That Chick, wasn't Slick

There once was a girl who was very much in love with a boy. Not just first-love, teenage-heart-flutter kind of love. This boy had been there during some of the hardest parts of her childhood. When home didn’t always feel safe, he did. They loved each other, but life, timing, circumstances, and probably a healthy dose of teenage stupidity meant the boy and the girl couldn’t stay together.

Still, some memories refuse to leave. And of ALL the sweet, romantic memories this girl could have carried with her through life, do you know which one stuck? Spaghetti. Yep. Freaking spaghetti.

Specifically, spaghetti cooked at midnight. Nekked. After an all-night romp involving some very enthusiastic expressions of young love. Listen, nobody said this was a Hallmark movie. There was nothing fancy about it. No candlelight, no expensive restaurant, and no carefully planned romantic gesture. Just two people ridiculously in love, probably exhausted, definitely hungry, and one nekked boy standing in a kitchen making spaghetti in the middle of the night. It was simple, silly, intimate, and somehow became one of her favorite memories.

Eventually, life moved on, as it tends to do whether we're ready for it or not. The girl met another boy, and one day, New Boy asked her a perfectly innocent question. "What's your favorite food?" Without hesitation, she answered, "Spaghetti!" Because it was. Except neither of them stopped to discuss why spaghetti was her favorite. New Boy didn't know spaghetti came with history. He didn't know it belonged to a midnight kitchen, a nekked chef, and a memory the girl had tucked away in a special little corner of her heart. He just knew the girl he loved liked spaghetti.

So when New Boy decided he wanted to marry her, he did something he thought would be incredibly romantic. He planned a spaghetti dinner. After all, what better way to propose to the woman you love than over her favorite meal? In his mind, it probably seemed like the perfect gesture. Thoughtful, personal, romantic. He had remembered something she loved and made it part of one of the biggest moments of their lives.

And there she sat, looking at the spaghetti, looking at the ring, and looking at the man asking her to spend the rest of her life with him. It should have been one of the happiest moments of her life. But somewhere between the noodles, the sauce, and the proposal, her heart wandered back to another kitchen, another night, and another boy.

And all she could wish was that it was the other boy. Oof.

New Boy thought spaghetti was part of their love story. He never knew it had belonged to someone else first. He had no idea that something as innocent as a plate of spaghetti could hold so much history, so many feelings, and a memory that had never really faded. He thought he was creating a beautiful new memory, while she was quietly wishing she could return to an old one.

Sometimes the smallest things carry the biggest memories. A song, a smell, a place, or a stupid plate of noodles with meat sauce. Something completely ordinary to everyone else can mean the entire world to someone who remembers the story behind it. And sometimes you don't realize just how much history you're carrying into your future until someone puts a ring next to it.

Dude… Don’t Be Rude.

Or, in this case… Chick wasn’t slick.