Page 20 of This Time Around

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Kenny and Darlenehad been high school sweethearts.That’s when they actually dated, but they’d met long before, in grade school.Katie had heard about them from Mary, who was in the same grade.Of course, they weren’t sweet on each other then, but Darlene had had a crush on Kenny ever since the day he stood up for her on the playground.

A bigger boy, a bully, had pushed Darlene as she climbed on a step to get on the slide, and she fell to the ground.She didn’t cry out, but her knee was skinned and bleeding, with fragments of leaves stuck to it.

Kenny was elsewhere on the playground when he heard noises and shouting.He ran over and found Darlene crumpled on the ground, protecting her knee.The bully loomed over Darlene, screaming at her, his spittle flying.Kenny rushed him immediately, tackled the bully to the ground, and punched him in the face, causing his nose to bleed.It’d probably looked worse than it was because of the blood.

By then, a teacher had heard the ruckus and rushed over to see what was the matter.Without a word, she grabbed Kenny’s wrist and pulled him off of the bigger kid.

Both boys were dragged off and whisked to the principal’s office, and the parents were called.The boys got punishments, but the bully got it much worse.He had to apologize to Darlene.

Darlene went to the nurse’s office to get her knees checked out, cleaned, treated, and bandaged.She was lucky it wasn’t more serious.She told Mary that Kenny was her knight in shining armor.But he became more than that.He was her first love.And she was his.

They’d married right out of high school.Kenny went to community college and also worked the night shift at the burger joint.Darlene got a job at the grocery store.They were poor, but rich in ways money couldn’t buy.They worked and saved every penny they could for their future.Later, when Darlene was seven-and-a-half-months pregnant, she’d quit at Kenny’s insistence.He took on another part-time job at the pizza joint.

Money got really tight for them, and Kenny worked every day until he was bone-tired for their little family of two—and the baby on its way.