By that time, I had learned where Angela lived with her parents, but it was a lot closer to a different high school than the one she told me she went to. When I asked her about that, she explained that she had been attending the closer high school, where all her older sisters had gone, but that some evil boys had started a vicious rumor about her there and she decided to transfer to the other high school. Yup, another red flag that I ignored. One doesn’t get past a viscous false rumor by running away from it!

During another conversation before the end of that summer, which involves something that will turn out to be important later, she told me about her next-door neighbors who had a Downs Syndrome son, who she sometimes babysat for, and asked me what I would do if we ever had a child with a serious disability like that. I immediately responded, “Love him.” She then asked, “You wouldn’t want to put him up for adoption?” And, continued with “I don’t know if I could raise a child who would never grow up to be able to take care of himself. I’d feel trapped.” Yup, yet another red flag that I ignored, attributing it to her youth and lack of maturity. I then explained that I could never put my child up for adoption because in my family we take care of our own. Once again, I’m sure that came from Grandma, who was mostly from Scottish stock, where the clans were strong. I don’t know how much Angela understood at the time, but her little brother had a genetically-based psychological disorder that had not yet fully manifested itself, and she also had a first cousin, on her mother’s side, with a genetically-based social/developmental disability. Neither of them would ever become fully self-sufficient.

As the summer wound down, and it was getting close to time for me to move back to the city to return to school, I was excited about the prospect because, among other things, it would make it easier for me to see Angela more often. And, she seemed excited by the prospect as well. I moved into an apartment close to campus that I shared with some friends from my hometown. I started into my new classes, and Angela and I saw and spoke with each other quite regularly, at least for a while.

I recall once that Fall, when I asked if I was going to see her the coming weekend, but she said she had a school activity on Friday night, and that she’d promised to go dancing with her girlfriends on Saturday night. The school activity, I certainly understood, but the dancing thing left me a bit puzzled. Why would she want to do that rather than see me, especially when we were pretty much pre-engaged to be married, but I remember thinking that although she was in love with me, her friends were still important to her, and who was I to tell her she shouldn’t be going? SMACK! Kind of. But, she already knew my hopes and expectations for myself and for the woman I hoped to marry, and seemed very much in love me. What could go wrong?

Speaking of her friends, by then I had learned that the girl who was pretty much Angela’s best friend, who we will call Shelley, did not attend the [locally predominant] church, or indeed any church, and was kind of “wild.” Yup, another red flag that I failed to fully appreciate. When Angela sensed that I had concerns about her friendship with Shelley, she told me she was trying to set a good example for her.

After that weekend, we had like one telephone conversation, after which Angela ghosted me for about two weeks. She didn’t call me, didn’t return my calls, and didn’t stop by my apartment to say “hi,” like she had frequently done before. I finally got to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore, and went by her parents’ home, but the little car her father had bought her to replace the one she’d wrecked wasn’t there, so I knew she wasn’t there either. I decided to go to the nearby park and wait there hoping that I might see her pulling up when she came home, and have a chance to talk to her privately before she went inside, so I could try to find out what was going on. I don’t remember how long I waited, but eventually I saw her car coming down the road, and hustled over to catch her before she got home. I waived her down, she pulled over in front of the neighbors’ house, and rolled down her window. As I leaned in to talk to her, I remember smelling cigarette smoke, which I found curious, and a bit concerning, as she was too young to buy them and I’d never known her to smoke. Even then, anyone with any sense knew that smoking was bad for you. Yup, yet another red flag. But, I needed to know what was going on, and had more important things to discuss with her than the cigarette smoke in her car.

I asked her straight up why she’d been ignoring me, and said that’s not how people who intend to get married within the year treat each other, so I guessed that she no longer did. She could tell that I was heartsick and said she was very sorry, but that she’d been really busy with school and working her part-time job, and things, and didn’t realize that it had been that long since we’d last spoken. And, she was sure that she could find time to see me that coming weekend. I suspected that I wasn’t getting the whole truth, but I was desperate and settled for what she offered, hoping for the best. SMACK TO ME! But, what had actually just happened is that I had called her out and injected uncertainty back into our relationship, and she was afraid that I was about to walk, and would no longer be waiting on layaway for her.

As she said she would, Angela spent time with me again that weekend, and things started getting back to normal, or so I thought, because we were seeing each other again for at least once every weekend, which was about all I could manage between my classes and homework, and my part-time job selling retail consumer electronics that I’d taken to keep from having to take out student loans to pay for school.

Sometime during the Fall, Angela informed me that she’d decided to stop attending her regular high school after winter break and enroll in cosmetology school, as by then she would already have all the regular high school credits she needed to graduate and would get everything else she needed while attending cosmetology school and learning a trade. Yup, another big red flag, although I didn’t recognize it at the time. In case you don’t already know, beauty school is like a training ground for loose women!

During this time, another conversation that I found curious sticks out to me. I don’t recall how we got on the topic, but Angela told me about how she found it strange that one of her sisters refused to use tampons because she was afraid that would make her not be a virgin for her future husband. Did I think that was true? I didn’t really know about any of that stuff as my mother and sisters were always too careful with those things and too chaste to ever discuss anything of the sort with me, so I just agreed that I didn’t think that using a tampon would cause a woman to lose her virginity. She replied, “That’s good, because I use tampons.” But, like you say, women don’t just bring things like that up out of the blue without having an agenda.