My dad was now out of work because he became mentally disabled to work and my mom was working at a fast food restaurant just like me.

I was in a relationship with a guy that would only be with me if I was always tripping or getting high with him. I don't know why, but I fell for him. My past was terrible. I began hanging in the wrong ground and getting into much trouble. I did things to get attention from guys because I wasn't getting the attention at home from my parents. I was 18 and acting like a little kid.

The day before he left, he told me that he wanted to meet me. I was scared as hell to meet him. I thought he wouldn't like me. That night (before he left) I saw him online and told him that I really wanted to call him. I called him around 11:30. We talked about how it would be off at college and stuff like that. I remember him telling me that he was afraid of the dark and I laughed the entire time. I couldn't stop laughing so hard. Before we knew it, it was 5:00 AM. He had to be up at a few hours to leave and I had to be at work in 3 hours. I promised him I'd call him from work before he left for school.

I called and it felt like someone was ripping my heart out when I said my final goodbye. He said he wasn't sure if he would be able to get back online once he got to school. We said our goodbye's and both hung up. I moped around the house for days wishing that I had known him just a little while longer. Wishing I had gotten the chance to actually know him, meet him, and tell him how I felt about him just by hearing his voice. 

Days went by like months. It felt like forever since I had last talked to him. Well, late one night, I decided to email him just to see if he still had AOL. To my surprise, he did. I e-mailed him a very long email. Two days later, he e-mailed me. I was so excited. We started talking all the time like we used to and it was great! Weeks went by and I still hadn't told him how I felt. Finally after discussing my problem with friends and family, I started up the conversation about how far would he ever take a friendship. (from all these time we've talked, we'd always say "luvs ya muchly"). I then asked him what he meant by when he said luvs ya.

He got quiet for a long time and finally he said that he was growing feelings for me, strong feelings for that matter. I then returned my feelings to him. After that, we became sort of like boyfriend/girlfriend but we didn't go out on dates. After awhile though, we were both wanting to meet each other and be in each other's arms. He finally made plans to come home for Labor Day Weekend. I was so excited. We made plans to go to the zoo since I hadn't been in such a long time. Then we'd go to dinner and see a movie. After that, we didn't know what to do. We talked on the phone for hours almost every night. The first time he actually said "I love you" was late one night on the phone. See, we were both kind of nervous on how to actually express our feelings for each other. Even though we had told each other how we felt over the computer, I felt as though that wasn't enough. 

So late one night, I called him. I asked him how strong his feelings for me actually were. He sat there very quiet for a few minutes. Then he said he just couldn't say it because he was scared of what I would say in return. I told him that he should go ahead and tell me. (I had the feeling that he was going to tell me he loved me and that's what I wanted to hear!) So he sat there even longer with silence. After what seemed an eternity, he quietly said "I love you" and to his surprise, I said it back. It sounded like he was crying after I said it. I didn't know if I had said something wrong or not. Then he said he was hoping I'd say it in return. I'll never forget the tone in his voice when he said "I love you". It sent chills all through my body and I still get those same feelings every time he says it to me. We made plans to meet Labor Day weekend since that was the next time he was coming home from school. The days until then seemed like forever to me. 

Friday before Labor Day arrived and I was getting so very nervous. You won't believe what happened next!! Paul had gotten to his parents house and called to get directions. I was out with a few friends and my parents called. Well, let me inform you on something. There's this other guy named Paul who had been stalking me. He kept calling me all the time and I kept trying to block his number, but he'd call from somewhere else. My parents had talked to him and told him to quit calling, but he just wouldn't listen. My parents knew about Paul (my boyfriend) and they said that if he called he'd just get his last name and then take the message.

Well Paul called around 10:30 and my mom answered the phone. She asked him and he thought it was my sister playing a joke with him. My father then picked up the phone and said "Listen to me you son of a bitch, you better quit calling my daughter before I call the police!" then he hung up the phone. When I got home around 12 my parents had told me that my boyfriend hadn't called so I thought I'd call him. When I called him he was just about in tears. He told me the whole story and I felt so bad. I couldn't believe what had gone on. Paul was so scared to come over the next to day to meet me that he was thinking of backing out. After about an hour or so, I told him that he had nothing to worry about. We said our "I love you's and goodnights" and hung up. 

I woke up around 7AM and was so very nervous. I couldn't believe that today had actually gotten here. Paul wasn't going to be over until one so I had plenty of time to relax and get ready. I talked to my parents and told them the mistake. My parents felt so bad for making him freak out the way they did. Then they sort of thought it was funny. I surely didn't though. By 12:30 I was a complete wreck. I couldn't believe I would finally meet the love of my life in less then 30 minutes.

After what seemed hours, one o'clock came around and Paul hadn't shown up. I started to freak out. I thought he had backed out at the last minute. But around 1:15 my sister was outside and saw a strange guy pull into the driveway. I then just about got sick to my stomach. My sister answered the door and invited him. I was sitting on the couch and was nervous to see what he looked like. I'm not saying that looks wasn't what I fell in love with, but looks do matter to an extent. When I finally saw him, my mouth dropped. He was tall and very handsome. I couldn't believe it! My family invited him to sit next to me and I started to get really nervous. All I could think about was "He's not going to like me at all. I'm not his type at all.". We sat there for a few minutes and talked with my family. I finally got up and told him I was ready to go. As we were walking out to his truck, I could feel his eyes starring at me. He opened the door for me and I got in. I sat on the far side of his truck and hardly said a word to him. 

As he drove down Scenic Highway, there was only one thing I was thinking about. "After today, he's never going to call me". I don't think we said but maybe 2 words the whole way to the zoo. I guess he was nervous just like I was. When we pulled into the zoo parking lot, he walked around and opened the door for me. I wasn't used to guys opening the doors for me whenever I got in and out of cars. We started walking up to the door and he grabbed my hand and pulled me up to him. He gave me the biggest hug I've ever had. Right then, I knew it would be a good time to kiss him. So I looked up and kissed him. I didn't know if I should have, but I did. He must've wanted to kiss me back, because he sure did give me a nice kiss in return. My knees got really weak and so did his because he fell back onto a car. I stretched as high as I could and whispered in his ear "I love you" and he just kind of stood there with a cute face. He said it to me in return. The second he said "I love you" to me, I knew that I was so much in love with this man. I was so ready to just tell him "Marry me!" but I knew it was too soon for that. 

The rest of the time at the zoo, we walked around and talked about a lot of different things. He found a little bench and pulled me toward it to sit down. The scenery was so romantic. It was a small garden with lots of birds and flowers around the bench. We sat there and held each other for about 5 minutes. I looked up to him and said "I love you" and he turned his head very slowly and whispered in my ear "I love you too". We walked out to his truck and when we sat down, I couldn't lean over and kiss him fast enough. Every time we kissed, chills sent through my body and made me very weak. I had never experience such love in my life. I knew that he was the one man I could live the rest of my life with. After about 10 minutes of passionately kissing, we decided to head back to the city. We drove around for about an hour or so since it was a little too early to eat dinner. We just drove around and talked about little things. Most of the time, I teased him by softly kissing his neck or caressed him. Since we had time to kill, we went by the movie theater and bought the tickets for "The Sixth Sense". 

Afterwards we drove to an Italian restaurant At dinner, I really didn't say much of anything. All I could think about was that he was going to be leaving to go back to school five hundred miles away. I was truly upset about that my one true love was going to be far away from me. He knew that was upset but he didn't say much of anything about the whole thing. He just sat there and ate and worried what was going through my mind. After dinner, we drove to the movies and sat down in the theater. During the entire movie, I maybe saw forty five minutes of it. I payed more attention to him. I kissed his neck, sucked on his fingers, and held onto him for dear life. I didn't want the night to end. We slowly walked out to his truck after the movie holding each other tightly. He drove to the beach. 

While he did, all I thought about was how much I loved this man. I imagined my life twenty years from now and I couldn't see my life without him. We got to the beach and he pulled out a blanket for us to lay on in the sand. We looked up in the sky and it was clear. You could see all the stars and the bright mood shining down on us. I pulled him slowly on top of me and stared into his bright baby blue eyes. After what seemed forever, he leaned down and we kissed. We both had decided before the date that we wouldn't move to fast on our first date. I didn't want to move fast at all. I wanted time to go by so slowly but time flew by. Between our kisses, he sat up and pulled me into his lap. He looked into my eyes and I looked into his. He spoke with the softest voice I've ever heard. He said "Brooke, I love you with all of my heart and I would like to ask you if you would honour me with being my girlfriend." All I could do was nod my head. After a few minutes, I looked at him and said "Yes Paul, I will go out with you." 

After all the time we discussed our relationship over the computer, it was nothing near compared to hearing him ask me that question. Before we knew it, it was starting to get late and he had to have me home. We both got up and started to wipe the sand off of us. We slowly walked back to his truck and got in. On the way home, I held on to him very tightly, not wanting to let go of him. When he pulled into my driveway, I dreaded getting out of his truck. He slowly opened his door and let me slide slowly out of his truck. I started to walk away thinking that it was best if we just left everything at that. However, he didn't want the night to end like that. He pulled me into his arms and held me tight. He lifted my head and kissed me. Out of all of our kisses, that one did it for me. He had actually "swept me off my feet" you could say. We kissed and said our goodbyes. He watches me walk inside and then he pulled away. I walked back outside to just check to see if he actually did leave. He did. I went back inside and just fell onto the couch. Before closing my eyes, I got up and got online to email him. I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed the day with him and couldn't wait to spend time with him again. I signed back off when I was finished and climb under a blanket and fell asleep with him on my mind. 

I didn't hear from him until the next evening. He had promised me that he would go with me and my family to a really nice restaurant but he must've forgotten that he promised. For he had made plans with his friends. That devastated me, but I didn't want him to know. I didn't want to take up all of his time while he was at home. He called me the next day to ask me if he could stop by before he left for school. Of course I said yes. While he was on his way, I sat impatiently on the front porch swing. I saw him pull up and I just sat there and waited for him to walk up to me. He sat down next to me and just hugged me so tight I almost couldn't breathe. But it felt so good. We talked for a while about our relationship and how hard we were going to work for our relationship to work out. 

It was going to be tough for us to have a long distant relationship. Neither one of us had either experienced one. I knew it would be hard, but I wanted it to work. After a while, we went inside so that he could say hello and goodbye to my parents. My mother hardly knew him but she loved him. My father really didn't care much of who I dated. It was starting to get a tad bit late and he was going to have a long drive back to school. I walked him out to his truck and we said our goodbyes. I promised to email him and he told me the same. I began to cry but I didn't want him knowing. I watched him pull out of the driveway and down the road. I walked into my house and cried my eyes out. I have never experienced so much love as I did when I was with him. I knew that the rest of my life would change because of him. 

That was almost a year ago. That was back in September for '99. It's now August of '00. We've been through hell and back. A few months after we got into our relationship, I started to have a doubt or two with it. I emailed him and what I said caused a lot of pain for the both of us. But we pulled through that. Then February of '00, he finally found out that I was still smoking and that I lied about him for so long. We had a lot of fights and arguments and almost lost each other but we pulled through that also. Then in April, I confessed lying to him about a friend of mine (Long story. I told him my friend "Steve" and I were just friends and never did anything with each other. Then we started talking about it again and I confessed to kissing him. He got all mad and I saw that was going to ruin our relationship.) However, through everything we've been through, we've made it. Hell has been our way, but we just overlooked it. 

Everyone I know always says "Online relationships are just plain stupid." Well, I know differently. As of right now, Paul has moved back home from school and is going to school here in the same city. We are planning on getting married on our 4 year anniversary. We are engaged right now.

Life couldn't get any better He is my best friend, my lover, and my soul mate. Nothing will ever get in our way. So if any of ya'll think that net relationship don't work out, well I've proved you guys wrong. 

"Brooke"