“Hey, wanna go outside and grab some fresh air?”

“Yeah, sure, that would be a good idea.”

Second round done, finally, I remember going outside and was talking to J.P. and Lily when JP mentioned that last round we had a pair of girls who did a piece called “The Black Butler”, Lily then stated “Dude, that's an anime.” Of which is a cartoon from Japan, I obviously didn't know that since well, I don't watch anime as much as I should. But after we went to go see Lily’s dog Roscoe, we sat down on like a wall that was roughly 2-2 ½ feet tall, I sat down contemplating the last two rounds, thinking ‘oh god, there's no way we did well in either of those two rounds.” or something like that . Just thinking about the last two rounds with the crisp Saginaw spring breeze (odd to say it seems like a contradiction) Afterwards, JP wanted me to get up to go talk to the two and talk.

“Come on dude, let's go talk to them.”

I remember initially saying no, but afterwards I reluctantly said yes and murmured under my breath “How bad could it be?”

They sat at a small, round granite picnic table, JP walked up and said hi. I followed him with my brand new blue converse taking relatively heavy steps ready to embarrass myself. I sat down at another part of that small table and kinda just muttered something, can't exactly remember. One of the two was a tall girl who wore like a black dress and had brown hair that covered a bit of her face that was branded and was wearing glasses, the other significantly shorter and just overall smaller. Then we went through our paces just like the stuff to get to know others. I asked her if she was a big fan of The Hobbit since I remember when I said “Gandalf” at the beginning of his and mines’ piece, I remember her becoming quite excited. She replied with “yeah, you guys did well!”

“Thanks!” Either myself or J.P. Retorted, I honestly can't remember. Lily then asked her what her name was.

 “Oh, my name’s Anna.” Anna introduced herself as. Lily then asked “so what's your name?” Gesturing to the other. The other girl there just kinda shyly spoke “heh, Evelyn”, she didn't really talk much, I haven't even really talked to her since then. After about 30-90 seconds more of speaking, I remember wise cracking “Ya know, the two things you don't want to see are my handwriting and my Spotify songs” (still something I wholeheartedly believe)

“Same!” Anna enthusiastically added on.

“I mean personally I like hardcore/punk such as Negative Approach, Minor Threat, Black Flag.”

“Oh, I love Black Flag!” It was at that moment I was like ‘well, I think I got myself a friend here’ or maybe I was thinking more strongly. Continuing on, I remember having a quite lovely conversation until I checked the time and realized we had to go since round three was beginning soon so I asked Anna “Do you have like a Facebook or anything like that?”

“I do have an Instagram.” She replied in an informative way (cause instead of giving each other’s numbers we just give our social media apparently) she then passed her phone around and let us input our usernames. When it got to me I remember being very meticulous since I had a long username and I didn't want to drop her phone which was an iPhone with no case.

JP and I went on to round three with well, nothing to lose in our minds. So we went in and did our piece, it was quite a fun little experience. But a bit of a let down since well, we had to sit in a middle school classroom with almost cardboard walls and with some pieces that well, to be blunt, weren't all that good. One group did do Wicked though, that was pretty good, had pretty voices too.

A little while later at the awards ceremony, after of course me nearly having a heart attack from the fact I had the most laid back people about being on time with me being so up in arms about . The atmosphere was tense, and when it got to duo (the category we were competing in), I nearly froze, I just wanted to get something to end of my career in forensics, it turns out that I end my forensic career with a semi-finalist position that made me feel amazing, all that time and effort put in and the almost endless hours of toil, all worth it. Once that was finished, I remember looking for her in the sea of people, thinking only of her and what she thought about it, I did end up finding her, a great sense of relief washed over me.

“Hey Jack!” I heard Anna shout.

“Oh thank god” I murmured under my breath.

“Congrats on the semi-finalist spot! You guys did great! You in my opinion deserved to actually place!”

“Thanks man, you deserved it too.” We continued talking for a bit and well, in probably my biggest I guess ‘romantic’ advancement up until then, I put my arm around her. She reached her hand up I assume to hold mine but then I thought she wanted to take my arm off her so I took mine off. When I read the fact she wanted to do the hand holding thing I sarcastically remarked “oh you want me to keep my arm around you?” she then chuckled. This would in the long run prove futile since she now has a boyfriend and it well isn't me. 6 month foresight out of the way. I told her “I'll send you a DM later, okay?” and well, that right there was one of the smartest things I've ever decided to do.

For you see, we have had some great talks between each other and experiences with each other. Whether it just kicking around with each other, or legitimately helping each other out. Great things to those who wait, and well, I guess that “great thing” for me was her.