Prologue: The Ending of an Old Flame

Before you can begin to understand how Dave and I came to be, you must understand where I was at that point in my life. I was dating Jonathan...and had been for about 3 years. We had begun dating right at the end of my senior year and after a year away at college, he moved to Reno to be with me and we moved into our first apartment. Things with Jonathan were good...I have no complaints about that relationship. However, we were 18/19 and very young. On Valentine's Day, 2003, Jonathan's little brother passed away from pneumonia. He was only 13. During our entire relationship, my mom's cancer had returned and she was battling that. I guess you could say that for being as young as we were, we were experiencing things that are tough for adults to experience and we were still trying to date each other and be a young normal couple. I was in school and Jonathan was working late hours. I would work on the weekends from 7am-3pm and Jonathan would go to work from 4pm-1am. Obviously we weren't getting to spend much time together. We knew we weren't "happy" as in super in love with each other, but we knew that we needed the stability of each other as our lives were unraveling around us. We needed to know that when we came home from work and school, the one thing that was going to be normal and constant was going to be seeing that other person. Too much was going on around us to deal with trying to date and starting over fresh. We needed each other because we understood each other and the situations we were each dealing with. But in 2004, we decided that it was going to be best if we remained friends and no longer dated. It was hard losing something that had been part of your life for so long, but in my heart I know it was the right thing. And I think we both had someone else that we were ready to move on to.