jeremiah

Me and Jeremiah

by Amber 813

The Beginning

"You're right," I turned to Angie, "he IS an asshole." I screamed down the hall towards him.

"So are you!" he yelled back.

Sounds like great grounds for a relationship right? That's how it started, sometime in March of 1999. He was arrogant, but he had a right to be I suppose, those eyes, that body, perfect boyfriend material. He was not for me, of course. I 'dressed weird'. I had no chance. Let me explain Jeremiah was 14 then, home-schooled, and just about the biggest jerk ever. And I wanted him, but he was busy dating all of the cheerleaders, no time for a little 7th grader. That's me, Amber, almost perfect grades, too 'nice' for him. He didn't know my name, but I knew his, and just about everything else about him too. I would have never ever dreamed I'd see him again, little did I know.

Around the end of August the Sullivan County Fair was going on, so, my friend and I went. It wasn't the greatest thing, but it was a day away from my family. It was REALLY hot out there, so I hung around with Marla and Brian directing cars in the shade. I saw my friend Jon and I walked over to him, "Jeremiah is coming today", he said.

Jon used to be one of Jeremiah's really close friends. He was with him the first time I saw Jeremiah. I always talked about Jeremiah to him, hoping Jon would put in a good word for me. He always told me I'd never have a chance though, so I never really thought anything would happen.

"Like I care!" I said...inside, I was smiling. He walked by us, shirt off, tan, perfect. I walked around him a bit, trying to make him notice me. He gave me a few smiles, which weren't enough, so I gave up.

An hour later I was hanging out with Jon. I happened to glance over at Jeremiah and with that fantastic voice of his he smoothly said, "Hey babe." I rolled my eyes and walked away.

Wait a second... was I happy! But, GOD was he immature. A few minutes passed, and I walked back down to where he was, "Hey babe," again...with that voice.

"I HAVE a name you know."

"What is it?"

"Amber"

"Hi Amber, what's up, I'm Jeremiah"

*Sigh*... I KNOW who you are, I thought. We flirted a bit, and I was hooked, totally hooked.

Let me flash back to what was going on in my life at the time. I was still hooked on my Mark thing. I couldn't get him out of mind, no matter how hard I tried. I needed a break, seriously.

Back to that hot August day, Jeremiah and I talked for about another hour. I think I called him arrogant 2 more times that day, because, well...he WAS. I'm weird that way, I'm really awfully mean when I flirt. But he knew I liked him, it was pretty obvious. Then I had to leave, I really didn't want to, but I had to. As the car pulled away, I looked at him and he blew me a kiss and signaled to me that he'd call.

A week had passed, school had started, and he hadn't called. That bastard, I thought to myself. I wrote him a pretty mean note, and gave it to Jon to give to him. I thank God that Jon never gave him that note, because if he had, the following events would have never happened.

The next weekend was the Renaissance Fair, September 12, I wasn't going to go, but I finally decided to. I put on a skirt and a peasant shirt and was off. I'm not sure who it was that told me Jeremiah was going, but when I heard it, my heart stopped. Jeremiah and his best friend Joe came. Joe was a total sweetheart, and he flirted with me while Jeremiah stood there, expressionless (that was something I was going to have to get used to).

There was a little show going on, and I ended up standing by Jeremiah. I was scared of him, I didn't think he liked me, and I didn't want to be around him. We kept knocking into each other, on my part it was intentional, I'm not sure WHAT he was thinking. He had this funny pair of glasses on, they were gold, I think. And his Tommy Hilfiger shirt, yeah, I remember it really clearly.

My friend Aubrey didn't like him, from the start. "No eyes", she called him, because of the glasses. Jeremiah and I talked some more while the show was going on. I cut my foot on a stick, and I blamed it on him, it was bleeding pretty badly, but I would NOT let him carry me. He was so sweet. Joe, him and I went to get something to eat. I found this little plastic spinning top on the ground and I picked it up and handed it to Jeremiah. Joe and Jeremiah fought over whom got to keep it. I knew then, that Jeremiah liked me.

Jeremiah and I had talked about kissing, but we wouldn't do it in front of people. So, he told Joe he was going for a walk. It was the best 15 minutes of my life. We walked around a trail, and then we just stopped and faced each other, and all of a sudden, we were kissing. It was really great, unbelievable to me actually. He was more experienced at the whole kissing thing, so I felt a bit insecure, but everything was fine. We stopped, and started walking again, and then the most wonderful thing happened...he held my hand.

I couldn't believe it. Holding hands is special. It means so much. And when we ran into Marla and Brian, he continued to hold my hand. I felt so incredible... Jeremiah Lund, the boy I'd liked for almost exactly a year (I'd seen him a year earlier at the last Renaissance fair) was holding my hand, IN FRONT of people. I was in heaven, everything after that was such a blur. I had to go, and he told me he wanted me to stay and that he could get me a ride home, but I was at a friend's house anyway. He promised me he'd call me and I kissed him good bye and I left.

The next day in school Brian told me Jeremiah was going to ask me out, but to act surprised when he did it. You haven't seen happy until you see me happy over a guy. That afternoon after basketball practice, I was still in shorts and my shirt and I was coming out of the gym, when I saw Joe standing in the doorway. Uh-oh, I thought...Joe being here, means Jeremiah might be here too...and at that moment Jeremiah came out from behind the door. I ran as fast as I could the other way, but he went to that door too. I didn't want him to see my like that after practice. I was *so* afraid. I finally got to the outside doors when he told me he wanted to talk to me, by then the buses were about to leave, so I said good bye and left. How stupid, I liked the kid so much, and I ran away from him! Yep, I'm one smart cookie all right.

That night, I waited the whole night for him to call. Around 8, I got into a fight with my dad, and ran away, well, to the end of the driveway anyway. An hour later when I finally came back in, my brother goes "Amber, some Jeremiah kid called". What are the chances? So I called him back, which is really not like me, because I'm very shy. I'm not exactly sure HOW it happened, but it went something like this.

"I hate it when people assume that they're a couple, so I'm just going to ask, will you go out with me?" This was Jeremiah Lund, asking ME if I'd be his girlfriend.

"Yeah, I guess," I said. I'm such a dummy, inside I was beaming, but all he got was a 'yeah, I guess'! I don't remember how long we talked that night, but it was a pretty long time before we got off the phone. It was the 13th, our anniversary.

The months after that we're the best months of my life.

The Good Times

I was afraid of my boyfriend, how good could that have been? It wasn't that he was mean or anything even close. It's just that I had the biggest crush on him before we went out, and that's never happened before. I felt so lucky, and he knew that. We didn't say 'I love you' right away either. It actually seemed to matter to him when he said it, which was one of the best things in the relationship.

Jeremiah called me every night between 8:30 and 12:00 for the next 3 months. I looked forward to him calling. I'd bring the phone up to my room, and wait. When I say every night, I mean that. With the exception of around 5 nights, which is pretty amazing considering he worked all the time. I remember the first time he said; "I love you Amber." I was getting out of Joe's car after a trip to the mall or something. He said it, and I didn't say anything back at first, and then I turned around, kissed him and whispered it back to him. And I meant it. I know I meant it. He always tried to act so macho around me, but we both knew he wasn't.

Thinking back on everything that went on in that relationship now, makes me cry. For my birthday, we went to the mall together, and he bought me a red rose. I still have it...right here...always. One day, we were at the Eldridges and we ended up talking about what we wanted to be when we got older. I guess I was hyper as I replied " I want to be a marshmallow." I've never laughed so hard, he could not get me to stop laughing, and I just laid there, with my head in his lap, his hands running through my hair, laughing for 15 minutes. I felt really comfortable around him. That was very important, because if I were not comfortable around him we wouldn't have had such good times. There are so many memories, so much emotion.

Home coming, wow, I spent so much time getting ready for that, so much time worrying about how I looked. Jeremiah, Andrew, Joe and I had all gone to the mall to get Jeremiah a pair of pants for it. We danced all night. The slow songs were the best. I was very happy then...that's the first time I ever sang for him. He always told me I had a great voice, and that meant a lot. That was also the first time I let Jeremiah pick me up, he carried me to Marla's dads car. Him picking me up was always such a big deal, I'm not even sure why.

My favorite memory from the relationship was "rubbing noses"... God, I miss that more then anything...we could say " I love you", just by putting our foreheads together and rubbing our noses against each other's. It was fun, but it also was very meaningful. You can't understand the meaning in that unless you've given your heart to the other person.

11:11 "Jeremiah and my time". It was...we'd always be on the phone and try to get it before the other one did. "11:11 somebody loves me, ha!!" It was a contest, but we knew that when either of us said it, that we WERE the person who loved them. That will always be our time, I know...

Now, about shopping with the guys... going to the mall with Joe, Andrew or Jeremiah was always an adventure. Whether it was Andrew pretending to be a manikin or Jeremiah running though the picture booths holding my hand...I was always embarrassed. But one time, we went to Kmart, and I sprayed all these perfumes all over Jeremiah's chest. And when I went to look at something, this lady came up to me, and bitched me out...and then she followed us out the door. When we got outside I pulled a pack of Big Red Gum out of my pocket, "Fine, I wasn't going to pay for this anyway!" and we all left. I've never been a bad girl, but Jeremiah just had that influence on me.

The Trying Times

Jeremiah was the only guy, who's ever cried in front of me. One time, I looked over and he was crying, so I leaned over and kissed the tear off his nose. He was so afraid I'd cheat on him, and I had the same feelings. It's just that I cared about him. He had cheated on 2 of his other girlfriends, but I was different, I know that now. He genuinely cared about me. I was shy, really shy, and he was totally opposite. I was shy around his friends and family, and he wasn't. I was worried about being over-weight, and we argued about that a lot.

Joe and Jeremiah were best friends forever, but Joe was mean to me. He always said he was kidding, but it hurt me. I couldn't handle it, and Jeremiah wouldn't say anything to Joe about it. I felt 2nd to a guy, it got pretty bad sometimes.

Other things that wore on our relationship were that Jeremiah smoked, and got drunk. I'm not like that, and I got mad sometimes, but only because I was worried about him. We were best friends, I told him everything. And that's what killed us in the end. We fought like best friends too. I was stubborn. I wouldn't just let things go. They were little things, but I guess they built up. I didn't think it was a problem at all. I guess he did.

The End

The day after Christmas, my dad's birthday, and 3 months and 13 days after it started something snapped. The night before that, I told him that I wasn't sure if I was completely happy. I told him that I wanted to work on it and that I was just in a weird mood. The phone conversation ended with 'I love you'...I was happy, I really was.

The next morning I couldn't make it to church. But I made it to his house about an hour after church ended. I walked into his house, and he didn't say "Hey babe". I knew something was wrong. We went upstairs, and I asked him what was wrong.

"I don't know," he said. "I think we need to spend some time apart, try it again in a month or something. We argue too much."

"A month? I don't want to try it again in a month! I don't understand, I thought we were happy? What went wrong?" I was hysterical, and totally in shock.

"I don't know," he kept saying.

I tried to rub noses, but he didn't respond. I knew it was over then, but I kept expecting him to say "I take it back, let's be together forever." But he didn't say it.

I didn't cry at first. I got my stuff and I turned back to look at him, and his face was red, and he was crying really hard. I wanted to make everything all better, but I couldn't. It was over, and I couldn't change it. He took a walk after telling me Joe was going to bring me home. He came back in 15 minutes later, by then I couldn't think. I was crying, and I probably looked horrible. I wanted to die.

Jeremiah and Joe brought me home, I cried the whole way, and so did Jeremiah. When we got to my house, Jeremiah got out of the car and started to walk me to my door, but I walked faster, I didn't even want to look at him. I don't remember everything I did after that, I know I cried a lot. And I wrote a lot, and....I just miss it, you know, everything.

I know I can't make him care about me again, as much as I try, he's not going to feel the same way about me as he used to. We talk, not a lot, but some. It's better then nothing. I cry a lot still, I'll be happy one minute, and I'll breakdown the next. I don't understand how he could just give up. I don't think I'll ever understand it. I can't imagine being Amber without Jeremiah, but I'm trying. I never thought I'd be writing about how the relationship fell apart, but I am. I know I love him, yeah I still do...I try not to hate him, sometimes its hard but I know deep down he'll always be in my heart. Don't take the people who love you for granted. They won't always be there. And guess what, he told me he still loves me but its for the better that we're not together right now. I'm trying to accept it... and one last thing... 11:11...maybe I'll find someone to love, who loves me back ~

Love, Amber

Me and Jeremiah 2000Ó Amber 813

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