“Here she was, a girl unlike any
other girl.  A girl you can joke around
with; a girl who could probably teach me a thing or two in Quake; a beautiful,
charismatic, and most importantly – a smart girl. 
So if she is all of these wonderful qualities… why then, is she so off
limits?

I still remember the day I met her;
a very opinionated, smart, boisterous, and beautiful young girl.  One of the first things she said to me was, “I
have just the friend for you!”  I think
anyone would shiver to those words come from someone you could potentially be
interested in.  In hindsight it wasn’t
that bad.  There I was – 3,000 miles from my home and family, on top of that I was
meeting my new roommate’s girlfriend; having a crush on this woman couldn’t end
well.

That was over five years ago.  Then
why do I feel so very guilty that I am just e-mailing this woman back?  She and her husband, my “ex-roommate” have
all but gotten a divorce, she is in the middle of no-where and obviously is in
need of a friend.  So be it; that’s what
I will do, I will be what she needs.  I can’t feel guilty for being a friend…

So I continued to e-mail
Mandy.  With each e-mail I received from
her it became harder and harder to stay within the “friend” boundary.  We would talk about our problems, our joys,
what was going on with our lives.  All
the normal things that people who are friends talk about; nothing that could
possibly be perceived as flirting.

We continued this correspondence
for almost four months, each of us going through a few romantic
relationships of our own.  None of the relationships
were really anything substantial, but we were always there for each other in
e-mail, as much as we could be.  However, through all
that I tried to do for this woman to try to cheer her up, I never could
get her to stay optimistic for more then a little while.  Her sadness and loneliness was always one
step ahead of me.  That and, of course,
e-mails – no matter how long – can only cheer someone up for so long.

It was then that I had the perfect
idea.  She needs a vacation!  Just a change in scenery should help brighten
her up and help her forget her troubles.  So
I mentioned it to her in another e-mail. 
“Mandy!  You should come to North Carolina and
have a great vacation!”  I know, I know…
out of all the places to have a holiday, why would I pick the very state that I
live in?  Well partly because I wanted to
see her, but mainly because I knew she would have a good time and she would have
someone looking out for her.

Mandy agreed!  She thought it would be a wonderful
idea.  She said she could maybe put off
going back home to Canada for
a week and take a vacation after she finished her Ultrasound Clinicals.  Oh, I thought I was being a great friend and I
had potentially solved everyone’s problems. 
I was so proud of myself, my idea.  She
would stay with my folks on the lake, I could take off a few days, I thought I
had the whole thing worked out.  The only
problem in this “fool proof” plan was that she wouldn’t be done with her
clinicals for another two months.  She
would still be sad till then.

As luck would have it, my little brother found the
woman of his dreams, the woman that he would marry, the woman that would be the
mother of his children.  And with luck on our side, they so conveniently decided to have the wedding only
4 hours away from where Mandy was stuck, in Arkansas.”