>>122454I met my husband many, many years ago when we were both 8 or 9 years old. We had recently moved in and his family was visiting the old lady next door who turns out was his grandmother and things started when he accidentally kicked his ball over our garden fence. I was just in the garden playing on my swing set. His little head popped over and smiled at me and said hi, he asked for his ball back and then invited me over to play with him. Turns out we were the same age but he lived around an hour away which was why he only appeared on weekends and spent the entire day at his grandmothers.
Every time he visited from then onwards I'd get excited when I saw their car or he came to knock on our door inviting me to play. In the summer we'd ride my bike around the neighbourhood and through the park, we shared ice creams, climbed trees, fed ducks at the parks pond and in the winter we built snowmen and igloos.
I quickly became infatuated with him. Looks wise he was nothing special back then, he even had a goofy haircut that looked like he lost a fight with a pair of scissors but his radiant personality and boyish charms more than compensated for his looks. I found him to be friendly, outgoing, caring, kind, excitable, sporty and above all else considerate. He encouraged me in our games and never got impatient or mad. He used to hold my hand a lot. Originally it was only when crossing the street because I wasn't allowed to cross by myself, but then whenever we were walking to the park or to the shop to get drinks or snacks he'd extend his hand and I'd take it.
Then, one day he stopped coming over. Turns out his mother had a really bad argument with his grandmother and they stopped visiting her. It really hit me hard because unbeknownst to him, he was my only friend. I didn't have any friends in my school and was being bullied pretty badly. Our playtime on the weekends got me through a lot of rough weeks at school and even after he stopped coming over the memories and things he'd said to me allowed me to just about brush off the childish and mean insults the kids threw at me. I figured if he liked me and he liked playing with me and he thought I was cool then anything they said were just stupid lies. I clung to those memories and even on really, really rough days I'd remember zooming down hills with him on my bike or him cleaning up a graze on
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