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Love Everlasting |
| Written by Britt Howie | |
| Saturday, 19 April 2008 | |
Staring at him from across the room was me, plump little second grade girl with a crush. Coming back to reality, I’m smiling. I remember meeting him. I was instantly in like. I still love him, and he loves me back just as much. We’ve had our share of disagreements just like any couple should. He’s there for me whenever I need to talk. When we’re together, I’m happy as ever. In late April, he found out how much I really adored him. I’d told every one of my friends and told them not to spill. Secretly, I was hoping they would. No one did, but finally, he got the picture. About a month later, he was pretty much used to me. When I told him something that really worried him, he wrote me a note; the first ever!!!! It read, “…promise me that you won’t do that again.” Why would he care? When I asked him about it, he just said, “Why do you think I care?” The next Wednesday, he told me that he wasn’t going to tell me, but that I could guess. There were only two ideas that came to mind: either he actually considered me a friend, or he liked me. Because I had asked before, I doubted that it was the latter one. I wrote him a note, and he’d read it by 10 am. After that class, I asked, “So, was I right?” He answered, “Yes.” Well, that could’ve meant a great variety of things, so I inquired, “About which one?” He said something, but inevitably, he was facing away from me and was inaudible; perhaps he was slightly embarrassed and shy. So, my best friend, Brianna told me she’d talk to him. He wouldn’t even give her a hint. I worried about what it was all through lunch. Later, I waited for him and I said, “So, which one?” The only word that came out of his mouth was, “Both.” He liked me! He’d been hesitant to tell me because he was afraid to lose me like the friend he’d lost two years previously. Thinking back on late September, I remember his note which said, “Will you go to the dance with me?” I’d been sad because I thought we were only going to go as friends. On the day of the dance, I went to get my hair done extra special. I was so jittery. Getting back home, I painted my nails and Mom did my make-up. Then I changed into my gorgeous dress. I felt so beautiful. After a few pictures, we headed out to the car. We were going to my friend’s house for dinner. On the way, I got pretty nervous. Once we were all at Brianna’s house, the parents snapped a lot more pictures. Then his mom called him and me inside. He’d got a corsage for me. It was a beautiful yellow carnation with a white ribbon. I thanked him. Blushing, a gigantic smile crept across my face. On our way to the dance, I rode with him and his mom. It was quiet, but still enjoyable. All of us stood around for half the time, but finally Jeff broke the ice and asked his date to dance. Then all our friends started dancing with their dates except us. Finally, everyone got fed up with how stupid we were being. Kortnee and Jeff ended up pushing us together during a slow song. We only danced to that one song together, but it was the perfect song for us. At midnight, Mom picked three of us up and took us to our homes. Lying in bed at 1 that morning, I was filled with love, knowing that we’d been so close. In late December, we talked about holding hands. His mom found out because of Brianna, and had a serious talk with him. It was forbidden. In January, we went to a camp with our friends. On the way home, I got tired and set my hand on his with my head on top of that. Suddenly, there was a warm presence around my fingers. He’d grabbed my hand! Every time that he had to take his hand away, he’d try to get back too doing that by trying to mess up my hair, and I’d grab hold of his hand. The next day after school, we decided to leave without our friends. He tried to mess up my hair again, but I caught his hand before he got there. We intertwined our fingers. Rereading his notes, he’s said he loves me. I was hesitant for the longest time to say it back because that’s how everything started with my ex-boyfriend. Finally, I got over it. I had borrowed his special calculator that can also hold messages. I typed in, “I love you. –Brittany-” In February, we found out how much we really needed to cool it. We were at a basketball game without our friends almost holding hands. His hand was palm up on my leg with my hand on top of his. He pulled away saying, “Can’t.” We hadn’t seen his friend across the gym, but he saw us. His friends wrongly assumed that we were doing something that we weren’t, and told Kortnee and Brianna. When they found us, all they said to us was, “Gross! We can’t believe that you’d do that.” We had no idea what they were talking about. Eventually, Kortnee told Justin, and he rolled his eyes saying, “I don’t believe that at all.” I’d had enough. Grabbing all my stuff, I ran off. He ran after me with Justin right behind him. When Justin saw that I was close to crying, he hesitantly told us what was going on. We were so astonished. I was about to lose my temper by that time. How could the people I thought were my best friends believe that horrid lie? Mid March came around, and we’d been getting closer very quickly. He was trying to get something out of my pocket, but I caught him first. We held hands for just a minute before he said, “I have to go.” After that, we didn’t want to get into a fight with our friends, so we told them that we weren’t going to cool it anymore. Late March came, and he went to the Grand Canyon. Before he left, he put something in my locker. When I saw it, I said, “What the heck?” He became surprised, grabbing my hand, saying, “No! Not until tomorrow.” I was so tempted to look at it after school, but I restrained myself. The next morning, I rushed to my locker. Taking it down, I saw it was a CD and two pieces of paper. One, a story, and the other another note. The story was telling me how to open a door. It was an assignment from one of his classes. The note, though said a lot of things. He’d been told that I’d been crying, and that I probably would cry some more. I cried so much. Searching the bad times, Kortnee and Brianna have both liked him. Unfortunately, I felt terribly threatened because they’re both prettier than me. I got pretty angry and defensive. All the while, he told me that I have nothing to worry about. One day, I decided to walk home from school so I could spend more time with him. One of his friends took his back pack and ran off we started following him, and he tried putting a sign on my back. I caught him, and our hands just fell into place. We were just walking when we heard a honk. I turned around and saw Mom. When I told him, he panicked and pulled his hand away, understanding that I had to turn around and head back toward my mom. He knew that his backpack was moving in the other direction. He dropped my hand and let me go, spontaneously running off after his backpack. As we got closer, everyone got jealous of one thing or another. Kortnee and Brianna got jealous that he liked me and not them. They couldn’t figure out what I had that they didn’t, and to this day, I can’t either. Jeff was jealous of how much time we spent together. He was afraid that I was going to take his place in my friend’s life. Justin was the only one that supported us. On our side, it was so hard. We were having fun together, but we almost cut ourselves off from our friends completely. “It’s gone too far,” he told me one time. At school one day, I was teasing him and trying to spin his lock. He grabbed my hand, pulled me to him, and put his arms around me. I could’ve stayed there forever. One Wednesday in May was the hardest day for us to endure. Most of our lunch table left us. After a while, another friend came over and used a really bad analogy to state that everyone hates me, and everyone’s on track to hating him as well. This really hurt me. Apparently, he could see that. After sixth hour, I was still quite sad. He saw it then, too. He caught hold of my hand, pulled me to him, put his arms around me, and held me. I was almost crying, but he whispered into my ear, “It’ll be fine.” How could things be fine if our friends hate us? Maybe God was saying that it was not in his plan for us to be that serious now; this was the only way He could get it through our heads. He just kept trying to assure me that everything would turn out fine, and I kept denying it. Each day brought a new trial. In July, he gave me a note that said, “I think that we need to work on our communication with each other.” The hardest thing for me was to talk about serious matters with him. We always used too joke around. Later in July, I got an email from him that told me that he doesn’t think that we should date in high school I was so confused by that. We’d talked about how we were looking forward to turning sixteen and being able to date. Then he just writes this out of the blue. The thing that worried me the most was the possibility that he didn’t like me anymore. That was doubtful, so I quickly pushed it out of my head. I wouldn’t let it be a possibility. In August, I called him just to talk. I told him when the fall formal dance was, then stated that we weren’t going together. He didn’t catch what I had just said, but I wouldn’t repeat it. I told him flat out that I was hurt, but never would I tell him why. In November, I asked him what he’d think if I stopped wearing make-up altogether. He said that he didn’t know. He had to go, but I told him that I wanted him to think about it and tell me the next day. By third hour, he hadn’t said anything, so I asked him flat out. He came close and whispered into my ear, “It’s not the make-up that makes you beautiful.” Then he smiled at me, one of those cute smiles of his, but I didn’t see it because I was really blushing and I ducked away so he couldn’t see. Mid March brought a new trial in our relationship: one I never thought we’d have to deal with. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. I think that we were both dumfounded. He said that he was there for me, but there were days when I felt like I was all alone. As the school year went on, I felt a distance growing between us. I didn’t want to believe that it was there, but I couldn’t deny the fact that we were losing our relationship. I loved him ever so much, but it didn’t seem to be that way with him anymore. I wanted to talk to him about it, but I was way too scared to hear the answer. I wrote him emails and notes, but when he actually would respond, he’d skip that question altogether. I finally got fed up with it in late June and asked him to meet me at a park. Talking about our fallen relationship was so hard. For me, it wasn’t over, but he decided that it was. I didn’t want it to be. I cared for him more than I thought I could ever care for someone. That day, when I got home, I told my mom about it, but I didn’t cry. No tears would come until the next morning when it finally hit me that I was alone in the world and there was no one there to help me through my mom’s sickness. I thank God every day for an easy friendship with him after our break up. That’s a rare thing to do at our young age. We beat the immaturity. Still to this day, I feel as if he was scared of my emotions and my mom’s possible death. Something that I couldn’t control, but that I needed him to be there for me in. In November, my mom did die. Though I couldn’t see his reaction when he found out, I knew that he felt for me. He wasn’t an emotional guy, but I knew that he worried about my emotional health. At the funeral, I got the first real hug from him in the ten years that I knew him. As we are ending our junior year of high school, I feel that he’s still got a small piece of me. I know that we’ll both have other relationships, but this relationship will forever stick out in my mind as my most meaningful romance in my teen years. I was in love, a hard bond to break. Copyright 2008 Britt Howie |
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