The Rebuttal

Belmont was not were I was supposed to go to school. Granted, it was in my top three choices, but I was Knoxville bound. I had already bought my dad a t-shirt that said “Tennessee Dad” on it, which pretty much means it was official. I had my housing assignment at UT that said I would be roommates with my best friend Chelsea in South Carrick. Everything was good to go.

Until…Chelsea got offered a softball scholarship to Belmont. And within just a couple of days, I changed my whole plan and ended up enrolling at Belmont. Since Chelsea was involved in athletics, I was around athletes at Belmont from the get go.

The first time I heard of Keaton Belcher was in the “Caf”. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of girls and he was walking nearby, so one of the girls got up and said something to him. There may have been talk of his good looks (my memory is fuzzy), but I definitely did not participate. (Not interested, although I’m sure he thought every girl was).

He is correct in saying we did not talk until Sophomore year spring semester after Psychology Lab. HOWEVER, he failed to mention that I had to chase him out the door to catch up with him to talk. We had done the ridiculous ice breakers in Psych Lab and he mentioned being from Kentucky. I still was not interested in him, but I thought it was a chance to initiate a conversation. So I sped walked across the Psych Building parking lot to catch him (If you have ever walked with him you know he doesn’t waste time or dawdle) and wooed him with the line “So, you are from Kentucky?”.

We proceeded to talk about Kentucky and my dad for the next couple of minutes as we walked down a sidewalk towards the Curb (Me at a jog pace, slightly out of breath). Then it ended with something like, “Welp, see ya”. I got a bottle of water to rehydrate and continued on with my life as usual.

I was around him throughout the years. My friends dated friends of his. We were both business majors so we had classes together and hung out in Massey. Once, him and his basketball cronies threw my smoothie from What’s Bruin in my face and ran off laughing…I bet he doesn’t remember that. Cried for days.

But seriously…Limited interaction between us except for the occasional “Hello” I would say in passing. UNTIL, he boldly asked me to carpool out to our Cool Springs class that one day my final semester at Belmont. I don’t know which was more surprising…his proposal two weeks ago or him asking if I wanted to carpool. I’m pretty sure I gave him a blank stare and said “sure” (Proposal answer was the same, blank stare and “yes”).

On the way to meet him for our first carpool, I called an anonymous friend and told them I would get them the hook up with Keaton. HA! Whoopthie…I am probably not the best friend in the world to have.

Keaton and I went from strangers to best friends in what seems like minutes. I’m pretty sure he fell in love with me instantly (after I said The Used was my favorite band). He says he didn’t like me then, but who are we kidding. We always have so much fun together (eg. Drive around downtown shooting marshmallows at people…my apologies to those wounded).  He is so easy to be around. He is even keeled and steady like a rock…which goes well with my bipolar tendencies. It is like he has been around my whole life. I don’t think he is sneaky enough to have planned how all of this would fall into place, but he definitely slipped in so smoothly.

The rest is history. Really, it is. Besides his obsession with Kentucky high school sports and Twitter, I feel like I am pretty important to him. He is everything I could ever want in a friend, sports analyst, boyfriend, blogger, fiancé, future husband and baby’s daddy. And he isn’t bad to look at either. My dad always tells me I have lived a charmed life…I’ve never disagreed with him. I don’t know how I got so lucky!