Our Love Story—Bringing Home a “Friend”

I stayed on campus until the last possible day. Almost everyone else had already checked out of the dorms, but I was in no hurry to leave—for obvious reasons!

Rob came to help me load up my stuff. After yelling “Man on the floor,” which was protocol anytime a guy had cause to be in the girls dorm (which had a strict no-guys allowed policy except for occasions like this), he followed me into my dorm room.

I was mostly packed up, but I had a few things left to do. I was finishing throwing the last of my things into boxes when Rob let out a frustrated groan and said, “I was supposed to call my mom about coming up in a couple of weeks. Remind me to call her when I get home.”

I offered to let him use my cell phone so he wouldn’t have to use minutes off of his phone card. Besides, he had nothing better to do than call his mom while I was finishing up the last of my packing.

“Hi mom. I’m going to come up in a couple of weeks then go over to Eastern Washington to see both sets of Grandparents. Is it okay if I bring a friend?” He looked blankly at me while she asked a question that he was clearly stumbling to find the words to answer.

“His name? His name’s… Rob,” he said pulling a flat lie out of mid-air. He wanted to surprise his mom, much to my dismay. I was mortified that he wasn’t telling her. She didn’t know anything about me. She had no clue he was even interested in a girl, let alone talking about marrying her and preparing to bring her home to meet his family! I was so worried she was not going to be one for surprises, but Rob assured me that it would be “fun”.

She asked if it was okay if they shared the full sized bed in the guest room or if she needed to make up two rooms. “Oh, actually he’s really quite… big. If you wouldn’t mind making up two rooms that would be great. It would be less awkward.”

Goodness gracious. Now she’s expecting a really big guy who shared the same name as her son to be coming to her house to stay for a couple of days. Boy oh boy was she ever in for a serious surprise!

I shot him a glaring look as his web of lies got more and more tangled. But he insisted that it would be okay. It might have been okay for him but I was incredibly nervous about meeting his family. I was especially nervous about meeting his mom, and this wasn’t helping!

After he hung up the phone Rob started loading boxes into the back of my daddy’s truck. I went to work wiping down my furniture, vacuuming my floors, and tracking down an RA to check me out of my room.

I took one last look around at my now empty room and thanked God for the amazing memories and friends I had made during that semester. He paired me with a roommate who was the polar opposite of me, yet a perfect roomie despite our differences. He blessed me with some great friends and the greatest boyfriend a girl could ever ask for. I hated leaving all of that for the summer!

I headed down to the parking lot just in time to see Rob close the hatch on the truck. He pulled me close to him for a long hug goodbye. I didn’t want to leave him. I didn’t want to leave Salem. I didn’t want to leave this life I’d come to love at Corban.

I was looking forward to spending a week with him in Washington, but I was sad because I knew this was the first of many difficult goodbyes we would face over the next month.

He was headed down to California for his friend’s wedding so I knew I wouldn’t hear much from him until we met up again for our trip to up North… which couldn’t come soon enough!