Lindsay Hansen
(on left)

Long story.
Me and Lindsay first went out in 8th grade.  We were together for about two months before we broke up.  That was my fault.  I pretty much dropped Lindsay for this girl Amy Evans.  That was a mistake.  Amy turned out to be nothing special and we're not even that good of friends anymore.  But me and Amy were together for only about three weeks.  After which I immediately begged forgiveness from Lindsay and asked her out again.  She said yes, and we went out for another seven months.
That's when I really screwed up.
Lizzie Owens was always bugging me when I went out with Lindsay. She'd call me like every night, write me these notes about how she dreamed about us, blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong about Lizzie, I thought she was very sincere and she's pretty hot.  But anyways, I was convinced by Lizzie that I was bored of going out with Lindsay.  So after nine months total of going out with Lindsay Hansen, my dream girl, I was persuaded by Lizzie to drop her.  If I could go back and change that, I would in a second.
After that happened (a few weeks before freshman year started), I pretty much didn't talk to Lindsay for all of ninth grade.  I couldn't bring myself to do it. Who was I to treat her like some accessory?  I still can't believe how ignorant and blind I was first of all to dump her in the first place, and then to let her out of my life completely for eight months!  During that time, she pretty much became dedicated to Nick Sullivan.
Nick was really a nice guy to her.  He did so many cool things for her....he'd have flowers delivered to her at random, he had a tape made of him singing a song to her, etc.  All that sappy stuff that guys find so lame and yet girls seem to thrive on.  Lindsay was pretty harsh in return for about a year.  After that, she realized that Nick was a pretty cool guy and they hooked up.  The thing is, it was some big secret.  That started Lindsay's lies to me.  But more on that later.
Her and Nick were happy for a couple, maybe three months.  But then Nick got really bitter and angry I guess and decided he didn't want anything to do with Lindsay anymore.  Lindsay was in denial of this change in Nick's character, however, and tried to hang on to him.  Nick was something of a jerk to her, and I think that kinda screwed everything up for me.  Since their breakup didn't go so smoothly, Lindsay now refuses to have a boyfriend, despite the fact that I spent every waking moment from the middle of June '99 through August 13th thinking about her, talking to her, or hanging out with her.  She knew better than anyone else how much I liked her.  She just had made up her mind that little West boys weren't for her anymore and left me out in the cold.
There was like a three month period after August where me and Lindsay really weren't speaking, but now we're pretty good friends.  I've tried to suck up some of my foolish pride and realized that she lives in a world that I can't even imagine being in.  Her family has some tough problems to deal with, some of her "friends" aren't exactly the nicest people in the world to her, and she has a hard time expressing her frustrations.  At least, to me she does.  I get the feeling that she's not telling the whole truth to me most of the time, and that frustrates me quite a bit.  I'm one for honesty, and she doesn't seem to respect that part of me enough to honor it's rules.  Which imply only one thing, by the way:  tell the truth.
But anyway, I'm definitely trying harder to be there for her these days.  I think she needs all the friendship she can get right now, and it's my job as a Christian to provide that.  Sappy though it sounds, it's the truth.