I was hot, sore and sweaty as I made my way back to the fairgrounds during Old Fort Boise days. I had just finished marching the long gruesome miles it took to do the town parade in my heavy snare drum, and was ready to relax with some rides and carnival refreshments.

I found my sister and we went to stand in line for tickets. As we waited I heard someone say my name. It took a few moments for me to register someone was trying to get my attention. So many years going to school with two other girls with my name have conditioned me to assume I’m not the Gabby they’re looking for.

“Gabby!”

I turned to see my friend, Lucas, standing a few feet away. Overcome with the joy of finding a friend, I ran to him at full speed and leaped into a hug. Mid hug I opened my eyes to see someone I never thought I’d see again.

Immediately a name snaps into my head. Ben Wood. I know this name because after the first day we made eye contact I never forgot it.

It was my seventh grade year, and we were at a band festival. It sounds like a place where you go to have fun, and mingle with other bands, but it’s not. It’s a serious competition where your school’s concert band goes to play their selected pieces for three judges who rank you. One is the best rank you can have.

Our director spends weeks prepping us for more than just our music, but for our band etiquette. We are instructed to wear all black. Any other color is unacceptable. We must be totally silent as we make our way down the hall as well as keep our hands to ourselves. Everything about us must resemble the perfect band student. These festivals are a huge deal for us because it’s a chance to really show off our playing skills.

We had some time to kill before we went on, so we were allowed to watch some other bands perform. We sat in a huge auditorium overlooking an impressive stage full of chairs, and percussive instruments. I sat down next to my three best friends at the time, but since, for middle school, the seventh and eighth grade bands conjoin I also had an eighth grader seated to my right.

I hardly had to glance to know who it was, and it made me extremely nervous. He was a trombonist who I very much looked up to. He was everything I wanted to be as a band kid. Every time I saw him play, or attended one of our concerts, he was so serious. I don’t know exactly how, but when I looked at him I just knew this was what a band kid was supposed to be like.

Not to mention he was easily recognizable with his long fluffy blonde hair, beard and towering height. He was just overall very intimidating.

I knew I should do my best to impress him, and the rest of the eighth graders, and in the concert hall it was certainly taboo for us to be talking, but sitting next to my three other friends made it nearly impossible for me not to goof off at least a little.

Though I know we were in the wrong it wasn’t like we weren’t talking in the most hushed voices possible, but mid giggle I felt this sort of intense aura. I slowly sat forward, and glanced over to my right where the eighth grader was sitting. He looked super tense. He was sitting with perfect posture and staring straight ahead, but then his head slowly started to turn towards me, and the look he gave me was of intense rage, and disappointment.

The rest of my friends saw him, too, and we all leaned away in a sort of comical fear. When he was done glaring at us he slowly turned back to his former position. We were silent for the rest of the performance.

Since then I made a point of learning his name. I don’t remember who told me, but eventually I learned it was Ben Wood. I made sure to remember it, as well as do everything in my power to be the best band kid I could be. This scenario is probably the reason why no one can get me to crack a smile while I’m playing my drum. I want to ensure my concentration is high.

After that year, Ben moved away, and I only heard him brought up in some conversations with friends I made in the future, but I had never expected to run into him again let alone exchange actual words with him. After my embrace with Lucas was over, he introduced Ben to me as his best friend, and invited me to follow them around the carnival. I was a little hesitant, but in the end decided to get over myself. Chances were that Ben didn’t even recognize me.

Turns out I was right. Eventually I was able to muster the courage to talk to him.

“Hey, you probably don’t remember me, but...” I went on to tell him the above story. He looked confused, but humored at the same time.

“Oh, that sounds like something I would do.”

I was surprised to find that it was extremely easy to be around him. At first glance, he is super intimidating, but once I started talking to him I found that he had a very colorful personality which made me want to get to know him even better, so I ended up sticking with him and Lucas for as long as they were there.

I thought I would like to become really good friends with this guy, but my friend Lucas had other plans.

We were waiting for a ride when I heard one of my favorite songs to dance to come on. It was "Rock’n Robin." I really like the jitterbug, though I’m not exactly good at it. Nevertheless I started doing my own version of it by myself because I simply couldn’t resist. After about a minute of this Lucas turns around and gasps.

“You two are perfect for each other!”

I turned around to find Ben doing the same thing as me. We both blushed, and sort of brushed it off after that. The idea was absolutely absurd, but as the day went on, Lucas kept pointing out little things the two of us had in common. I will admit that I was beginning to get tiny butterflies for Ben, but at the time I had a huge crush on someone else, so I didn’t really think anything of it.

By the time Lucas and Ben decided to leave, we had found the rest of our friends. They said goodbye to everyone, and I gave Lucas another hug. Before they left, Ben turned to me, and complimented me on my hair before walking away with Lucas. I was not expecting my stomach to flip over from the compliment. It probably doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but at the time I thought my hair was a total mess. There had been a huge misunderstanding when I went in to get it cut, and it just looked terrible, but the fact that he liked it sent me sky high.

So maybe there was something there, but that would probably be the last time I saw him anyways.