Why I'm thankful for wisdom teeth...

(...or the long overdue continuation of Faux Fiancee)

I had to get my wisdom teeth extracted this past summer, and I decided to go home to California so my mom could mother me while I convalesced. It's an eight-hour drive for me to get home, and it's pretty much all desert, so there isn't much to keep a guy's mind busy. Also, my car's CD player doesn't work, so all I had was the radio, and, because Michael Jackson had died the night before, every radio station I came across was playing either Thriller or Billie Jean, it seemed. Come on, people--he's the King of Pop and you can only come up with two songs?

Anyway, somewhere in Nevada, I decided I would give Katie a call--just to see how talking on the phone would work for us. (I hate talking on the phone, so I was a little apprehensive that the awesome week we had just shared would get swallowed up in a summer of infrequent and awkward telephone conversations.) I called her up and we talked for, I dunno, maybe half an hour, and the conversation didn't flow throughout that time but rather came in spurts. I crossed the California border and told her I had to go because I was supposed to call my parents and tell them when I made it that far (this was close enough to the truth: they told me to call periodically and report my progress), so the conversation ended and left me feeling far from confident about the coming weeks.

My parents' house is situated such that cell phone reception is totally unreliable most anywhere on their property. Because of this, the next bits of communication between me and Katie came in the form of a couple of voicemail messages that she left on my phone. But I went for a walk each evening while I was home so we could talk in real time, and our conversations' lengths grew exponentially--half an hour, one hour, two hours (does doubling count as exponential? I'm really bad at math...)--and it wasn't long until our conversations were back to being long and easy. After I got my teeth extracted, I didn't go for walks much, but I started calling her using my parents' landline, and life continued charmingly.

One day, my Dad suggested to me that, since Katie and I were in the same state, I may as well swing by and visit her on my way back to Provo. This was a ridiculous suggestion because that involved adding roughly 7 hours of drive time to my journey. Strangely enough, though, Katie made the same suggestion later that day in semi-jest, and I tentatively agreed to it--not jesting at all but a little worried about the cost of gas. Then--a miracle. My sister who lives in Sacramento but was down visiting my parents for Independence Day (ironic, no?) told me that she really didn't wanna ride the train back and asked me if I'd be willing to give her a ride if she paid for my gas. I have no idea whether she was put up to it by our dad or came up with the idea herself or just honestly didn't want to ride the train, but I took this as a godsend and readily agreed. I called Katie and worked out the details, and it was decided that, on the next Tuesday, I would drive my sister up to Sacramento, go to Katie's place to hang out with her and meet her family, stay the night, and leave the next morning--probably as quickly as possible because we were both certain that this was probably going to be the most social encounter imaginable, what with the whole, "Hey, Mom and Dad, this is the guy I proposed to--blindly--after a comedy show--and now he wants to stay the night and--and--he'll leave first thing in the morning, I promise!" Nevertheless, when faced with the chance to embark upon a brave new world of social faux pas, this little butterfly never backs down--never, I say!--so we went ahead with the plan.

And what happened next is almost as unbelievable as the story of how we met. (Is that poor narrative style? I think it probably is, but I can't help myself sometimes: I just love dramatic suspense--or whatever this is....)

I got to Katie's parents' house around 5pm on Tuesday evening. I walked in and introduced myself to everyone, and then, as I had feared, we stood there just staring at each other, suffused is a palpable haze of awkwardness.

Well, now what?

We were all wondering that, I'm sure, but only one person--the hero of this chapter, perhaps--actually had any idea: Katie's seven-year-old sister Christina. She grabbed my hand and said, "Let me give you a tour of the house!" and dashed the ice to pieces as she dragged me up the stairs. After that, I was very much a part of the family, somehow--so much so that I did not, in fact, leave the next morning, or the morning after that, or even the morning after that. I didn't leave until the mid-morning of Saturday, and then I had to honestly tear myself away because I really didn't want to go. It was fantastic.

The 10-hour drive back to Provo was punctuated with calls to and from Katie. Once I called, and for a good, solid minute before she said hello, all I could hear was her and her family laughing hysterically. I had no idea what to make of it. Turns out they were playing a trivia game, and it was Katie's turn, and she didn't know the answer, and she asked if she could have a lifeline and call me; her mom said, "No, you can't call him. But if he calls in the next five seconds, you can ask him for help"--and I did!

And so I went to Provo, feeling wonderful because of the solidity I had given my friendship with Katie, but feeling more than a little sad that it was now time to settle into its summer hiatus--or at least its summer relegation to phone calls and email.

The morning after I got back to Provo, I got up and went to Church and there met up with a friend that I had not seen in more than a month. He asked me how my life had been in the interim, and I gave him a big, "Well let me tell ya!" and caught him up to speed with the inexplicable awesomeness that was my relationship with Katie. He ate it up, grinning from ear to ear (therefore, I suppose, metaphysically chewing with his mouth open), and then he said something truly amazing: "That's awesome! Hey, I'm roadtripping out to Sacramento with some friends in three weeks; if you want to come, we'd love to have you."

As soon as Church was out, I called Katie to tell her the news and to ask for permission to return. Unfortunately, I got her voicemail, but, being totally unable to hold in my joy, I left my news on her phone. Hours of pacing and wringing my hands passed, and then she called with an answer. I excitedly answered the phone and was greeted, not just by Katie, but by her entire family on speakerphone saying, "Kyle! Come back!"