Where do I even begin? I guess, with the first day I saw you.
Last year. Drama class. Fifth hour. You sit with your friends, I sit alone. I take my first glance at you, you glance back. You make a smart ass comment. I get a bad first impression. I assume that you are just like every other asshole guy in this town. So I don’t pay any more attention to you. You seem no different than any other guy I’ve met.
Months pass, there’s no communication between us. But why would there be? We’d only ever talked once before, and it wasn’t much of a conversation. More of you giving me an attitude because you wanted to look cool in front of your friends. But in February, a friend of mine,(well, more of an aquaintance) tells me she likes a boy. And that boy is you. Of course, I recognize you. But I don’t know your name. I don’t know anything about you. She introduces us. We greet each other. You don’t seem so bad after all. You talk about having girlfriend problems, because you don’t want to be with this girl anymore, but you’ve never broken up with anyone before. I encourage you to dump her, because you seemed uninterested in your relationship. You make a promise that you will. We exchange phone numbers a few days later. I text you. Ask if you kept the promise you made. You say you did. We are friendly to one another. We make conversation. You flirt with me, and I flirt back. Though my “friend” who likes you is still in the back of my mind. I know that we can’t talk too much, or she will get jealous. But you’re so intriuging to me. So interesting. I don’t want to stop talking to you. You are different.
I get a “baby” for the weekend, the kind that is electronic and cries just like a real one, as a school project. We talk of how you had one in your freshman year. You say that if I need help, or just someone to talk to, just to call and that you’d be there. So I use that as an excuse to call you as much as I want. And you are there. Every time that baby cries, I dial your number and you listen to me. You listen, and you talk back, and we laugh, and you pay attention to me. I love every second of it. I feel something growing between us, but ignore it, because of what people might think. We keep in constant contact all weekend. I call you in the middle of the night and complain that the infant is bothering me more than a few times. You encourage me to get a good grade and tell me it will be over soon. But in a way, I don’t want it to end. I want this baby to keep crying, so I can keep calling you. Keep hearing that voice that I’m slowly growing attached to. The idea of you excites me to no end. You are different.
Weeks go on, we talk. But we don’t tell anyone. Because, what if she finds out? What would she think? We text. We flirt. We know there’s something there. There’s no denying it. You ask me on a date. I say yes, of course. I’m nervous. I get to the theater before you, and I’m shaking when you make your way up the steps. You look so handsome, and there are butterflies in my stomach. We go into the theater. You ask me permission to hold my hand, which is both respectable and adorable. I kiss you. I can’t help myself. You say, “I was definitely not expecting that.” We laugh. We whisper. We cuddle. We connect. You are different.
You write me notes all the time. In your awful handwriting. Notes that don’t mean anything, necessarily, but mean something to us. I write you notes. You write me a note confessing your feelings for me. You say in it, that you “know you don’t have a chance in the world” with me. You are wrong. Because you are different.
We go on several more dates. We are not together, but we are not seeing other people. I tell you I am not ready for a full commitment, and you say you are okay with that, but you’re not. I can tell. But I am not ready to give my all to someone. So we stay private, and we stay ‘not quite together.’ There is something missing. But there are so many feelings between us. This relationship is different. And so are you.
After time, my feelings change. And it is a terrible feeling. I don’t want them to change, because what we have seems so serious. But I feel strange, and I also feel as though I’m going to mess everything up. Out of nowhere, I end things between us. I crush you. You cry. I cry. We are both broken. But deep down I know, that you are so much better for me than anyone else. I just don’t realize it at the time. I figure that this will keep happening to me forever. I will continuously fuck things up between me and the people I have relations with. Even you. Even you, who are different.
We still talk, occassionally. But you feel too much for me. You tell me you do not want to talk to me anymore. I am hurt. But you have to end all connection between us. You want to get over me. It’s too much pain for you. Somewhere inside, I want you to get over me, too. I don’t want you to hurt like this anymore. Because you don’t deserve that. You are different.
Summer comes. We don’t talk. You date someone else to get over me. You have sex with this new girl. It breaks my heart when I hear about it, because she was your first. One of the things I loved so much about you was that were almost as inexperienced as I was. It also cuts my self-confidence in half. It shouldn’t bother me, because I ended things. I don’t have the right to be upset. I broke you. Not the other way around. I think about you every day. I want things to go back to how they were. I have so many regrets. I wish with everything that I could go back and change it. I miss you. I miss us. I miss our arguments. I miss the cute good morning texts. I miss our movie dates. I miss your kisses. I miss sneaking notes into your backpack. I miss falling in love with your voice over and over again when I hear it. I miss everything about you. But you are with someone else, and though I’m longing for you day after day, I do nothing about it. I put you way in the back of my mind, because I ended things with you. You, a boy, who was different.
I try and get over you. There are days where I think about you more than others. There are days that I go out and enjoy myself, and then go home at night and cry myself to sleep. I don’t let anyone know how I feel. I begin to shut everyone out. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep, but when I do, I dream about us being together again. I push it away. Everything. The feelings. The tears. The thoughts. I start to talk to a nice boy. A cute boy. A sweet boy. A boy that seems genuinely interested in me. A boy.. that is just like you, in so many ways. He resembles you. He reminds me of you. He has some of your qualities. He has the same smooth way with words that you did. You both talk the same, with that slight lisp that made me melt every time you talked. He makes me feel better about myself. He is good to me, and I am sure that we are going to date. I feel happy. But he is not you. And he is not connecting with me, in the way that you did. Because the situation with you has put the fear of God in me, I push this new boy away. I remember doing the same thing to you, and so many other guys before you. I lose even more faith in myself. I tell myself that I can’t keep doing this to people over and over. I can’t keep fucking with peoples’ feelings just because I’m scared and unsure of mine. I say that I will completely stay away from commitment, relationships, and especially “the L word.” Because I know that I have ruined things between you and I, and I will not find another person as beautiful and accepting and wonderful and special as you. And I most certainly will not find someone as different as you.
School is about to start back up. I am still thinking about you sometimes. But I convince myself that I am over you. I say that will work on my school, and focus on my acting. I will not worry myself with you, or thoughts of you, or thoughts of you with someone else. I am on my way to happiness, happiness with myself and myself alone, and nothing is going to mess that up. I feel as though things could finally be better. Without you. The boy who was so perfect for me; the one that was so different.
It is the first day of school, and I am greeting all my friends. The ones that I have missed. But, really, you are the one that I have been missing. But speaking to you? Out of the question. You wouldn’t likely want to speak with me. After all I put you through? There isn’t a chance in the world. But once again, you prove me wrong. Because you are different.
You are in front of the cafeteria, and I walk past you with my friend. I am not looking forward to seeing you. I don’t want to see you and be reminded of all the things that I’ve been pushing away for so long. But I do see you. And you see me. We make eye contact. My whole body feels numb. My throat closes up. I forget to breathe. My hands shake. And in this moment, I don’t see anyone around us, but you. All the feelings come rushing back at me. I avert my eyes as fast as I can, but the whole experience starts my day off terribly. I have never wanted to kiss someone so much in my life. I have never missed someone so much. I’ve never wanted to break down and cry as much as I do in this moment. I go on with my day, but still have a glimmer of hope for us to speak. At least be on speaking terms. I want to be friends with you. I want to be close to you, because you are so much different.
I get a text this night. And I see it is from you. That feeling in my stomach comes back again, but it is not so much ‘depressed’ as it is ‘excited.’ It is plain and simple. “Hey.” I reply back. You ask if I am mad at you. You ask why I didn’t talk to you this morning. I tell you that I figured you hated me. You say you don’t. I feel the biggest weight lifted off of my shoulders. We talk. We are on speaking terms again. I want you, more than anything. But I know that I don’t have the right to have you as my own again, and that I don’t deserve you. I am not good enough. You are too good for me. But I want you so badly. You are so much different than any of the others.
You break up with the girl that you dated for the summer when we start to be friends again. We slowly grow close again. I ask you to come over. We watch all the movies together that we had promised each other we would. A few minutes before you have to leave my house, you sit right next to me on the couch. You hold my hand. I’m shaking. I walk you outside. We say goodbye. And then, we kiss. Oh, that kiss. I don’t want it to end. You leave. I go inside my house. I am on Cloud Nine. I replay that kiss over and over in mind. I go to sleep with thoughts of you in my head. You are always in my mind anyways, because you are different.
That weekend, we go on our first date since we have been talking again. We see a comedy. We laugh. We kiss. We hold hands. We cuddle. It is just like how everything was before. You take me home. And on my doorstep, you take my hands, and ask me to be yours. I can’t say yes fast enough. I had always wondered what that moment would be like, when you asked me to be your girlfriend. And it is just as magical as I imagined it would be. You are different, in the best way possible.
Now, we are together. We are public. And I’ve never been more content with my relationship status. You make me happy. You light up my life. You are my other half, my better half. I’m crazy about you. What we have is real. What we have comes around once in a lifetime. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. You make me believe in the mushy love that they talk about in fairytales. This is what love feels like. I am absolutely, 100%, head over heels, in love with you. Matt, I will want you for forever and a day, because you are different. And I firmly believe that.