Angela has this friend.

Her name is Noelle and they’ve been close for a long time now.  Closer than sisters even, because sometimes sisters can be more trouble than they’re worth.

Noelle meets Jeremy at a Tuesday afternoon choir practice and he’s alright for a first kiss, for a fleeting glimpse of an almost relationship, but when he starts reciting sonnets and pretending that he’s analyzing their true meanings on his own (when she’s sure that he’s simply regurgitating what his professor said in his Literature and Composition 101 course) she ends it.   She doesn’t appreciate being taken for a fool and later that year he sits in front of the school judicial committee (of which she is a chaired member) for plagiarizing at least twenty percent of his senior thesis. 

It serves him right to be expelled.

When she meets David it isn’t at choir, or at bible study, or any of the usual places she might find someone to connect with, but that’s because David is Jewish.  She finds this out on their fourth date, but lets him kiss her anyways because there’s something about him that part of her wants to keep. 

She stays with him for so long because he loves her and because she misses him when he isn’t around.  She avoids the conversations where he brings up marriage and children and the future, and sometimes she lets herself cry on Sundays when she’s sitting in the pew and he isn’t beside her. 

One night he takes her to dinner and asks her if she’d ever consider converting.  She throws her water in his face and leaves him sitting alone at the table. 

She doesn’t answer the door when he’s outside.  He’s brought her flowers and he’s telling her through the wood that it doesn’t matter, that he’ll convert, that he’ll finally stand up to his father and that they’ll be happy.  That he’ll marry her a thousand times if only she’d open the door. 

But it’s too late and she leans with her back against the door, not letting him in, but not exactly walking away.  She waits until she hears his car start to move because part of her still doesn't want to go first.  She tells herself that it never would have worked, really. 

Besides, she hates lilies and he should have known that. 

She meets Kurt long before she ever loves him.  Although, some say that hate is just this side of love.  Angela thinks that it’s impossible for that to be true, because if it were then that would mean that maybe she is just this side of loving Kelly and Ryan, which is unfathomable.

Noelle thinks that Kurt is obnoxious at first, and a complete lap dog to their pig of a boss.  He tries to lecture her once on CPR methodology and she has to sternly remind him that she’s state certified and that he need not trouble himself.

But when he plays basketball she begins to notice him, the feral way he goes after the ball, regardless of his opponent’s size or gender.   When she tells him afterwards that he played well he looks confused, and then grateful, and then he reverts back to obnoxious and she forgets why she bothered in the first place. 

She gives up on him when he asks out some dippy solicitor (who is peddling handbags at the office) right in front of her.  If nothing else it’s inappropriate of him in the workplace and she doesn’t give out second chances, which is why she lets the temp kiss her outside of Chili’s. 

He kisses her because he’s a little drunk and because he’s still reeling from his employer announcing that he's attractive.  She lets him because he’s everything that’s opposite of Kurt.  He’s short where Kurt is tall, he hates being here while Kurt loves everything about his work, his eyes are blue when Kurt’s are… well, maybe she’s never been close enough to Kurt to know what color his eyes are, but they can’t possibly be blue like this. 

The kissing is fine, and she even lets him use his tongue a little without protesting, but when his hands start to drift lower than her back she stops him before he has a chance to find out whether or not the award she received earlier that evening was merited.  She tells him that she has to drive someone home and leaves him alone in the parking lot when she pulls away. 

When Kurt finally does come around, he asks her on a proper date and she refuses.  She has that rule about second chances and he doesn’t necessarily deserve one.   He waits a week before he kisses her one evening when they are the last two left in the office.  She pushes him away because he’s presumptuous and completely inappropriate, a combination that she can’t just ignore simply because she wants to kiss him too. 

The next day he asks her to dinner again and she accepts only because she wants to take that time to tell him exactly what she thinks of him.   Instead, she ends up inviting him inside afterwards and kissing him before he even has the chance. 

The first time she asks him to join her at church he explains how he feels about religion and how it isn’t something he wants to involve himself in.  They don’t speak for two weeks.

For those weeks she sees him at work everyday and has to pretend like she doesn’t already love him, because she’s getting older and if she wants to marry someone she can’t go around wasting her time being in love with an atheist.

When he shows up on her doorstep he doesn’t bring flowers and he doesn’t promise to change, but he tells her that he loves her for who she is and that he wishes she felt the same way about him.   She decides to open the door anyway, and that night is the first time he stays until morning. 

He drives her to church on Sundays now and remembers which cats get the diet food (because Samson and Pattie need to shed a few pounds) and which get the kind for healthy coats.   On weekends she cuts his hair for him so that he doesn’t have to do it himself any longer.

When he gives up his job for her she realizes that she is never going to leave him.  She stops nagging him about joining her at church, hoping that maybe if she just keeps him in her prayers while she's there they will still be able to be together when this is all over.

After all, there are worse things in life than sitting in a pew alone.