Part 3: Almost done, I promise

The next time I saw him, he was fresh from Italy and full of fantastic stories.

I had casually invited him to my and my best friend's annual Birthday Bash in Kansas City, assuming he was like most of our mutual friends and would more than likely NOT to show up to a party that required he drive hours to get to.

I was gravely mistaken. He showed up, late into the night, and we danced and laughed and, as would become habit - stood in the parking lot talking for hours - until I was forced to drive away, only because I had a mere four hours before getting on a plane to LA.

We spent the next few weeks talking on the phone for hours at a time and, eventually, went somewhere just the two of us. It wasn't a date, more like friends getting together to do something, but I still pulled out all the stops when getting ready. We saw "They Might be Giants" play and had a downright fun time doing it. I saved my ticket to the show, slipping it into a box I where I kept things not to lose.

It's here, though, where our story goes astray. I mentioned we went out twice, didn't I? Well we did. But alas, there was a fateful weekend in between. One in which I went to NYC, got accepted into grad school, and began plans to move far far away from Kansas and all it contained.

And that included, in my mind, this new great guy I loved hanging out with. I had decided when I went, I would GO. None of this horsing around or pining for home.

Our second date was uncomfortable. We both initially thought we had been stood up, mis-communicating about where we would meet. It was the last time I saw him, or would talk to him for months. I stopped returning his phone calls, stopped answering the phone, really. In my mind I had already moved, and I was as good as two thousand miles away.

But I saw him one last time before I left for NYC. And at 4am in an empty parking lot in Overland Park, offered out another casual invitation that would, a mere year later, change both our lives.