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Vito Rossalini and I were teasing each other about girls. It was just in fun, but he was saying I liked some girl, and I was saying he liked some girl, and we were going back and forth ribbing each other about it. The girl he was saying I liked, Gina Hallstrom, was actually sitting right there.

"Oh yeah, well you go over her house every DAY!"

"Oh YEAH? Well YOU ride her to Pizza Hut on your big wheel." (I still always wonder where Vito got this idea, what a date!)

I can't remember howm but at some point in the conversation, it got a lot less hypothetical, and he looked at me point blank and asked, "Do you really like her?"

I was suddenly aware of her prescence there next to me, and in a split second realized that to snort indignantly, "No!" would be to callously hurt the poor girl's feelings. I quite honestly had never thought of the girl that way, but I said, "Well, yeah." That seemed to somehow diffuse it. I thought. A day later or so, Gina came up to me and said, "Was that true, what you said the other day?"

Compelled by the same compassion (or cowardice) I again replied in the affirmative. "Boyfriend!" she said, and wrapped her arms around me. Gina was a pretty hefty girl if I remember correctly. It was kind of a surprise.

So we continued to be together (which involved mainly these occaisional hugs and outbursts) until our relationship just sort of fizzled out, I don't remember why...maybe because I never officially recognized the relationship...I did hug her back though, I remember that. I was never one to withhold affection.