How Leo and I Came to Be (Part 1)

When I went to college (NIU), it was with the understanding that I was just going to go for two years. I wanted to get married to my boyfriend at the time. My mom set an example that I wanted to follow. I wanted to fall in love and have a lot of kids and create for them the world my mom created for my sisters and me. My parents told me that I had to go to school for two years and after that, if it wasn't for me, I could leave. They were very smart because once I was in college and I tasted the freedom I didn't have at home, I wanted to stay.

What I love to think about and analyze when I think of how Leo and I met is how completely in love with someone else I was at the time. When I walked out of my dorm room to see him walking in the hall (he was good friends with my neighbor...thank God for co-ed dorms), I was totally thrown for a loop when I saw him. I was always attracted to tall guys (me being all of 5'2) and he was 6'3, built like a football player, had striking blue eyes and was HOT! From that first moment that I saw Leo, there was a pull to want to know him. I had only had that pull two other times and never as strong as then.

I got the chance the following night at a cheesy dorm mixer. The pull was even stronger when we talked. He told me his name was Leo and from the sound of his voice, I thought he was Italian. Not that being Italian was a big pull for me but my grandmothers used to tell me, "Date the Irish boy but you are going to meet a nice Italian boy" so when I thought he was Italian, I thought they might have been on to something. There was a big group of us that were hanging out at the mixer and when we decided to go to another party, we both ended up near the back of the group. When Leo walked down the stairs, he tripped down the stairs. I was so busy laughing at him, I tripped down the same ones. By the time we stopped laughing at each other, we were in the back of the group by ourselves. We continued talking and the subject of me having a boyfriend never came up. When the party moved to the lounge on my floor, I brought him to my room so he could see the hundreds of pictures I had on my wall of the my boyfriend and me. I thought I was off the hook but the next night when we hung out again (he was SO cute and he made me laugh and I was homesick and yes...my boyfriend would have been furious) he was surprised when I said I had a boyfriend. When I asked him who he thought the guy was in the picture, he said my brother even though I told him the night before that I had four younger sisters (should have been a foreshadowing). When he told me he was Russian, it was my turn to be surprised. When he asked why I thought that, I told him, "Your name is Leo and you sound just like Rocky Balboa."

He very quickly became my best friend up at school. He was protective of me and sweet and so funny and his personality only made him more attractive. When I was with him, I felt giddy and when I thought about him, I would get butterflies in my stomach. We were together all the time and the chemistry between us was so strong that one night we almost kissed (did I mention how hot he was?). I told him I would never cheat on my boyfriend but if we ever broke up, I didn't care if he had a girlfriend, I was going to find him and kiss him.

At the beginning of April, my boyfriend and I broke up. I got a phone call 30 seconds after it happened from Leo. "You coming over?" We made plans for him to come over the next night. We stayed up all night waiting for when the moment felt right. We were watching MTV and I didn't want our first kiss to be to Guns and Roses', "Welcome to the Jungle" or Skid Row's, "18 and Life". I would have liked BonJovi's "I'll Be There for You" or Poison's, "Every Rose Has its Thorn" but we finally settled on and kissed to Def Leppard's, "Love Bites." He left and in the middle of the night, while replaying what just happened, my boyfriend called saying he wanted to get back together.