Weddingbee

OK, settle yourselves back in your seats. The story of meeting Mr. Cherry Pie and surviving four years of long-distance love is a strange one…

Before I moved to Seattle and met Mr. Cherry Pie, I was living in Michigan and dating a wonderful guy who lived in Montana. How did that work, you ask? Well, this fellow (let’s call him Mr. Fox) and I met on the Internet in a chat room. This was in 1996, when I was 13 and Mr. Fox was 15. As geeky, angsty and socially reclusive youths, our relationship suited us just fine– and suited our parents fine too, once they established that neither of us were 40-year-old perverts. I guess they figured we would get in less trouble being 1,500 miles apart.

Well, Mr. Fox and I met “in real life” for the first time on my family’s long drive to Seattle, fourteen months into our relationship. The next time he came out to visit, he graciously introduced me to a childhood friend of his so that I would at least know someone in my new city. Uh-oh, did someone say foreshadowing?

Mr. Fox’s friend, obviously, was Mr. Cherry Pie. But before you assume this is a tale of treachery and intrigue, it’s really not… that doesn’t mean it won’t get even more complicated.

Mr. Cherry’s mom lived in Seattle and his dad in Helena, where he spent his summers growing up with Mr. Fox. We got along fabulously as friends and were just that for the next year and a half. Mr. Fox and I saw each other every few months during our school breaks and everything was dandy until I started to look for colleges at the end of my senior year.

In the middle of this gigantic life change– graduating and moving away again– I split up with Mr. Fox. I was freaking out about growing up, leaving home, and being “chained down,” and our relationship bore the brunt of that freakout. Needless to say (you can see where this is going) I rebounded pretty fast and hard to Mr. Cherry Pie, who was my shoulder to cry on. He’s not a bad guy… he’d known this breakup was coming, and so he asked his friend’s blessing before dating me. Mr. Fox said “yes” when of course he meant “no” and all sorts of Dawson’s Creek drama ensued. When you’re 17, every little detail of your relationship seems monumental. I had been planning to attend my senior prom with Mr. Fox, who hadn’t been to his, and now I was going with Mr. Cherry Pie, who had been to four. How unfair! I felt terrible.

The irony of this situation worsened when I left for school in the fall. What had begun as a pretty classic rebound relationship had evolved over the four summer months into something much deeper. I was absolutely head over heels for Mr. Cherry Pie! And wouldn’t you know it, I had just started my first relationship with someone living in the same damn city and I was moving away. To top it off, Mr. Fox had decided to transfer to my new school before we broke up and we SOMEHOW ended up assigned to the same dorm. Talk about a mess!

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