The Journal of Stephen Michael Hobbs - Part 3 of 7

Tuesday, June 7th I just read back over what I wrote yesterday. That doesn't tell you how it was at all. Not by a long shot. I left out too much that showed how she felt about me as the relationship progressed and it ended up reading like I was some kind of stalker or something. It wasn't that way at all. It's just so hard to get the words out on paper. Too much is left out. I don't feel much like writing about Meredith today. I think I'll tell you more about me instead. That ought to be easy. I like to think I might know a thing or two about that topic. I grew up in Granton same as every other kid I knew. There was nothing really special about it. I caught crawdads and played baseball and read comic books same as the other kids. I went to the movies and played in the park and tried to bum smokes from the older kids. Real normal small town kid stuff. The only real difference between me and the other kids is that I was a better athlete than most kids my age. When Junior High rolled around I played on all the teams. It was all so easy. I hit manhood a bit earlier than most of my friends and was big for my age besides. It was around that time that the girls around me started changing too. And how! I learned just how much they were changing from a girl named Jessica Wilson in the 8th grade. No big deal since I think she shared this same knowledge with about half the football team. I wonder where she is now. Probably a preacher's wife or something. Who knows? I certainly had a nice time with her on several occasions the following summer. It wasn't so easy the next year when high school started. Jessica moved on to the Seniors on the Varsity Team and suddenly I wasn't the biggest kid on roster anymore. I kept growing though. By 10th grade I was back in the starting lineup on the defense for the football team and hitting cleanup on the baseball team. I had plenty of girlfriends that year. Nothing special. Then, my Junior Year, a girl named Laura Brighton transferred to our school. Her family had moved from Omaha and she was about the best thing I'd ever seen. She and I were something of an item for most of that year. Her parents never really liked me though and they eventually decided to move back to Omaha just before the school year ended so we couldn't see each other anymore. She was the closest I ever came to really loving someone before Meredith came into my life. Looking back now, I realize how juvenile it all was compared to what I would later have with Meredith, but you couldn't have told me that at the time. At the time I could not have been more head over heals for Laura. I would have done anything for her back in those days. That's what scared her parents so much. They realized I could be something for her that they could never be. That I would do things for her that they could never do. I proved that when Trevor Barnes said something about her that he shouldn't have said. I won't relate exactly what he said, but let's just say it was sexual in nature and that he implied having first hand knowledge. I put that redneck in the hospital for a month. Laura and I should have been closer than ever after I had shown her how much I cared, but instead her parents took her and headed back for Nebraska as soon as they heard about what happened. As soon as they realized she could love me more than she loved them, they took her away from me. It's kind of funny now. Trevor still has that crooked nose I gave him and he won't look me in the eyes when we pass in the market. At least that was true the last time I saw him before I left Granton a few years ago. I got suspended from school for a while because of the whole Trevor/Laura thing. My coaches never treated me the same again after that. They still let me play the following year. They knew they couldn't win without me, but when it came time for college recruiting, I know those hypocrites blacklisted me. No offers. Not a single one. I tried confronting my football coach and he just shook his head and said something about me not being college material. I should have stuffed that stupid whistle down his throat that day. Not college material? Why? Cause I defended my girlfriend? Why couldn't they just come out and tell me the truth! I know the truth is that they were punishing me cause their golden boy Trevor wasn't able to Quarterback the team anymore due to some lingering nerve damage to his shoulder. Same with baseball. He had been the team Ace and he couldn't even throw a ball over 70 MPH after what I did to him. Punk got what he deserved though. If someone else were to say the same thing about Meredith that he said about Laura, I know I'd do much more than just end their sports career. I'd end them period. So I didn't go on to college sports glory. I didn't go on to college at all. After graduation, I bummed around my parents house for a while until they got fed up and made me get a job. After that I worked at Roger's Garage. I was always good with my hands and good with cars. I guess you could say I was in something of a holding pattern in my life. Waiting for the next thing to happen. The next thing to happen was Meredith. I'll tell you more about her tomorrow.