Part 2

So with my attention no longer fixed on Sully, I decided to just be cool and be friends with everyone equally. But whether it be Karah or myself, whoever, whatever the group of friends was thinking, I was partnered up with Gaby. At the time, to me, that wasn’t a bad thing. If Sully didn’t like me, then maybe Gaby would? Or at least be a friend. I really don’t remember how I was thinking. I just wanted to be friends with them both and see what happened. As the summer went on, we did many things. We took them around San Antonio, went to the river walk, saw movies and did the basic tourist things. I remember then Gaby started to slowly open up to me. She had the personality of a tough girl. Well she came off that way. She actually turned out to be a pretty thoughtful girl, there was a lot of intelligence under that skin. She surprised me many times because she had a pretty vast knowledge of computers. She had said she was going to a technical school or something similar to that in Guadalajara (her hometown). She was sarcastic too. And that appealed to my sense of humor. She didn’t seem to be offended by any jokes or teasing that we would inflict on her. She actually seemed to enjoy fighting with me. And I enjoyed fighting with her. We would have battles of wit, her sometimes telling me things in Spanish that I had no idea what they meant. She had that advantage, plus the obvious advantage of being a woman. We had many fights, about some subjects that were completely trivial. I started to like her for more then friends, but I still was still confused about the whole boyfriend thing. Did she have a boyfriend in Mexico? Or was she single? If she did have a boyfriend back home, then why was she acting (at least in my head) like she liked or that she was flirty with me? As you can see, I was thoroughly confused at this point. All I knew is that we were getting along pretty well, and that from the looks of it and with what other people were saying, is that she did like me. So I just didn’t worry about it. So we went to Rosario’s (a latin restaurant and bar) one night for dinner and drinks. The wait for a table was 2 hours. So we waited. It was so crowded in there we were all standing around the door of the place. I remember all of us talking and waiting for the table as the salsa/meringue band played their music. Gaby started to dance, and soon me and her were dancing by the front door. It was funny, because neither of us really knew what were doing, but we were making the best out of it all. I remember talking to her, and somehow we got on the subject of her coming up to San Antonio. I said if she had seen any cute guys there in the restaurant. She said no and that she really hadn’t looked. I said “oh yeah, I forgot, you have a boyfriend back home” She looked at me in a puzzled way and said something to the effect “No I don’t, I don’t have a boyfriend at all” I talked to her a little more and she made it clear that she was single and had no attachments. I told her that Karah had told me she had a boyfriend, and she said Karah was mistaken, she said there was a guy who liked her, but she didn’t like him. So suddenly I got into a better mood. Could it be? Could I actually have a chance with this girl? I would soon find out. Dinner Came. We all sat at a big table and of course, Gaby sat next to me. It was funny how some of the group acted. It’s like some were happy about Gaby and I becoming better friends, and some would tease me and say I was hogging her and taking up all her attention. My only defense is that I didn’t take her attention way, she chose to give it to me. So we ate, and all of us had fun. I remember after dinner we made our way down to the Riverwalk and walked around the downtown area. I remember we went to my brother’s hotel, we took pictures there, the girls on the stairwell. I don’t remember much after that. I’m sure there probably was jokes, and laughs and flirty fights between Gaby and myself, but the details I can’t remember, whether it be because of the amount of things that have happened since then, or the fact that I consciously made an effort to forget. Whatever the reason, I remember only pieces of the night. Not to long after us guys (Kevin, Myself, Matt, and Henry) decided to have everyone over to our house for dinner. Leah made spaghetti and we bought sodas, drinks, salad and French bread. We all ate and had a good time. We were sitting around after dinner and Gaby asked me if she could check her email. She checked her hotmail, and then I checked mine also. I asked her for her email just in case I wanted to email her in the future. I remember her saying ok, and her putting her email into my address book. She smiled as she sarcastically wrote in place of her name “hermosa preciouso” Needless to say she thought highly of herself. She liked to be the boss, or at least she liked me to make her one. I would always tease her and say I wasn’t good enough for her. I would hold my hand up in the air and the other down lower and say “oh yes, I forgot your up here, and I’m down here.” You do it now. Hold your left hand up flat high in the air,like it's on top of a big ivisible box. Now do the same with the right, but put it at a much lower level. Remember this. Trust me, it will make sense later. At first she agreed to it, sarcastically agreeing with me. But I knew she didn’t mean it. I did that a lot and it actually became a common thing. Anytime I couldn’t do something, and she could, “oh yes, cause your up here, and I’m down here.” She was higher on the food chain. Matt brought in his stereo, and we had ourselves a make shift karaoke machine. I remember being a little embarrassed as I sang “White Wedding” by Billy Idol, but I got through it. Gaby was too embarrassed to sing anything, but I remember Sully singing a Shakira song. It was funny because I still admired Sully’s ability to not be scared to try new things. Gaby wasn’t so brave in that way. She didn’t speak much, because she was embarrassed by her English. It was hard for me to get to know her because of that fact. Matt sang a song I believe and I’m almost certain Leah did to. The night continued until the late hours and we finally said our goodbyes and everyone left. It was a good night, I had had fun with Gaby, made a little progress and got her email. That email would prove to play a important part later on.

It’s a blur to me know, sometimes I regret not writing this all down earlier, when it was all fresh one my mind. Maybe I just couldn’t do it, maybe I didn’t want to remember, maybe I didn’t have the time. Whatever the reason might be the next big event I remember was a going away party thrown for Sully. It was kind of a last minute thing, but the young girl who threw it did a good job with what she had. We had to go get Gaby and Sully at Gaby’s Aunt’s house. We drove over, and we knocked and went in. We met Gaby’s Aunt, she seemed pretty nice. I met her cousins too, everything seemed pretty ok. So we picked them up and made our way to the party. The party was outside, and if you know San Antonio weather in the July and August, you don’t want to be outside. It was hot and humid that day (like it is everyday) and they had a small boom box playing music and some food. We pretty much stood around or sat around in the plastic chairs and talked. Now compared some some parties that I had been too, it wasn’t the wildest. But like I said, for what they had, they did a good job. I remember there was some other girls there (black girls) who were there and they started dancing after a while. So we all started dancing. One thing about Mexican women. They can’t move like black women can. Mexican music, when it comes to dancing traditionally like cumbia or even salsa, that type of music is mostly in the hips. Your upper body doesn’t move much because your holdling on to your partner. The way these black girls danced, everything moved. They had their rhythm down to a tee. I enjoy dancing with other girls that make you look like you’re a better dancer, and this was exactly what these girls did. You could just stand there and they would make you look like a pro. It was funny though because Gaby and Sully, they really couldn’t get it down. I guess they were too used to the Mexican way of dancing. I kind of laughed at Gaby and she told me to shut up. Then when the Mexican songs came on, everyone wanted me to dance with Gaby, but I didn’t do it. I guess I just didn’t feel like dancing that way. I’m not a expert at it anyways, so I was a little self conscious about my footwork. Gaby and me we doing our little flirty fighting and all that, and I was sitting in a plastic chair. Gaby got the bright idea to pretend to push me over backwards. Well with my massive weight at the time, and the cheap freaking plastic chair I was sitting on, needless to say I fell. I fell good. I flew backwards, the chair shattered beneath my elephant like weight, and I ended up in the grass. Sweaty, Itchy, with part of the chair stabbing me in the back. I just laid there in disbelief. Gaby had a look on her face. She wasn’t really expecting me to fall back, and she was the first one I saw as I glanced up. Her look of shock slowing turned to a grin, then a smile, then full on laughter. I couldn’t help but laugh too. It seemed for a moment that it was just me and her, me in the grass, her hovering above me, laughing with one another. Then the others came into the picture. They all made sure I was ok. They all asked me what happened and I said Gaby, being playful pushed me over. Of course Gaby (as I knew she would) denied the entire thing. That was type of person she was, she wasn’t arrogant or anything (not that I could tell) just around me she could do no wrong. And that appealed to me, because I was constantly fighting that. It was actually fun for both of us; she enjoyed the attention, and me? Who wouldn’t like fighting and having a beautiful girl give you a bunch of attention? Maybe she liked me even? Can you blame me? You would do the same. So we were leaving the party and it seemed like Gaby was by now actually liking me. But I didn’t know? Nothing was concrete. I didn’t know for sure what she felt, and I didn’t even know what I was feeling. As we left Sully said something she had found out. It was something about Gaby liking me. But she didn’t tell me the whole thing. So that really had me wondering, did Gaby really like me? Could it be possible? Could this girl, who any guy and every guy would love to have next to him, could she actually like me? It blew my mind the thought. I left the party feeling good, positive about my chances. I was happy for that night. Then it was time for Sully to leave. It seemed like such a long time since we (the group) had known each other, but in reality it was only about a month since we had met Sully, and maybe a week or two before that Gaby. I guess when you hang out and see each other every week you start to know each other, and get comfortable with one another. And we all did that. So we all decided to take Sully out. We took her to Spaghetti Warehouse. We had dinner and took some pictures after. I paid for Sully’s dinner as a way of saying goodbye. We went to Karah’s house to say goodbye for the last time. We all stood outside and talked for a while. I didn’t know when the last time I was going to see Sully, but I hoped she would do well in her future, a future I also didn’t know, would include me.