prequel stories #1: who just kisses a little in college?

Perhaps we should start this story with Aurora and Joel, the epic of all epic love stories, and their very first on-again period, which is the same thing as saying, at the beginning.

It was May, 2063, Joel's senior prom. Aurora was in eighth grade. Yikes! All's well that ends well, right? And the thing about prequels is that we already know how this story ends.

Yikes, for sure!

But Joel was going off to college, and thus commenced Aurora and Joel's first off-again period, which was mutual and understood, that Aurora had high school to attend to, and that Joel had the world to see...

And oh, did he ever see the world...

But that's okay, because Aurora found other high school boys to play with in the school hot tub.

By the time Aurora started college, Joel was just leaving university for the city.

They passed each other only briefly before he went, exchanging pleasantries, and a quick, Hey, look at how you grew up! And phone numbers too. On again, kind of, the second time. But Joel had more of the world to see...

And Aurora needed help, with... um, her necklace? Meet Blake. As far as either of them recall, they may have kissed a little in their freshman year of college. And who just kisses a little in college? Well, this is all the photographic evidence we have, so you'll just have to be the judge.

But while Blake was helping Aurora "fix her necklaces..."

Our young Clarice was dating Maxwell Shaw in high school. They were as smitten as any high school love-birds are...

That is, until she came to college and met Blake.

It was a very bitter time.

There was fighting involved. We can't quite remember who won the fight that night, but we all know who Clarice was rooting for.

And she got her man, of course. Blake and Clarice spent most of their college years having "study dates" together.

And Aurora got her man too, when she moved to the city where Joel was. On again, for the third time, and hey, did you know that Aurora used to be a cop for a minute? Aurora and Joel may or may not have broken up one more time after this (you kind of lose count after a while...), but we all know how this story ends up.

Sealed the deal.

They both did. At the time, anyone might have doubted this would be "on again for good," but we know now that it was. We also know that Aurora changed her hairstyles like she changed her socks back then!

Though it seems a young Chad Hathe (and soon to be eighteen year-old father of Liza) had to remind Aurora about her promise a time or two.

But she worked that out, we know. That's the thing about prequel stories, we already know how they end.

***

notes: Thanks everyone for your well wishes! Apartment hunting went well, and we'll be heading back to Michigan tomorrow to start packing up. It was all surprisingly exhausting, but we found a really great place and I'm pleased and excited about it. Not so excited about the packing and moving we have to do now though (ack!).

Given that I will likely not make it anywhere near the September update very soon, I will go ahead and end the Lake City Metro Business Awards in six days when the poll runs out, and post the winner then.

I may end up doing a couple more of these prequel stories, in between regular updates when I can manage them, since they don't require the play time I don't have right now. I'm greatly looking forward to everything being settled down again :)