Dear Diary...

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  Nick picked me up at Felicia’s house on Saturday morning and we made it to the zoo just as it opened. I felt like a little kid. My parents had made many attempts to take me to the zoo when I was younger, but something always seemed to come up; I woke up with the chicken pox, someone at church died, Mark came down with the flu…the list went on and on.

  Nick thought it was hilarious that I was eighteen years old and had never been to the zoo.

  Felicia couldn’t go with us; besides the fact that she never got up before ten if she could help it, she had moved her Saturday night date to a lunch/afternoon date since I was staying the night with her, so her day was pretty well accounted for. I quietly got ready to go, trying not to wake her, but I shouldn’t have even bothered. A full-blown tornado couldn’t have roused her, she was such a heavy sleeper, giving me new insight into that overused and much hated phrase ‘dead to the world’.

  Unlike Daniel, Nick wouldn’t let me get away with insisting I pay for my own admission. Nick taking his future stepdaughter to the zoo; I would have laughed at the irony of the situation if it hadn’t made me want to cry so badly.

  Still, the zoo with Nick was ten times better than anything else with Daniel. I loved animals and Nick knew more about them than anyone I had ever met. His comments at times were so funny that I laughed until my sides ached.

  None of our conversations were earth shaking or deep—I probably wouldn’t even remember the details by the next day—but everything was so lighthearted and fun I admitted to Nick that I felt like a little kid. He laughed and bought me cotton candy, which I promptly demolished.

  Also, unlike Daniel, Nick made sure I was back at the apartment by mid afternoon in order to take a nap. He needed to get back to Austin, but made me solemnly swear I would stay put until Felicia picked me up after my nap. I assured him that I had learned my lesson.

  He laughed and murmured, “That’ll be the day,” in my ear as he hugged me goodbye.

  I felt bereft as I locked the apartment door behind him. Glancing down, I noticed I was still holding the miniature gazelle he had purchased for me at the gift shop on the way out. They were my favorite animals because they were so graceful and I loved to watch them run…no big surprise there.

  I put the gazelle on my desk where I would be able to see it clearly from the bed, then changed my mind and picked it up again. Even though I realized it might poke my eye out while I was sleeping, I decided to risk it anyway.

  I fell asleep with the gazelle in my hand and a smile on my face.