he Original Bad Boy: The Real Travis Maddox
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| Jamie McGuire |
My
senior year of high school, I was thrilled to learn I had been accepted
to an Oklahoma university far enough away not to feel like high school
again, and close enough that I could take my laundry home to Mom when
playing grown up got old.
I made friends right away, but one day, as I did sometimes, I felt like sitting at the lunch table alone. Wait. So your university really did have a dinky cafeteria where most of you had the same lunch time? Yes,
really. On this particular day, sitting alone would garner the
attention of our university’s version of the Walking One Night Stand. My
very own Travis Maddox. That wasn’t his name, of course, but the
cafeteria introduction of Travis and Abby compared to my experience was
nearly verbatim.
“Travis”
and I became fast friends, and although an obvious attraction existed,
for whatever reason I was the one girl he didn’t immediately try to
sleep with. We studied together. We made plans for the weekends. No one
could figure us out, and just like Abby, I found myself fielding
questions about our relationship daily.
On my 19thbirthday, my friends on the football team—including
a Shepley and Brazeal—gathered to celebrate at Brazeal’s apartment.
Although much fictional flair was added to that scene in the book, there
were several parallels.
“Travis”
was more a lover than a fighter, but he was just as devastatingly
handsome, and charismatic. My best friend on campus, Robin, swore that
the snag in my quest to rise above the friend zone was that “Travis”
respected me, and truly cared about me, but just wasn’t ready at that
stage in his life to find The One. I transferred schools before I had a chance to find out, and we lost touch.
Ironically,
12 years later, in my second year of Radiography school, I was waiting
for a patient to dress after an exam in the hospital hallway. A man
turned the corner, down the very hallway where I stood, and the second
our eyes made contact, I knew. “Travis” stared back at me. His eyes lit
up with recognition. “We know each other, don’t we. Yeah, we used to be
buddies.”
Fuente: http://travisandabbymaddox.blogspot.com
