When I got back to school a little over a month later, Kenney, of course, was the first to come see me. Actually, he was already waiting for us when we got there. My father, who could always respect a hard-working man, appreciated the fact that Kenney had gone out of his way to come and help us unload all of my crap. My mother, who always loved the boys anyway, was thrilled to meet him. Of course, as mothers often do, she had to totally ruin everything by asking where Collin was staying.

"I think I'll stop by his room and speak to his mother. I haven't seen her in years!"

Kenney, always the silent observer, kept his mouth shut and went back outside to help my dad unload the rest of my things. I caught a glimpse of his face on the way out, though, and knew that he was not at all happy with Collin's name being in my mother's mouth. I couldn't tell whether it was the fact that my mom seemed to like Collin more than him, or if it was the fact that Kenney disliked Collin to the point where even the sound of Collin's name pissed Kenney off. Whatever the case, Kenney's face grew even darker when my father decided to go and "holler at ol' Collin," too.

As soon as my dad closed the door behind him, I looked guiltily over at Kenney. Before I could say anything, though, he quickly fixed his face and changed the subject.

"Why do you always have so much crap anyway, Tashi?"

"Because I'm a girl. That's what we do," I joked cautiously, still not sure what kind of mood he was in.

I waited until Kenney laughed, and then I laughed too.

"So...your mom seems to like Collin a lot," Kenney replied casually.

"She always did." I looked away and started unpacking my clothes.

"Bad judge of character, I guess."

I looked over at him quickly. Who did Kenney think he was?

"Don't talk about my mom like that! Who the hell are you?"

Kenney's eyes widened in surprise, and I was immediately sorry for the second half of what I'd just said.

"I see you must like him a lot too, then."

"He's not as bad as you think he is," I said earnestly.

Kenney just looked away and bit his tongue. Then he picked up a box without looking at it, or me, and with his eyes still cast downwards asked, "So where do you want this?"

Kenney looked so dejected that I went over to take the box from him and hugged him, feeling a little sad myself. I expected him to pull away from me, but he didn't. He just hugged me back.

"Thanks for helping me, Kenney. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad."

"Never that." Then he smiled at me and put his arms around me, kissing my forehead. "I love you."

"Love you back."

Looking up at him, I realized that he wasn't just saying that. He really did love me. A lot. The funny thing was I really did love him, too. A lot. But at the time, there was nothing that either of us could do about it.

Man...timing is a real bitch.

A couple of days after my parents left, Kenney tried to warn me one more time about Collin. I couldn't understand what Kenney could possibly have against him, seeing as how he'd only met him once. Well, twice. It was like he had some kind of personal grudge against Collin for...being my friend? Only, that would have been crazy. Who knew what went on in the minds of men, though? I sure as hell didn't.

The way that Kenney would warn me, every single time, would always start out as a joke. It would always be in the middle of me teasing him about his taste in women, which I did all the time. Deidra excluded, of course, because he had been extra sensitive about her from day one. Then he would always come back with a snide Collin remark. But then he'd suddenly turn serious and say something like, "But for real. I know I play a lot, but please don't get ol' boy hemmed up."

This one night, in particular, I went to Jasmine's with Kenney and he talked about Collin all the way there. I don't know what it was that set him off, exactly. Maybe it was the fact that I had almost canceled on him because of something that Collin wanted to do at the last minute. I'm not really sure. All I know is that his rebuttal to everything I said that night had something to do with Collin. After Aunt Jasmine let us in the back door and gave Kenney the approval wink when she saw that he was with me again, I tried to lighten the mood by nodding towards a lady sporting a fluorescent green jump suit that perfectly framed her humongous butt.

"There you go Kenney. She looks like your type."

"Well, we can't all have it like Collin, can we?"

That was the last straw. "Shit Kenney! What the hell is your problem? Why do you keep bringing him up? That fool don't have jack to do with you, so why do you keep talking about him?"

About halfway through my tirade, Kenney looked away and I could tell that he hadn't meant to speak his words out loud. When he didn't even fire a little bit of something back, I inched my hand toward his.

"Kenney?"

He took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm trippin'. I guess...I guess I must still have a crush on you or somethin'." When I blinked at him in surprise, he grinned over at me and quickly tried to play it off. "But alas..." he began in his overdramatic jokester way, "you're taken...I'm taken. That's just the way it goes, I guess." When I still didn't play along with him, he got serious. "Naw, really. I don't even know the guy. You seem to think he's alright, and he seems to be treating you ok, so...that's really all I need to know." He looked away. "Sorry, Tashi. I won't bring him up again."

I didn't really have a response to that.

Any of that.

All of his "watch that dude" warnings did, however, make me think twice about Collin. But only for a second. I still had my own doubts about getting back together with him, too, but I figured I might as well give it a chance. After all, he was the first guy I'd ever loved. And there weren't any other prospects. Well, none available that I seriously considered. Why not give it another try and see what happened?

To be honest, no one else could have held a flame to Collin at that time. No one. We had too much history together and what looked, in my eyes, to be way too much potential future.

"Ok, one more thing and then I promise I'll let it go," Kenney said, breaking into my thoughts. "What do you see in this joker, anyway? I mean what is it about him that makes you totally bypass everything sideways that he's done and just always keep this one particular image that you must have in your mind of him?"

I was thrown by Kenney's dead on question, and was compelled for some reason to tell the truth. "I guess...I guess I've just always been a sucker for fairy tales." I looked across the table at him and smiled. He smiled back, confused. "What we have is...it's like movie love. I've known him all my life. Even the way we met is like something that you'd see in a movie."

I knew I was getting starry-eyed, like I always did when I talked about fairytale love, and I tried to control it, but I couldn't. Thankfully, Kenney just continued to give me a steady gaze and forced another smile. Then, to my surprise, he raised his glass.

"Movie love. I'll drink to that."

As we clinked glasses, I could tell that he really did understand what I was trying to say. Not many people would have listened to that crock without making fun of me for it, much less would have tried to understand it. But Kenney, God bless him, did and I loved him for that. I loved him so much, as a matter of fact, that I couldn't help but wonder if I wouldn't have been better off trying to get with him instead of Collin. But true to what would later become the Kenney and Natasha saga, timing was always a bitch.