Her true love returned in the wrong season

Sometimes in this life you long for something to happen, but it doesn’t, so you give up. Then the thing you longed for shows up in the wrong season and feels so out of order. This is especially true with matters of the heart.

Enid met Mica when she was 15 in the early 1970s. It was a Spring dance at the local Masonic lodge, and he asked her to dance. They spent the rest of the night together, holding hands when they were not on the dance floor.

At one point, her head was on his shoulder, and he cradled her with his arms. She felt so happy, safe, and secure. He asked her name and told her his. He showed up at the next three dances, and Enid knew she was in love.

Mica never danced with any of the other girls, and her friends said he was her boyfriend. Strangely, he never tried to kiss her, and didn’t ask for her phone number or to walk her home.

School started, and Enid daydreamed about Mica asking her to his prom or taking her to the one at her school the following year when she was a junior. Some older boys from another neighborhood began teasing her for being skinny and laughing as she walked down the school hall where they stood.

How she longed for Mica to reach out and take her mind off of all of this. She envisioned him giving her his class ring and saying he loved her. She learned he lived in a town about 15 minutes away. His father’s brother was a deacon at her church. His cousins lived a few blocks away.

He could have stayed with them and walked to her house or called her on the phone. Everyone knew her great-grandmother’s name, and the number was in the phone book. She had called other boys, but for some reason she was apprehensive about making the first move with Mica.

Life went on, and more parties began the next spring, but Mica did not show up. Enid dated and had several serious boyfriends during her junior year, but Mica remained in her heart.

By senior year, she was no longer thinking about him as much and was in love with Smitty. He gave her a beautiful necklace at Christmas, and she decided to take him to her senior prom.

By March, however, she and Smitty were not seeing each other much and had not spoken on the phone for several weeks. She heard rumors he was back with a girl in his neighborhood, and when she called him, he said it was true.

They broke up and Enid was heartbroken and unsure of what to do. A few guys asked her out, but she was not interested in them. Again, she thought of Mica and wished he would ride to her rescue like a knight on a charger. Where was he, and why had he not reached out to her.

In mid-April she met Lennie at a party and danced with him a few times, but her heart was still with Smitty. She also thought about Mica and what could have been. It had been three years since she had seen him, and she wondered where life had taken him.

The following week Lennie showed up at her house unannounced. He was easygoing, and as they talked, Enid found herself falling for him. He began kissing her and she knew in that moment that he was the one she would give her virginity to.

Every fiber of her being screamed that he was the one. Two days later as they were talking on the phone, he told her he loved her, and she responded that she loved him too.

They saw each other two weeks later, and she gave herself to him. He was happy to know he was her first. Everything was going pretty well until July 4th. A car pulled up in front of her house, and when the occupants got out, it was Mica and his parents.

Enid’s heart began to stir after seeing him again three years later. The parents went on the front porch to talk to her grandmother while she and Mica sat on a blanket she had placed under a tree.

He told her he missed her and had been thinking abotu her and hoped she had waited for him. He reached out to kiss her, but she pulled away and asked where he had been and why he never reached out to her.

Mica said he had been in the army, and Enid became angry. In that moment, her emotions for him were stronger than her feelings for Lennie. She longed to kiss him and tell him she still loved him and wanted to be his girlfriend.

She could not because his return was out of order. The timing was all wrong. If only he had reached out to her shortly after they first met, later in the 10th grade, the 11th, or earlier during her senior year.

He could have taken her to her junior and senior proms. Why didn’t he have his parents bring him by three years earlier? Why did he have to come back now? He could have been her first lover, and his love would have shielded her from those teasing her about being skinny and awkward.

How she would have enjoyed wearing his class ring around her neck on a chain. Now it was too late. Mica had returned in the wrong season. Even though her heart was pounding, and the love she felt for him was bubbling within her, she had given her most prized posession to another, and there was no turning back.

It took all the willpower she had not to fall into his arms but she stood firm in her commitment to Lennie. She told Mica no, and after he and his parents left she went to her bedroom and cried.

For the next few days, all she could think about was Mica and questioned whether she should have waited for him. Lennie had asked her to be his girlfriend within an hour of meeting her and told her he loved her two days later.

He called her and came to visit and made it known that he wanted her. Lennie committed, staked his claim, and marked his territory. Mica had left her alone for three years.

The audacity of him to assume she would not date or fall in love with another when he had never made his feelings known. If only he had called her on the phone, come to visit, or written her from the army. Things might have been different.

Instead, he allowed three years to go by with no communication and came back in the wrong season. His actions were appreciated but out of order on so many levels, and now she belonged to someone else. Mica had his chance for three years, but he blew it by returning too late.