Chapter Two - An Alphabet Family is Born

Chapter Two

Joy, Sharon, and I sat at the head of the double sized dorm room bed and Aaron at the foot, because, of course, Sharon was bedridden, and we couldn’t exactly sit around a table. As Aaron flipped through his pictures, I became more and more impressed. This guy is really something, I thought. He was actually working for agencies like the U.S Forrest Service, FEMA, and NASA. And getting paid by the government. But the greatest thing I noticed… his humility. He didn’t boast about his position training the U.S. Forrest Service men how to conduct search and rescue. He didn’t get all cocky about his big, fat paycheck from Uncle Sam. He talked about it all as if it were your typical young bachelor job.

The entire evening, I found myself gazing at Aaron’s eyelashes. They were long, dark, and curly like I had never seen on a man before. Not girlish, in anyway. They still very much embodied manliness. But they were gorgeous. My! Were they gorgeous! I chided myself several times. Girl, you’ve got to stop staring at this guy’s eyelashes. He’s going to think you’re a forward flirt or something.

When Aaron left that night, I knew I wanted to see him more. Talk with him more. Know him more. There was something inside me, deep inside me, that was drawn to him like a magnet. It was something deeper than I had ever felt. I had to get to know him!

I certainly had plenty of opportunity to do just that during that summer. Aaron’s roommate, Spencer, had been present at the accident, and had sort of taken on the responsibility of looking in on Sharon and Joy from time to time to make sure they had what they needed. However, he was scheduled to be out on deployment a lot that summer. So Aaron kind of took over. Another single guy on campus, an instructor named Doug, worked in the emergency room in Tyler, Texas where Sharon was taken, and actually attended to her, if I remember correctly. He made it his job to check up on any of Sharon’s medical needs between weekly visits from her therapy nurse and her trips to the doctor’s offices. Between the three of them, we were well taken care.

Of course, three girls shut up in a dorm room need more than just light bulbs and small kitchen appliances. They need DVDs, company, and outings on the town (as Sharon’s strength improved). And apparently, Aaron thought we needed a computer, internet, and networking to the guy’s dorm in order to play computer games with them. Add to all this the fact that during the summer months, the campus was pretty much empty. Only the essential staff were there. The staff guys were almost “rule-free”. The staff girls still had a curfew and other rules instated, but since we were not living in the staff grils’ house and were not on staff, we were left “rule-free” too. All this provided more than opportunity to see Aaron, talk to him, and get to know him more.