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Woo, Internet. I'm going to be talking about this night for awhile.

My God. Where to start? My brain is in shambles right now. My brain is so mixed up I only really half remember what the word 'shambles' means.

Prepare yourselves, Internet. This is going to be a long one.

It all started today when I was doing schoolwork and best friend Rose texted me to ask me if I was going to the football game tonight. Of course, I said yes, not wanting to miss seeing friends and people I hadn't seen in a while.

So, after school, and maybe around 5 or so, I get in the shower and start getting ready and stuff. Sometime during all this, Best Friend Rose texts me and tells me that even though the game starts at 7, she'll be getting there around 7:30. I think, well okay. Plus it gave me extra time to get ready, so I wasn't complaining. It gave me extra time to moisturize and pluck and straighten and all that other crap that us girls have to do to look pretty (boys think we just look this way? HA. It takes a great deal of work!!).

Unfortunately, that took way longer than I'd anticipated, and I ended up taking way a longer time to get ready than I thought. In fact, I ran out of that time, and I went over it. Waaaay over it. And when me and my dad left the house, it was a half an hour later than when we were supposed to leave (this has been getting worse and worse lately. I think I have a problem.).

Which, you can imagine, made my dad cranky, and I got a lecture on how stupid it was that he was driving me to a game across town that I was just going to be there for fifteen minutes anyway, since I was so late (he had a point, and I felt really bad about it, but he was wrong about the fifteen minutes part. I made it for halftime!) So the entire lecture thing put me in a pretty bad mood.

But by the time I got there and met up with Gene (check mid-2009 entries for reference) and Best Friend Rose (him and Rosie are super close now. I'm glad how it's pretty much like Freshman year again when we're all together. By the way, he's taking her to Homecoming!), I felt better again. Those two are absolutely hilarious together, so I couldn't be grumpy.

As I've said before, when you get me and Gene and Rosie together, we're an unstoppable, loud talking, laughing force of loudness. The Dynamic Trio, pretty much. I love Gene, it's just like talking to a girlfriend when I'm talking to him.

Anyway, so, after I've been there for a little while, Gene goes off to find someone and me and Best Friend Rose go and talk to people. After hugging and saying hi to a few people, including my friend Colbie (go check the entry on November 26, 2009 for reference), Colbie said to Rosie, "Did you see that Johnny's here with Ricky Bobby?"

...I KNOW, RIGHT???
Right then, at that moment, my heart seized. Not in the 'fluttery princess girly crush' way, more like the 'oh hell, I'm about to plummet off the edge of this cliff and fall 50 stories' way. Dread washed over me.

I couldn't help it, I made this little strangled noise, like someone had literally wrapped their hands around my neck and squeezed and shook me back and forth and then abruptly let go, and I was taking my first painful inhale. Colbie and Rosie looked at me weird, and then both their eyes got all wide in realization.

Colbie's mouth formed an 'o' (she knows about everything) and all she said was, "Oh."

See, the thing is, I was having a hard time breathing, and time suddenly seemed to slow, like everyone around me was made of molasses. Everything hit me all at once. He was there. Ricky Bobby was there. He was walking this way. I was about to see him again, after two entire years.

You'd think the thought would fill me with glee, right? HAH, YOU'RE WRONG. Because I was terrified. I honestly thought I was going to pass out.

And, going to the past few football games, the thought has come to me a few times. 'I wonder if Ricky Bobby will show up to one of these.' Then the other thought that always inevitably followed it, 'He'll only be there if Johnny shows up, because him and Johnny are always together.' I mean, come on. Mutual friends and everything, it would have to cross my mind. And tonight it did, once. But then I countered it, thinking, 'Johnny hasn't showed up to the past few football games, he probably won't even be at this one. I'm not going to see Ricky Bobby tonight.'

Man, irony just has it out for me.

Back to the reunion: something compelled me to ignore him at first. Act like I hadn't been waiting for this moment for over two years.

Johnny came right up to me first and gave me this huge bear hug, which was weird at first, because I thought it'd be all weird since Jazz and him aren't friends anymore. But I think he's maybe starting to realize that he needs to make best of the friends he has right now.

It was also weird because he was so stiff and formal the last time he saw me. He hasn't been like this toward me since...last year this time, I'm thinking. But it sort of felt like it was back to old times again. It was nice. I'd like to think that he's going back to old Johnny again, but I won't count on it, just so I won't get my hopes up or anything.

Johnny stole my hat and put it on his head and made me chase him for a few minutes (like I said, just like old times), and then he gave it back to me and we made our way back to where Rosie and Ricky Bobby and Colbie were standing, talking to two other guys. Somehow the topic of AIDS came up between Johnny and I (he's strange.) and, I swear, not even a minute after me and Johnny get back to the group, I hear from the other group, "somethingsomethingsomething Sarah blahblah."

I hear in a voice very similar to the voice I remember, only deeper, "She is?"

And then, "Yeah, she's right there."

I sense more than see (since I'm still taking to Johnny) Ricky Bobby turn to look behind him, and then out of my peripheral vision, I see him do a double take.

Excuse me while I go do my victory dance.

It's probably just because I've changed so much physically and mentally over the past two years, but hell yeah none the less.

And then, he doesn't even hesitate one second before he comes over. He comes right over to me to hug me, and can I just say that I don't understand what happened to his hugs, because they used to be so amazing and now they're poop. It was one of those, 'I don't really wanna touch you, so I'm going to hold my arms out in an awkward diagonal position and when you come in to hug me, I'm just gonna pat you on the back' hugs. I was so let down by it. Like, you haven't seen me in two years. Can't you muster up a hug better than that?! (Although a little later I found out that he hugged Rosie the same exact way. So it wasn't just me, his hugs just suck now.)

Anyway. Before he hugs me, he gives me his huge Ricky Bobby-y smile and says, "Hey, Sarah. How are you?" in this warm, I'm-glad-to-see-you voice.

It throws me off for a second or two and I lose my cool for a moment (including not answering his question and shooting out a too-rushed 'HOW ARE YOU' as soon as we're done hugging), but then I gain it back and smile in a not-too-eager casual way, the way that Rosie happened to give me pointers on a few months back.

He says the usual, cordial, "Good, how are you?"

And I answer this time (Thank God), "I'm pretty decent." And I hate how cordial everything is, so I say, "So, how was Pennsylvania?" And in my mind, I don't miss the irony in how I'm asking him about it when the word 'Pennsylvania' has changed in meaning for me forever.

He immediately loosens up and his eyes brighten and he looks at me and smiles all happily and says, "I loved it."

"Yeah?" I say, and I'm surprised at how bitter I don't feel about him saying he loved Pennsylvania. It makes me happy.

"Yeah. It's amazing. I met the coolest people there. It was just so cool."

I already knew the answer to this question, but I asked anyway: "Do you miss it?"

"Oh," he shook his head like he couldn't believe how much he missed it. "my God. Yes. You have no idea." Something about Ricky Bobby that I'd forgotten was that when he looks at you, his eyes cut into you. His gaze is just so intent and unwavering, and if that's something you're easily intimidated by, like me, it's hard to handle sometimes. But I tried my darndest to not look away and look at him intently too, to not look nervous and intimidated by him anymore. I've changed the past two years, and I wanted him to see it.

I looked at him in real sympathy and clucked my tongue. "Aw. I bet."

We talked for a while, and he talked about the music scene in Pennsylvania (he's all into bluegrass and obscure, unheard of bands now. All indieboy and everything.), and I asked him about his band back in Penn. He talked about how his band was able to get a new lead singer and how they had just recently opened for this awesome band (I forgot which. Something Venom. I think.) in a huge stadium, and that they were probably getting a recording contract soon (though I have a feeling he was embellishing it to impress me a little).

It was astounding to me how quickly I'd loosened up around him, and how the feeling that I was about to pass out went away. I forgot how much he talked, and he talks a lot. Actually he was probably providing most of the conversation, not that I minded. It was easier than I'd anticipated.
I also told him how I didn't go to Best Friend Rose's school anymore, and he seemed genuinely interested to see why. When I told him it was because of money problems, he was surprisingly understanding about it, saying how online school 'sounded cool' and saying that it was good that I still got to go to football games and dances and such. It was interesting to me that he actually cared.

Finally, Rosie came and stood next to me and joined in our conversation (though, she told me later tonight on the phone, she made sure to stay off to the side and let us talk by ourselves a little while), and we started talking about other stuff.
At one point, Ricky Bobby kept talking about drugs (he's apparently a druggie now. Not really surprising, since I'd found out that he's used them before, but I didn't realize how much until tonight. I swear, he kept talking about it for like, twenty minutes.) and girls that used to go to our school that he thinks are hot, including Jessica Simpson (see past entries from 2009), who moved to Montana recently, and the girl he dated in the 8th grade that I talked about in the first entry (though he admitted that she's a total ho-bag now and he doesn't go for that).

Eventually Johnny came back over to our group from wherever he went, and then RB suggested that we go sit down in the grass. So we all go to sit, and while we're sitting down, Ricky Bobby mumbles something, something like, "Sarah mumblemumble me mumblemumble eighth grade mumblemumble."

And obviously, I didn't hear him, so I say to him over Johnny and Rosie talking, "What?"

And all I got this time was, "Sarah wan-mumblemumble date me mumblemumble eighth grade mumblemumble." BUT it sounded a little like, "Sarah wanted to date me in the eighth grade."

Johnny snickers and RB has this huge smirk on his face, so I put everything together and decide maybe he really did say the latter. I give him a 'oh-no-you-did-not-just-say-that-out-loud' open-mouthed squinty look and hope that it at least makes sense with what he really said, if he said something else, that is. But he smiled wider and laughed, so I'm starting to think that really was what he said, and that it wasn't my imagination.

But Rosie brings something up immediately after that, and so there wasn't time to worry about what to say.

Meanwhile, when we all continued to talk, Johnny came to sit between me and Best Friend Rose, and I couldn't help but notice how he sat at an angle that I would have to lean around him to talk to Rosie and RB. Coincidence? Maybe.

A few times when me and Johnny were talking about something(one thing in particular was about Fiddy getting AIDS and getting a girl pregnant, but THAT'S FOR A WHOLE 'NOTHER ENTRY.), Ricky Bobby would pipe into our conversation, talking straight to me. One time when he did it, and me and Ricky Bobby were the only ones talking (and I remember in particular that we were looking very intently at each other and grinning and everything) Johnny looked between us, and half his mouth quirked up while he shook his head. Not sure what that means, but I pretended like I didn't notice.

Eventually, RB and Johnny had to leave and they got up from the grass. Me and Rosie stayed sitting, and Johnny gave an awkward bending over-sitting down hug to Rosie, and then an even more awkward one to me (since compared to Rosie, I'm a dwarf. Actually, compared to anyone, I'm a dwarf.). Then RB gave an even more awkward one-armed sitting/bending down hug (why, Ricky Bobby? Why?!) to both of us, and the boys left.

Me and Best Friend Rose sat there for a minute or two, her pretty much watching me sit dazed and wondering what the hell just happened, and then we decided to go find Gene.

Everything after that is pretty much a blur, all I remember was the game ending, saying goodbye to Gene, the ride home, and then calling Best Friend Rose and rushing to get into my pj's so I could blog about all this.

I honestly don't know what to think right now. There's so much to absorb.

But as for right now, I need to sleep on it. This week has been long. I need a night or two to think about all of this.

Dazed, Confused, and Tired,

xo Hopeless Romantic

Labels: junior year, ricky bobby

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