The Journal of Stephen Michael Hobbs Part 2 of 7

Monday, June 6th I almost didn't sit down to write this today. First of all my hand hurt like fire after all that writing yesterday. Second of all I don't really know how to put into words something like how we met. I can tell you about what happened, but unless you could feel all the things there were to feel I don't know that you'll be able to understand. I'll try though. I got nothing else to do. I first met Meredith about 11 years ago. A little over 11. It was in the spring. I saw her walking into some knick knack store on the square. One of those stores that sells a bunch of junk no one needs. Snow globes and stuff like that. You know the kind. It turned out she worked there, but I didn't know that at first. It was love at first sight, just like you hear about. For me anyway. Since she didn't see me when I first saw her she couldn't feel the same way I did right away. I was just coming out of the courthouse when I saw her across the street, getting out of her car. I can still see it today, just like it happened then, except now I sort of see it in slow motion, like in a movie. She stepped out of a yellow Volkswagen Bug and walked into the junk store. She had this really great tan and was wearing a red dress with white flowers on it. It was one of those little summer dresses and it hit her about mid thigh. She was tall, leggy, and had dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She had on these really big sunglasses so I didn't get a great look at her face until later.  I decided I wanted to get a better look at her and find out who she was. So I crossed the street and went inside that junk shop. Like I said before, it turned out she worked there and was behind the counter already. I start walking around the place, picking stuff up and pretending to look at it while keeping one eye on her the whole time. Turned out her face was just as nice to look at as her figure. Nicer even. She had these enormous brown eyes and really full lips. She had lips like that actress. What's-her-name with the full lips? I'm bad with names. You probably know who I mean though. That really smoking hot one. So finally she comes over and asks me if I need help finding anything. So I give her a line about how now that she was in front of me I think I found just what I was looking for. She's classy though. She doesn't go for it that easy and looks a little annoyed and tells me to let her know if I need any more help and goes back behind the counter again. I look around for another couple of minutes to make it look good before I leave. This kind of set the pattern for the next few weeks. As soon as I got off work each day I'd wash up and head over to pretend to shop for something. She played dumb every day and mostly pretended to ignore me, but we both knew what was going on and it was obvious that there was a mutual attraction building between us. I figured out her first name from listening to some of the regular customers talking to her. A bunch of old blue hairs mostly, buying baskets and those dead flowers that smell like old ladies houses. Poper-something or other. Maybe I'll ask the priest about that stuff next time I see him. Could be those baskets are religious or something and he'll know what they're called. So anyhow, I wanted to find out more about this girl besides that her name was Meredith, so one day I decided to wait across the street and follow her home. By the next day I knew her full name, address, and just about everything else there was to know. She lived outside of town, out in the boonies and it turned out she was a High School Junior down at Woodrow, which is where I went to school. So she would have been a freshman my Senior year. Looking back, I still wonder how I missed seeing her when we were both in the same school together every day for a year. Maybe she hadn't blossomed yet or something. I was pretty caught up in playing football and baseball, so it would have been pretty easy to overlook some flat chested little runt with all the cheerleader skirt I was chasing back then. But back to Meredith. She didn't have no brothers or sisters. Just that possum faced mother I already mentioned, and her dad, who worked some white collar job in the city for some big shot company. I decided to start moving the relationship forward a bit, but wanted this time to be different than the other girls. I wanted to make sure she knew that what I felt for her was different than anything I'd ever felt before. That it was special and she was special. So what I did was that I started leaving things for her on her windowsill. Little presents just for her. It was easy enough to figure out which window was hers. Don't go thinking I'm some kind of a peeping tom or something though! I never looked in no one else's window before or since. It wasn't anything like what those pervert weirdoes do when they go around trying to peep in people's windows for a glimpse of skin. I loved Meredith from the first moment I saw her. It was a different kind of thing when I'd watch her. I'd stand out there for hours some nights just watching her doing her homework, or reading a book. I even watched her sleep all night a few times. It got so that I could barely keep my eyes open at the garage the next day. So anyway, I started leaving things there for her on the windowsill. Just little things so she'd know someone was thinking about her and cared about her. A flower one day. A polished rock another day. I kept this up for a few weeks until her nosy cow of a mother got wise and bought one of those motion detector lights and put it right outside of Meredith's window. I had to run like a cursed rabbit the first night when it came on. I just made it to the trees when I heard the door open and her dad started yelling for me to "show yourself, you pervert!" He had a shotgun in his hands and looked ready to blast the first thing that moved. It was right then that I knew her parents would do anything to keep us apart. I can barely hold the pen steady now. Dang hand cramps. More tomorrow.