One fall day, October 11, 2009 to be exact, was the best day of my life. I finally got to spend some time with the guy of my dreams. We weren’t exactly dating yet, but it was pretty close. We had been talking on and off for about three months. It was a rough three months, let me tell you! I’ve known him for awhile, and I talked to him a lot when I was dating one of his friends. As soon as Mike and I broke up, which was the relationship that I regret the most, Cody started to text me. I already had a feeling he kind of liked me, so I definitely took advantage of him talking to me. I was hiding that I was talking to Cody from my parents because I knew that they weren’t going to let that happen. First of all, I just got out of a relationship and second, it was one of Mike’s friends and my parents thought that Cody was going to do the same thing to me that Mike did. I cried and begged my parents to let me date him. I was trying to convince them that Cody wasn’t the same. Of course they weren’t going for it. So Instead of me listening to them, I rebelled. I was going to talk to Cody whether they liked it or not. I was doing this because I wanted to be with Cody so bad, even if I had to lie about it. That isn’t like me at all. My parents usually let me have anything I wanted, but for some reason they didn’t want me to have Cody. It was a never ending battle with my parents for three months. My dad was more the problem then my mom. My mom was always trying to help me out with the situation and convincing my dad to let him come over to the house so they could sit down and talk to him. I guess one day they were tired of trying to fight this situation with me. I was picked up from school and my mom has a piece of notebook paper for me. It was a note from my dad and all of the rules that I had to follow to date Cody. I didn’t care what the rules were as long as I got to date him. It was typical rules: you can’t stay out past this certain time, you are not allowed to be around Mike, you can only go certain places and it went on and on and on. I was so happy even though these rules were pretty stupid. I agreed with my parents because I didn’t care, I just wanted to be with Cody. I went home, messaged Cody on MySpace, and let him know that we were allowed to see each other, and he was pretty excited too. He was asking me a whole bunch of questions like what changed your dad’s mind. Was he mad when you told him the truth? I was telling Cody that dad would just have to talk to him before we went out anywhere, so it’s not going to be a big deal. There was a football game coming up that Friday, and I asked him if he wanted to come to the game and watch me cheer. He didn’t know if he wanted to do that because he hated football games, but he said yes anyways. Well Friday came and there was no Cody. I texted him and asked him where he was, and he was with Mike. I asked him if he was coming to the game, and he said no. I asked him if he wanted to see me this weekend and he replied idk, which is the most aggravating text message to me. So after the football game, I went to the Movie Gallery. My mom was the manager there. We were all standing outside and here comes Cody in his car with Mike and Larry. I was telling myself if he doesn’t stop and talk to you, this was all a joke and he really doesn’t care about you. And guess what? Cody didn’t stop and I know he saw me because he purposely drove around the Movie Gallery. My mom’s exact words to me were, “I told you so Raven, this was all a joke”. I was just so mad at that point; I didn’t know what to do because he made me look so stupid. The next day or so I got a message on MySpace saying, “I’m sorry I just don’t think we should talk anymore, you know Lane likes you and he’s my friend and I can’t do that to him”, and I replied, “so what have I been to you this whole time? What are you doing to me? You shouldn’t have led me on like that, if you knew that Lane liked me this whole time. Lane isn’t going to like me forever and I think you are giving me a bull crap excuse”. He just kept telling me that he was sorry and blah, blah, blah. Well at this point in time, my mom was on my MySpace. She had my password and was reading my messages to Cody. She called me and told me that my dad saw them and that I was in so much trouble. She said that I will never learn, and that I was stupid. I got my phone taken away and my parents were always on my MySpace and Face Book. Well it was more of my dad than anything. My mom was the one trying to save me from me getting in trouble. I getting in trouble this whole time still didn’t stop me from talking to Cody. I used my friend’s phones, Like Haley, Alexis’ and Brittany’s to talk to him because I still had my phone taken away. But, I had Lane to still deal with because he did like me at the time. Lane was my best guy friend but he was also Cody’s best friend which did make this situation very hard. I asked Lane to homecoming like a week or two before… I already had my dress and everything because If I wasn’t going to find a date I was just going to go by myself. So Of course, Lane said yes. Lane did know that I was talking to Cody still and he told me not to but I couldn’t help it because I really liked him. Lane and I went to the mall and hung out a couple times just as friends and that’s what started him liking me, which my parents told me that was going to happen. Lane told me he liked me, but, he knew I didn’t like him. It really hurt his feelings that I liked his best friend. I was glad that I was going to homecoming with Lane though. PVC’s for Cheerleading was that coming weekend and Apple Butter. I got this random text from Cody. I was so excited to have my phone back I didn’t want to text him back. I did anyways. The text said that he was really sorry for what he did to me and that he felt stupid because he really does like me. That he wanted to come over to the house and meet my parents and apologize to them. I was so excited. He wished me good luck at PVC’s and he was talking to me like we were already dating. I did keep this from my parents till we got home from PVC’s because the next day was Apple Butter. So when we got home from Apple Butter I was following my dad around the house, trying to make myself talk to him about it. I couldn’t so; I went back to my room. My mom came in my room like ten minutes later and told me that your father came to me and said your acting weird, like you have something to tell us. I instantly put a smile on my face and said, “don’t be mad at me when I tell you this but, Cody texted me.” And she said “Raven Michele, now I told you”. I said “mom look at these text messages, Cody wants to come over the house and meet you guys and apologize”. She told me that she would talk to dad about it. So she called him in the bedroom with us. She told me to tell him. Mom first said that “your daughter has something to tell you, don’t get mad at her because she is telling you the truth. Don’t instantly react about it”. So I told him, he really didn’t have a reaction and just said ok. I was so happy that Mom and I went to the top of the hill, because that’s the only place that I had service on my old cell phone, to text Cody. I texted Cody and said you get to come over tonight with a smiley face to talk to my parents and I told him what time. I also told him to be prepared because my dad was definitely going to talk to him. I told Cody to come over around 7. I was so nervous for him to come over because I haven’t actually hung out with him since like July. So I didn’t know what to expect. Mom Dad and I were waiting anxiously for him to get here. I heard his car pull up in the drive way, and I went out to the porch and opened the door for him. I instantly got butterflies because he looked at me while walking up the steps just smiling at me. He walked in the house and my dad walked up to him and shook his hand. My mom laughing said “you know we have to talk to you first before I let you date my daughter”. So we sat down at the dining room table together, and my dad was asking him all of these questions, but I guess it was typical for him. I didn’t expect some of these questions to come out of my dad’s mouth at all and neither did my mom. Cody just sat there and agreed and listened to my dad. Dad told me if he wanted to be with you and he really liked you then he was going to sit there and listen to me and what I had to say. And that’s exactly what Cody did. After the whole talking thing was done I asked dad if we could go to liberty to get something to eat and get out of the house. So Cody took me to Liberty. We went and got pizza and of course he paid for me. He is the sweetest guy I have ever met. He held my hand in the car and he couldn’t stop smiling. We just talked about random things on the way up and back. I didn’t care what we talked about I just wanted to be with him. We got back to the house and I told mom that Cody and I were going for a walk. So we left the house and started to walk around my development. It’s all gravel roads and they were working on a lot of things at the time so all of the paths were pretty much gone. So we had a fun time walking around. I could tell he was nervous by just the way he was talking to me, and he could definitely tell that I was nervous too. So he went to go hold my hand, and that’s how we walked the rest of the way home. We got back to the house and went to the living room to watch Super Bad. Mom and Dad said that he could stay to eleven. So, I was pretty excited about that because I didn’t want him to leave yet. We watched a couple of movies and ate dinner. My parents told him that he would have to come over my house for awhile till they get to know him and everything which was understood because he is 19. It was almost eleven and both of us didn’t want him to leave. So I walked him to the door and he told me “please don’t let it be forever again till I see you”. I promised him it wouldn’t be and that he would see me tomorrow, that he could pick me up from practice and he can come over the house again. Of course he agreed. He kissed me goodnight and gave me a really long hug and said goodbye. I walked him out to his car and since it was freezing, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to ask him for his sweatshirt. So he went in his car and got me his sweatshirt. He gave me another hug and told me I’ll see you tomorrow babe. I walked back inside and of course my mom wanted to know all of the details. So I told her and she said she was happy for me and this was Cody’s last chance and he better not screw it up because then I’m going to have to deal with your father again. I promised her that he wouldn’t.