicate with me much so I could focus. We had one phone call in the middle of the week right before one of my late shifts on the van rides in Padre. He told me he had went to church that night with his dad while he was back home and that his dad had a very real moment with the Lord. Kaleb told me it looked a lot like his dad had rededicated his life to Christ. I could hear the excitement and pure joy in his voice. Kaleb was happy with life in general and though I didn't want to, I decided to stay quiet about my feelings. We met for lunch in the UC the morning after I returned from Padre and conversed about the kiss. We talked about what it meant but we landed on just friends once again.

On April 12, 2011 at 8am I woke up to a phone call from Kaleb telling me his dad had passed away. I skipped my classes that morning and made my way across campus to be with him. His friend Joey and I stayed with him in his dorm while he waited on his mom and step dad to pick him up from campus and bring him back to Kerrville. I walked around in a daze for the rest of the day waiting for Kaleb to call me and give me the details. I'd never seen him like that before. This was new territory for our friendship. Later that night he told me the story and the details of the funeral which a few of us from Chi Alpha attended later that week. He came back to school and everything was different. He was cold towards me most of the time and I wasn't as understanding as I should have been so most of our conversations ended in fights. I could tell he was frozen in time. He went through the motions with school and church and life group but he wasn't fully there. His dads sudden passing really shook his faith to its very core. The week before school was over he went on a date with someone. I was broken. I knew he shouldn't be dating so soon after his dad had passed away but I was also very heartbroken that it wasn't me he was dating. The feelings that I pushed down had finally rose up out of me and it was all at the worst time. There was no time, really. I was getting ready to move into my first apartment and Kaleb was getting ready to move back home for the summer. The night before he left we saw each other at the lake (those XA hang outs were so random). We talked about his date and instead of telling him flat out that I liked him, I danced around the subject for a good hour or two until it ended in tears from me and yelling from him. He sped off from the lake and that was it.



I moved into my first apartment and decided that summer to let Kaleb deal with everything on his own. I was getting in the way and I wasn't being fair to him. I struggled with this greatly. I wanted my best friend back but above everything I wanted to be more than friends. It felt like I had missed my chance all together and I was scared he was slipping away from everything. From God, school, his friends in Chi Alpha. I tried "dating" someone else but that was a bust from the beginning for many reasons and one of the biggest being how I felt about Kaleb. He worked at a camp that summer so he wasn't online much. I stalked his Facebook page everyday praying for a glimpse into his life through a status or picture. When he would post something it was usually about camp. I would see girls tag him in things and post to his wall and I just grew more aware of the fact that I really did miss my chance. I let myself fall into work and prepared for my first semester as a Life Group leader for Chi Alpha. About a month before school started I got a text message from a random number. I had switched phones a few weeks prior so I didn't have many people saved in my contacts yet. It was an area code I recognized and the single text instantly told me who it was-"I miss talking to you."







(to be continued.)