Curly like the wool on a lamb's back, is how my grandmother would have described his hair. If she'd ever seen him, at least. And if she'd lived five months longer, she would have. She would have liked him too, I'm sure. He was charming, in the way that flatters old ladies. And my grandmother and I always had similar taste in guys, weirdly enough. If I'd been seventeen in 1939, we would have been best friends.

Instead though, I was seventeen in 2003, and I fell in love with a boy she'd never know. I couldn't even remember when I first met him; all I knew was that he'd always been around. I could look back through photo albums and find him in the background, his hair constantly changing colours, smaller than the other kids his age. He knew my brother, though was too young to have hung out with him when they were kids. He was the guy I lounged by the pool with at summer camp when I was twelve and I heard he had a crush on Laura; I had a crush on Laura's best friend's brother.

He was the guy who, that same summer, accidentally told me about my brother's new girlfriend. The girlfriend that, five years later, my brother would marry. He didn't know who I was then.

He was mentioned in my diary when I was fifteen, but only as one of a list of cute boys. Then another mention at Christmas Eve when I had just turned seventeen. I remember him at the midnight church service, sitting three spaces down the pew from me. He wore a military style jacket and my brother's girlfriend had a new diamond ring on her left hand.

I didn't see him again until Easter, in his blue and white button up shirt. I blushed at the front of the church as I led song actions for the kids under his eyes. Afterwards we talked about a dinner we'd both been invited to and I hoped for months that he would come. But he didn't show.

I finished high school that June and once exams and graduation was complete, I was sucked into the wedding vortex. There were two weeks left and food to be ordered, decorations to be designed, and bridesmaids' dresses to be made. My future sister-in-law's mother was his mother's best friend. His house suddenly became wedding central.

For two weeks that summer, I saw him every day. We went to a movie in a large group one night. I sat behind him and spent the whole time watching him. We talked in the concession line of the exams we'd both just written. On the walk home, the friend he'd brought along hit on me.

I saw him every day and I knew I was falling for him, as much as I hated going crazy over a guy. I liked everything about him, even that which I couldn't have stood in anyone else. I liked him so much that I didn't understand it. It made me squirm. I liked his voice, I liked his laugh, I liked the colour of his eyes, I liked the way he acted around his little cousins, I liked the way his hair curled at the back of his neck, I liked the way he was unique, and the way he said Demi Moore didn't look hot in Charles Angels 2. I knew I liked him more than any other guy before.

I didn't understand the way I felt about him, because I knew he wasn't the greatest looking guy in the world, and there were things about him that I knew I didn't like. But I was unmistakeably drawn to him. I adored him. I worried about having a heart attack every time I saw him. I was abnormally inarticulate, yet still completely at ease. I spoke with him as casually as with any of the other groomsmen, although my mind was shouting that I loved him every time I saw him.

Most of all, he made me feel beautiful. With every other guy I liked, if I were to catch my own reflection while I was talking to them, I would feel horrid, undeserving, and inadequate. But with him, I knew I was beautiful. He smiled at me, passed me a CD, gave his thumbs up to my bridesmaid dress and I knew I was wonderful. Even looking myself straight on in a mirror, I saw nothing wrong.

Three days before the wedding was the bridal party dinner. There were ten of us and although I knew everyone, some of them had never met. We were to meet at a restaurant at Cambie and Broadway at 9pm. I arrived at 9:15 because I knew no one would be on time. I was still the first one there. I sat at a table for twelve, alone, for fifteen minutes, watching a boxing match on the big screen TV. Until he arrived. I hated the hat he wore, though I liked his leather jacket. He sat beside me at a giant table and we talked about boxing and marriage. When I wondered if marriage was worth all this wedding fuss, he said he thought it was. Then it turned out that he knew the waitress, and I turned back to the boxing match, rather than watch her flirt with him.

Two days later was the wedding rehearsal. I knew it had to happen that we were paired together. I had prayed for a sign and I wondered if this was it. He grinned at me as we stood opposite from me and I knew the other bridesmaids' jealousy. At the dinner party afterwards, I was too busy talking to friends of my parents to spend time with him, though I always kept him in my sight.

The wedding day came and it was too hectic for me to be excited at the thought of walking down the aisle with him. When it came time for us to pair off and I was near tears at the sight of my brother getting married, he held my hand and whispered in my ear that it would be okay. We stood together in all the photos, his arm linked through mine.

That night was a party at his house and I went home with him and his mom. I stood barefoot in their front foyer, wanting to change out of my dress, but unable to reach the zipper. He came up behind me, laughing, and slid the zipper open. I thanked him with a smile and a blush and ran upstairs to change.

The dinner was delicious; I loved it because I knew he had helped his mother cook it. I was caught talking with my new sister-in-law's uncle and he vanished from my sight. I found him outside, smoking a cigarette with my brother's new sister-in-law. And even though I hated smokers, I loved to watch him take a drag and I understood the sex appeal of cigarettes for the first time. I hung out in his basement with his friends and the rest of the bridal party, taking care of a drunken friend of my brothers, and stealing long glances at him. Sometimes his eyes would be on me and this other guy and I wondered if he was jealous.

When I knew the last bus would be coming soon, I started up the stairs to leave, but he stopped me and told me not to go. I wanted nothing more than to kiss him, to tell him how I felt. But I only let him lead me back down, promising he would find a ride for me. He saw him hold a whispered conversation with the other guy and then he turned to me and asked,

"All's fair in love and war. Right?" I said yes, not knowing what else to say.

We went onto the roof deck, a bunch of us, and he stayed near me. Teasing me, poking at me, until I ruffled his curly hair and he tickled me.

I left too soon that night, though I had no choice, since it was my last chance for a ride home. I didn't see him again that summer, though he was on my thoughts constantly for weeks and it hurt to think of him. Then I thought of him less frequently, though still every day. At the end of summer, I left. New school, new life. I was sure I didn't have room for him. It was better that things were the way they turned out to be.

Until I saw him again, on Christmas Eve. And, suddenly, I'm right back where I was before.