The Best Love Story of All (long)

Circa 2009

Jake's family has been somehow connected to ours for over 12 years. His mom, whom I affectionately called  (and still call)"Miss Jessica," taught my Sunday School class when I was six years old. Since her youngest son Joe was also in the class, she moved up every year with us and I grew under her tutelage. To be truthful, I don't actually remember when Jake first came on my radar, since he was older than me.

It could have been our sudden frequent exposure to the Coffin's three children, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time. Mom and Dad constantly took us over to their house to play while the adults all went off to dinner. Cam and I weren't complaining though; we loved having playmates. We'd play hide-and-go seek in the house or huckle-buckle-bean-stalk or we'd watch veggietales while feasting on the hugest batches of popcorn we'd ever seen.

But I believe it was Fish Tales-- a cute little children's skit in which we both had the lead parts and the characters were in constant competition with one another. (Actually, the majority of our childhood friendship consisted of competition, most of which I think I initiated.) On one particular day while practicing the script my character had the parenthetical direction "lovingly" written before the line and somewhere deep in my 11-year-old mind I thought something along the lines of, "well I might as well start now!" Thus began a massive and enduring crush that lasted three and a half straight years. I was "madly in love" with Jake Coffin (secretly, of course!).

A lot happened during that time. Our friendship grew. We went to summer camp together. They moved to Tucson. I wrote him letters. Then we moved to Tucson. And all the while, I sustained my secret crush on him. It made a lot of things--like moving--a little bit more bearable. Our first day in Tucson, I remember seeing him and then it was like slow-motion: we were running towards each other and then we were hugging each other and it was weird and awkward. but it. was. AWESOME! (You can see now how this might have perpetuated itself for a while!)

The first couple years in Tucson were great! We still hung out a lot. We wrote stories. We tutored each other (I helped him with math and he helped me with, get this, grammar!). We played capture the flag and every variation of tag and chase there was. He taught me some music too. Our families would go on vacation together and we had the grandest adventures! Rock climbing, and staying up late to catch bears, and visiting haunted houses in the wilderness.

On one trip, we started writing a thriller novel called Gyver's Shack, which is probably worthy of its own post another time. But it plays a significant role here too. The characters of Gyver's Shack were thinly veiled projections of our college selves (which is funny to read now that we are both in college four-five years later!) who got caught up in this mysterious backpacking adventure/murder-mystery. The whole thing was very elaborate and we would switch back and forth between chapters. I always thought his were better, but our writing styles harmonized nicely together. As we chattered the details of our story away, Kerri asked us, "So... the main characters are married, right?"
"Eww, no"
"Gross"
"They're like best friends."
A girl's dream was secretly dying at this moment. For although I had grown out of my girl's crush on him at that time, I still liked him. Rather a lot. But often the way he talked to me and about me... I didn't have a prayer of being anything more than friends. So I moved on. I nagged him to work on Gyver's Shack for a little while, but the momentum was gone so I shelved the project.

In high school we drifted apart, especially as the age gap became more apparent. He found a new crowd of cool friends to jam and hang out with (most of which I found unapproachable) and I found my own friends. He dated a few girls. And then I got together with Christian. He was way out of my league now. Our spheres seemed to have fully separated.

But I always had a soft spot for him. Whenever he talked to me, a certain happiness swelled inside of me. And even when I was down, he always pulled the painful truth out of me when I couldn't talk to anyone else. Sometimes he just knew when I wasn't doing so hot and there was something about him (his piercing blue eyes perhaps??) that made me answer truthfully. I didn't always go into detail, but I always admitted when I was just doing "okay" instead of great.

And when he was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma... Well, I was kind of emotionally wrecked over the whole cancer thing. Not even kidding. It just seemed so surreal. Jake? Cancer? Hodgkins? Add to that the fact that my grandma had passed away from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the similarities in name were more than enough to send me over the edge. I couldn't bear the toll chemo was taking on him, as he still tried to do things--too much too fast. I cared so much, but all I could do was watch from afar. As you already know, he made it through the chemotherapy treatments and is now in remission and he began attending San Diego Christian College (SDCC) that fall.

His first winter break back from school, we managed to connect again at church. A friend who witnessed the encounter remarked to my mom, "Misha was very animated when she was talking to Jake this morning." There was nothing out of the ordinary about it for me. Towards the end of the break, Jake was doing some yardwork for my parents when Mom, being her ever hospitable self, invited him to stay for dinner. He regaled us with the most uproarious stories of his new experiences at school. I couldn't stop laughing! I lingered a little, even though I had somewhere else to be. As he left, he gave me a hug and said, "Hey, we should work on Gyver's Shack sometime."

A little while later, he texted me and asked how I was doing. "Well," I replied, "I just broke up with Christian a couple weeks ago, but I'm okay." The next moment my phone was ringing and we talked about it. We rekindled the old friendship after that, at first just working on Gyver's Shack, but our conversations soon turned to our own lives and reminisces of the past. We often skyped into the wee hours of the morning. He made me laugh so hard, the vents rattled and my annoyed family members would remind me to stay quieter. But one afternoon, my mom remarked to me, "It's nice to hear you laughing again."

In the spring, I visited him at school with Kerri and Miss Jessica. My dad teased me before I left, "You're going to California to see a boy?"
"Everything sounds bad when you say it like that!" I replied quoting one of our favorite movies, "Besides. It's just Jake." What could possibly happen? But I knew, I had totally fallen for him all over again and when I realized this, I just thought, "Oh, crap." What am I going to do with myself. But this time, I was determined to say something for my own peace of mind. I had liked him for too long to not know if it was even a possibility. In my head the conversation went something like this:
Me: Jake.... do you think you could ever.... like me? Likeasmorethanafriend.
Him: Man, y'know Meesh, I do like you, but not like that.
As you can see, I was not quite prepared to just bare my soul like that and meet rejection. So I put it off thinking, "We'll see what happens this summer."

But, I'm happy to say, he beat me to it. That weekend, it was so obvious that we were totally into each other. We didn't even bother to hide it, and yet at the same time it was this unspoken... Thing that hadn't been truly realized. For example, would you believe me if I told you the above picture was taken before we had declared any affections for one another? I thought not, but it's true even though it's written all over our faces. In fact, I think it was later that night when he told me under a starry sky, "Misha, I have a confession to make." I waited, "I really care about you and I like you. Like, like-like you."
"Really?" My voice legitimately cracked at that moment. And for a split second, I don't think he knew if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But we'd been holding hands all night so that should've been a good sign...

Of course, that night I only got about 3 hours of sleep and arose with the sun. I tried walking to pass the time and ended up spazzing out all over the street--running and jumping and twitching and praying and praising and talking to myself, but mostly just debating whether or not it had actually happened or if this was all just one crazy dream. It wasn't.

And the rest was history. Today marks our 1 year anniversary and I've never been happier. Every now and then, I still psych myself out about it. "I, Misha Tyler am dating Jake Coffin. THE Jake Coffin. How does that even happen??" The weirdest part is how natural it feels being with him. I am truly dating my childhood best friend and it is the best feeling in the whole world.

Thanks for making the last year of my life so filled with laughter and joy and magic, Jake. You are the best. ♥