Remember Great Expectations? Charles Dickens's book about the life of Pip, a boy born into a low social class who desires to become a wealthy, respected nobleman. During his childhood, he meets the extravagant and contemptuous Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, who he falls in love with despite her coldness and cruelty. Pip begins his climb toward the upper class with the hope that one day he will be wealthy and distinguished enough to marry Estella.
Trevor claims that when reading Great Expectations in high school, the character Estella reminded him of me as a little girl. I don't believe I was totally Estella-esque but Trevor does have an impeccable memory and he remembers just about every exchange we had as kids...
As the story goes, Trevor moved into my neighborhood when we were ten or eleven years old. He began coming to the community center where my friends and I played after school and he claims that that's when he fell in love with me. But just as quickly, I broke his heart. I was allegedly manipulative and cruel, toying with his feelings. An especially Estella moment: during our brief time as boyfriend and girlfriend, he gave me a reversible ladybug/bumble bee stuffed animal as a gift (he seriously remembers these details) but I soon dumped him for another boy.
Before we entered middle school, Trevor moved away. But he never forgot about me and I never really forgot about him. We saw each other two or three times throughout the middle school and high school years. He kept tabs on me through Facebook and I sometimes clicked on his page to see where he had ended up. I had always wondered why he'd never tried to contact me (he would later tell me that he never had because he could never settle for being "just your friend.")
Last May, on my birthday (which is the day before his own), he wished me a "happy birthday" and suggested that we hang out over summer break. Little did I know, he had finally contacted me after seeing my relationship status on Facebook change to "single."
I didn't think anything of his invitation to hang out and I certainly did not think he was still interested in me after eight years. We finally saw each other again at the end of June. He later admitted that his ten-year-old crush was rekindled that night. And the rest of the story, you already know.
So I guess our story is kind of like Estella and Pip's. Minus the escaped criminal turned secret benefactor and the bat-crazy old lady with the permanent broken heart.
