1. And where did he serve his mission?
2. A warm October day down by the Provo River
3. Orem's not so bad when you give it a chance
4. I can rely on myself
5. Jared gets drunk and gets laid
6. Forget about her, Jared
7. A story I never tell anyone

• (character chart)
• Warning/Disclaimer

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

Friday

In the morning, I wanted to go talk to Rex again. Fortunately he was available for a chat just as he had been the day before.

"Well, it's official," I said. "Lynn was right. The girl I like, Andrea, she isn't interested in me. She's Joe's girlfriend now."

"Aw, that's too bad," said Rex. He gave me the most sympathetic look possible. "Well, sometimes that's the way it goes," he said.

I was practically on the verge of tears to hear such a stupid response.

"Look, I'm sorry," said Rex. "I want to be a good brother, but I know my limitations. If you want someone who's going to say something touching and profound, you should be talking to Mom or Lynn... or some gay guy maybe," he said with a small laugh. "But you know, you're just a kid. It's not like you were going to marry this girl."

"I'm almost seventeen years old," I said. "You were eighteen when you met Lynn, and now you're engaged."

Rex thought about that for a bit. "Okay, just because you're my brother and you're having a difficult time, I'm going to tell you a story that I never tell anyone. Yes, it's true that I met Lynn and fell in love with her when I was eighteen. Then what do you think happened?"

"You guys decided that you were both too young to tie yourselves to a long-distance relationship, especially since you didn't have the money to visit each other regularly or even to spend much time on the phone."

"Yep," he said. "That's the official story. And it's perfectly true! That and she was sleeping with some other guy."

"Really?" I asked.

<- previous page

"Look, like I said, I don't like to tell people this story, but if you think you're in a bad way, just imagine what that was like for me. There I was, this nerdy guy, taking all math, science, and computer classes, so you can imagine I wasn't meeting all that many girls. By chance I met Lynn through a friend of a friend while I was at home visiting."

"Right, she was Jake's girlfriend's friend."

"That's right. It was an intimate little gathering, the night we met," he said, looking off into the distance as if imaging it. "Jake had arranged a sort of sleepover at his uncle's cabin."

"You did it with her that first night?" I asked.

Rex laughed. "God, no," he said. "She slept on the couch and I slept on the floor. There were a bunch of us all sleeping together in the living room, so it wouldn't have been possible, even if I'd been able to convince her. But at that point she was still Mormon enough that it was a trick just to convince her to drink some beer. It was so cute the way she hesitated about it."

"I'll bet you showed her your proof that beer isn't against the Word of Wisdom!"

"Exactly!" he said. "It works every time!"

"That's funny," I said. "I can't even picture her as a Mormon."

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