Disney Got It Wrong

Chapter 2

I didn't meet my first husband in a crowded room. I met him in school. We were both from Fulton, another small town in Mississippi, and knew each other practically our whole lives.

Wesley Evans was that average charismatic kid with a gray-blue stare, a lot of personality, and a head full of curly hair that was always a mess no matter what you did to it. He was one of those well rounded people who seemed to have a little bit of everything. He had a decent social circle, talked to pretty much everyone, played sports, made decent grades, rarely got in trouble. He was just one of those all around nice guys, and I was, well, a bit of a nerd. I was that little green eyed blonde girl in the corner with my head in the clouds and my nose in a book. We never really had much reason to talk or hang out, mostly because I was a hopeless introvert, until high school when we both kind of drifted toward the same crowd and started hanging out at the same places like the arcade in the Barnes Crossing Mall and the bowling alley.

I still can't quite put together how we ended up together. We had really only talked a few times about anything you could call meaningful, if you could even call the merits of Fall Out Boy versus Panic! At The Disco meaningful, but he approached me at the end of a bonfire pep rally around the start of our sophomore year and asked for my number. I'd had my fair share of crushes, but I had zero experience with boys. I didn't even know how to flirt like most high school girls do. So, when he asked, I was more than a little shocked, clearly oblivious to any signs that he had been interested in the first place, but pleased nonetheless.

Our first date was pizza and a movie at the Malco Cinema chaperoned by his older brother, Chris, who kept giving him crap about how to put the moves on me. It was a little bit of a nightmare, and I was afraid the ruined night would put him off. Really, his brother was obnoxious back in the day. Add my social awkwardness to the whole equation and you had a gourmet recipe for disaster. But when he took me home he walked me to my front door, apologizing too many times for his brother. Though he didn't kiss me like they do after the first date in all the books and movies, he did ask if he could maybe sit next to me in English.

The second time we went out was to the Tupelo fair at what was then known as the BancorpSouth Arena. It also happened to be my birthday weekend. Wesley spent too much of his summer savings on a pink bear at the balloon dart stand. He took me on every ride, bought me cotton candy, and teased me when I got a little green on the Ring of Fire. He even put a birthday candle in a funnel cake and sang an obnoxiously loud chorus of "Happy Birthday" then had me make a wish and blow out the candle.

Wesley and I were inseparable. He was my high school sweetheart. We did all those things young adults in love do. We went to the junior prom and to the senior prom, and I even got him to audition for the senior play. He danced in Grease as one of Danny's crew and hated it, but I thought it was the cutest thing and giggled incessantly at his costume and greased back curly hair. And when the play ran its course at the end of the week, he gave me flowers for being so supportive of him; he probably wouldn't have gotten that elective credit for his drama class if he hadn't participated.

He was my first time after the homecoming dance our senior year. We were so deep in love, and I thought we would be together forever. I gave him a watery 'yes' when he asked me to marry him the summer of 2007, the year we graduated. And though our parents cautioned us that we were so young and had our whole lives ahead of us, we ran into it all head first and hand-in-hand. Our naive eighteen year old selves thought we could do it all. We thought we could conquer anything. It was us against the world. We just had no idea how hard and unforgiving life could be.

We were a young engaged couple in college. We lived in a tiny apartment off campus and both worked part time jobs. I was going for a degree in English with my wedding planning folder tucked under my arm everywhere I went, and Wesley was an undecided major who ended up dropping out after our first year to join the army and the war in Iraq.