Things Change

History doesn't mean a thing in this story.

She stood there in shock. A kind of paralyzed state if you will. Her eyes didn’t blink, her heart didn’t beat, she just stood there, watching. During this paralysis, Diana’s mind flash-backed to the day she met her husband.

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It was the summer before her first year of high school. He was there in a neighbor’s driveway throwing a basketball in the goal over and over, the ball going in perfectly every time. In a neighborhood she had lived in all her life, she had never seen him before. The young boy had skinny arms that fit his tall and slender build complete with a head full of dreads. His dark skin was drenched in sweat along with his red jersey he had on. He seemed to have grown bored with this basketball game against himself and have not yet noticed Diana staring at him from the house next door. Diana wanted to rescue him from his apparent boredom so she decided she wanted to approach him. She had never been the shy type and always walked with her head high and full of confidence, so, on she went.

“Are you having fun beating yourself?”.

The boy jumped and spilled some of his water on the ground. Diana laughed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you saw me watching”, she explained still waiting for him to speak.

“Yea you surprised me a little bit. I had no idea you were watching. Most of the time when I shoot around, I kinda zone out.”

“I know what you mean. I do the same thing when I’m singing. I get caught up and before you know it, I’m having a full concert. My friends can’t wait for me to lose my voice so I can be quiet for a change…”

The boy is listening to Diana speak with so much passion that he gets genuinely interested in this mysterious girl who approached him five minutes ago. Though he cares about what she is saying, he can’t help but to notice her looks. The sun is shining on her brown skin while the summer breeze blows back her sandy red curls and exposes her high cheekbones, short legs, thick lips covered in pink lipgloss and brown eyes. The boy never thought much of brown eyes, until he saw her’s. She was the prettiest girl he ever saw.

“I’m Dre”, he blurted out, emerging from his stream of consciousness , not sure if he just interrupted her or not.

Diana rolled her eyes. Being interrupted was one of her pet peeves.

“Did you just roll your eyes at me midget?’”, Dre joked.

“What did you just call me giraffe?”, Diana hit back.

“You need to cool off that attitude.. Actually I’ll help you”.

Diana smacked her lips, mostly because that wasn’t the first time she’d gotten a comment about her attitude. Plus, she hates to get left alone in public. Another pet peeve. After a few minutes, Dre comes out with a huge water gun and a bucket full of water balloons. To Diana’s surprise, who was facing the other way, Dre launched a water balloon straight at her head. She turned to run towards him but Dre was too quick. He followed her all across the driveway, through the grass up and down the street, drenching her in water. They screamed and laughed both enjoying every second of their childish play. Diana was laughing so hard that she couldn’t even tell Dre to stop but deep down, she didn’t want him to. After the water gun was emptied, the balloons had been popped and their skin had dried, the two sat in the driveway and talked until the sun went down and came up again. They would go on to have many more nights like this. Through the summer, high school and even college. All of which Diana is regretting at this very moment.

⧫

Thinking back to the day she met her husband made Diana even more confused. She was only 15 when they met and Dre was her first everything. They watched each other grow up, physically and mentally. They didn’t see it at the time because they were too young but they learned together, taught each other things, always had each others back through the good and bad times. Fifteen years later and she still had been convinced that the day she met her soulmate was the day she met Dre. But now, standing in their bedroom door watching him make love to a woman that wasn’t her, Diana wasn’t even convinced that he had ever loved her. History didn’t mean a thing.