Chapter Thirteen : Snowed Under

The Christmas season came quickly and our youth group had several fun events planned. One particular night, we drove all around town and sang Christmas carols to shut-ins. It was such a sweet time, though the temperatures were bitter cold. We sang our carols, ran to our cars and cranked the heater, trying desperately to warm up before the next stop. When we were finished with the long evening of caroling, we all went to the Parsonage for an after party with hot chocolate, cookies and a guest speaker from the band FFH.

Darin and I rode in my car with several of our other friends that night so we all arrived to the party at the same time. We didn’t talk alone much at all because there was just so much going on. I was kind of upset that I wasn’t getting the attention that he usually gave me. Was he giving me a taste of my own medicine and playing the hard-to-get game? I sure hoped not. That was my game.

As we sat in the living room floor, warming up our hands and feet, I glanced across the room at Darin. He was looking back at me. Our eyes met for a few seconds and I looked back down at my hot chocolate. I was confused. Why had he been looking at me? Why had we not talked much that night? What was he thinking? Thousands of thoughts rushed through my head and I realized then and there that my heart was becoming involved. I tried to immediately squash any thought or feeling that I thought I had and determined to be just friends from there on out. Only friends. I did not want anything else. I was starting to realize that it was just too complicated. We had a fantastic friendship, and the thought of ruining that completely by trying to start a relationship was absolutely frightening to me. I wanted his friendship more than I wanted anything else.

We all sat around playing games and talking afterwards and I realized that my car was parked over at the Church. I planned on walking back….hopefully with him. I stood up and announced I was leaving, waiting for Darin to jump in and announce his departure too with that sly little half smile he often gave, and much to my surprise, he looked up at me and said, “bye, Whitney….see you tomorrow!”

What?! He wasn’t coming WITH me?! He was supposed to walk me over to my car and we were supposed to laugh together, chase each other and have a snow ball fight. I had this all planned perfectly in my head. He was ruining it! “See ya,” I replied, trying not to seem shocked. He always left places when I did so we could walk out together and talk for another good hour at my car. Always. This was the first time I couldn’t read him like a book and the first time he had me doubting myself.

And I didn’t like it.

One of our guy friends started to leave as well so I cleared my throat and yelled, “Hey! Wait up for me! We’ll walk over together”.

I was standing right in front of Darin. I wanted to make sure he knew I wanted to walk over with another guy. I ran up to our friend and started laughing and running out the door, hoping that he would take the que and follow my lead. He did and we galloped out making complete fools of ourselves. I wanted Darin to be jealous and run out after us.

He didn’t.

I ended up having a snowball fight with the guy I ran out with, but it wasn’t the same. It was pretty boring, actually. We made snow angels and then I ended abruptly, saying I needed to go home. I got in my car and wanted to scream!

Darin, my “friend”, was making me absolutely crazy.

I ran home and checked my e-mail a few times, waiting for an explanation or something explaining how miserable he was because we didn’t get to talk much, but much to my disappointment, I got nothing.

It was time for me to step up my game.