Chapter 9 – His Side – She came with Baggage

Hey guys! My husband is back for another chapter of his side of the story! As keeping with our personalities, it took me seven chapters to write what he’s writing in about 2. He wanted to title this one “Baggage Claim” and you’ll see why!

Catch up on my side here — one — two — three — four — five — six — seven.

Catch up on his side here — one

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“Hey man, you came with baggage. I wasn’t feeling it.”

The date went great. We hangout. We kicked it. We were getting to know each other and I wasn’t in a rush to be in a relationship. We were cool and I was okay with that. Right before summer break we had a little issue that really pissed me off. Natalia crashed her car while coming home from seeing me one night. Thankfully she was fine, but for whatever reason it was my fault. I wasn’t in the car. I wasn’t driving. I didn’t know she fell asleep driving. ‘t was irritating that others kept blaming me, but it is what it is.

Before I even left for summer there was a lot going on behind the scenes. There were allegations against Natalia about what kind of girl she was. There was a lot of negativity from the coaches — well, one particular coach — who had his mind made up about her. I just assumed so many people knew something I didn’t know.

I tried to ask questions on my own, without being obvious, but it just left room for interpretation. I heard about the guys she dated and they said stuff she had done. Some of it turned out to be true so it made me rethink a little bit of everything. With all that going on, the coach that didn’t like her was also trying to push me to see other people. Anything to get me away from her.

I was excited to see her when I first came back and we hung out quite a bit. Then there were more allegations that started coming up that just turned me off. (Side note from Natalia: THOSE WEREN’T TRUE!!!) It was just a lot of drama and it had me torn. When I am in doubt, it makes me more cautious and I started to distance myself a little bit. I don’t like drama and do my best to stay out of it.

One day, one of my teammates introduced me to this girl. I didn’t think anything of it, just thought I was the wing man. She didn’t really spark my interest at first but after some time she was just cool. There was no drama associated with her at all and to me, that was just sweet. She was a nice person, she was attractive and my curiosity just got me thinking “well, we’ll see how this goes.”

I must have asked her to be my girl at some point although right now I don’t really remember when or how I did that. I knew Natalia wasn’t happy. I knew that she had a little hate club goin’ on with one of her friends. I understood why she could have been mad, but it is what it is, man.

Really it seems like a good part of that relationship was to not think about Natalia, being drama-free and to disassociate from her.

I got injured in my basketball season and I specifically remember Natalia being nice to me about something. Something about being sorry for my injury and if I needed anything to let her know. At that time she was just cool. Someone to talk to, someone that — when it was just me and her — there was no drama. She was always just herself. I didn’t feel like she thought I had alternative motives or that there was anything more, it was just cool. Just two friends hanging out. At that time, that’s exactly what I needed – just a good friend.

I started calling her just to see what she was up to, maybe chat for something like 15 minutes and then I’d end up having to ask her to take me to get something to eat after missing the cafeteria because we’d end up talking for hours. My injury left me immobile for the most part and I spent long periods of time in my room. Because I wasn’t around my teammates as often and therefore wasn’t hearing all the negativity that surrounded her, I didn’t have all that chirpin’ in my ear. It enabled us to have a time to just be us. No outside noise or interference. It simplified things and I like simple.

We had hung out most of the second semester and it was all just flowing. I can’t remember a specific switch in my mind or changing from friends to more, but it just seemed to happen that way. There were a lot of things on my mind with the injury – did they want me back? Could I be the same after rehab? She was there and always was a great support. She sincerely cared about how I was doing and that went a long way for me.

As much as Natalia thinks it was, there wasn’t a real deep thought process as to why I didn’t ask her to be my girl. I thought we were in a good place and I was fine where it was. We were cool. Maybe the other stuff lingered to the back of my mind, but at this point where we were just seemed right. Even though women don’t understand it, I wasn’t interested in meeting or seeing other women. Dealing with one chick is enough. It was time to go home which to me is a time to be with my family, be rejuvenated, get home cooking and just be in my culture. I couldn’t have cared less about meeting new chicks.

We didn’t talk too much during the summer break, but I was looking forward to see her when I came back.

Author information

Natalia Owner & Author
Natalia is a mom to two crazy boys and wife to one handsome dude. She lives in France part of the year where her husband plays professional basketball, but she hails from Southern California. The hubs was born & raised in Nassau, Bahamas, which makes them an intercultural, interracial family traveling the globe together since 2007. She loves to cook (but mostly eat), hang with her fam, be adventurous, & find ways to stay girlie in a house full of men. On her site you can find loads of hair tutorials, makeup ideas, & fashion tips for the everyday woman. She believes that beauty and fashion don't have to be intimidating and that every woman should learn to embrace her own beauty. TwitterFacebookGoogle LinkedIn

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