Story time, folks. I'm about to tell you a time where I was a stupid teenager with a stupid, stupid crush.

It's beyond uncomfortable for me, since sometimes I'm not entirely sure that I'm completely over it. There's still some... things... I don't think I'll ever let go. First love and all that bullshit.

Okay. Here goes nothing. Me attempting to put it all into words for the millionth time. Undoubtedly it will fall flat. I apologize for the length, it's wordy but there's just so much that happened between us.


Grade 10. New school without many of my friends. I had a summer boyfriend who was still lingering, which at the time I thought was okay but this would later prove to be a downfall. The way that the high school worked was that it was fed by all four of the junior highs in the communities surrounding my house-- Higgins, Sansom, Gale, and Terry Fox. Since the kids from Sansom and Gale were the closest to us, we Higgins people were well versed with them-- many of us had gone to elementary school with them, or played with them on various sports teams outside of school. The Terry Fox on the other hand was from well up the road-- they were the kids who lived north of us and we rarely ever got to know them. Since there was a high school within walking distance from my junior high, the obvious choice for all of my friends was to go to the nearest high school.
I did not, and neither did a bunch of my friends. It was a close-knit group, mostly because we numbered less than thirty, and we had all been a relatively close group in junior high. There was the jock, B*, and all of his friends from elementary through to high school, his lackeys and his various women. Then there was my friend K and I. When we started high school, we weren't friends at that moment. I'd spent my summer hanging out with my boyfriend, who was a member of B's hangers-on, and K didn't like any of them. She was picky, that girl.
Anyhow, grade 10 began and we were all filled with the promise of something wonderful. Immediately, my small junior high group branched out, but we were still skeptical about those Terry Fox kids-- the girls held hands in the hallways and kissed each other when they parted. It was weird, and gimmicky and I didn't like them.
Volleyball season started, and I was on the team. This introduced me to more of the Fox kids, and we forged tentative friendships. I wanted them to tell me all about the tall, shaggy haired boy on the boys team. They informed me he was S, and my teenage hormones went nutty. He was gorgeous, and he had this penchant for wearing white track pants with black briefs. To my teenage mind, this was what sex was like. I was very obvious and ridiculous-- there were many instances of me making a complete fool of myself in practice just to be noticed by this tall stranger. He chatted with the girls that I had recently become friends with, and I burned with jealousy. I couldn't string together two words to this stranger and there they were having full-blown conversations with him. It just wasn't fair.
His locker was closest to mine, so I saw him every morning-- me frantically stuffing my strawberry pop-tart breakfast in my maw and him looking like a sex god.
My summer boyfriend broke up with me shortly after volleyball season started, and K became my friend again. She was chagrined by the whole S infatuation, and told me in no uncertain terms that I was being ridiculous. She just didn't understand, we were destined to be together.
My love of S aside, school was why I was there. I had social studies the first semester with a friend from junior high and a whole bunch of new people. We instantly bonded with some other friends, relationships sprouted, the usual high school bullshit.
It was in this class that I met D.
It seems so fortuitous now, so romantically perfect.
Our class had been assigned, for what felt like the nth time to colour maps of Canada. Being the perfectionist I am, I had brought my own pencil crayons from home (as if I could be so ordinary as to use the school supplied nubbins), so naturally I was doing my best not to loan out any of my precious pigments.
I had rebuffed numerous questions to borrow my precious pencil crayons from many of my classmates; I deemed them shady characters and likely to steal them. I loaned them without worry to my friends, but not to these leering strangers. I wasn't about to loan them out to just anyone.
He had to be so bold.
In the library, this tall stranger wearing the most garish yellow hooded sweatshirt and wrinkled khaki pants strutted (in my memory he strutted, but in actuality I think he simply walked) towards my table and asked to borrow my yellow pencil crayon.
I looked him up and down, weighing his outward appearance with whether or not I thought he was virtuous enough to borrow AND return my items. He smiled that stupid goofy grin that I would one day come to hate, as he stood awaiting my answer.
I admit, as a teenage girl with eyes I knew that he was relatively attractive. His stupid mushroom cut was... alright, I guess. He wasn't bad looking, he was just... normal.
I judged him sound of character, so I handed over my yellow pencil, but explained in no uncertain terms that he must bring it back, or I would hunt him down and murder him. He chuckled and saluted, stating that he'd even bring it back sharpened. He returned back to his table of friends, each of them furtively looking at my table (I was seated with three of the most sought after girls in my year, after all. I always aligned myself with the right people) as their friend returned triumphant with the pencil crayon.
That was our first, and last interaction for almost a year.
I never gave him another thought, to be honest. He was on the periphery of my vision, as I had my eyes solely set on the shaggy boy who played all those sports. I even tried out and (to my absolute shock and horror) made the basketball team because he was playing basketball. It was a disaster.
I went on to play rugby for another school (since mine didn't) and it was all well and fine-- I met other people, especially other boys, and I moved on. S was still my top priority, but as the year progressed and I met other people, I learned he was saving himself for one specific person, and I was not her.
I became good friends with one of S and D's best friends, which would blossom into something beautiful as we aged, but I didn't know that at the time.

Grade 11
I spent the summer working and hanging out with K and our newly expanded group of girlfriends. There were some parties, I think. I can honestly say I don't remember the summer between grade 10 and 11 being anything special.
School began, and it was all much of the same, except I had English first term with D. I've always been very, very good at English. I take pity on my friends sometimes and assist them, but sometimes I know when things are hopeless. D was one of those times.
I edited his poetry, both for spelling and because I felt that he was an idiot. He is, especially in English.
This is also when my problem began.
You see, I also had class with S and I got a better chance to get to know him. And I learned that I hated him.
Not really, to this day I still don't hate him; we just don't see eye to eye. Plus he's wittier than I am and I can't stand for it. He bests me and I am not best-able. He makes me crazy, but not in a heart-fluttering kind of way, more like I would like nothing better than to beat him repeatedly over the head with something hard. I digress.
S could often see through me and I'm fairly certain he saw through me where his best friend D was concerned. I had to be ultra careful in this regard, tread lightly lest I be totally found out.
Years later I would find out that I was an open book and that everyone knew that I carried the strongest of torches for D. It makes me laugh now, but at the time I was made aware of this I was a little bit... upset.
The year progressed with little excitement. D started dating my friend M (I think I helped them get together... as I did with many of his girlfriends that year now that I think of it). We had gym together, and I would constantly play so many pranks on him because he was just this goofy kid that I was mad after, after all. Lots of pantsing, which should have been a huge tip off but he might have been a bit thick back then. There were other boys in the class and they showed me the same attention that I was giving D, but I only had eyes for him. I was a fool. I'll never forget the day that I dressed up for game day and this boy in our gym class nearly fainted when he saw my knee-high leather boots with the pointy heels. He creepily felt my leg, D looked on with a bemused look in his face. He was my best friend.
I don't think I've ever felt better about our friendship than when he came to watch me play a sport I excel at-- rugby. It was a stupid play that I dreaded to call. I was a hooker (titter away, folks), and it was my duty to throw the ball in a line out according to the play I'd been given by the coach via scrum-half. This particular game was in the bag, so my coach decided I needed a run. The 2 play where I faked throwing the ball to the jumpers, but instead lobbed it to the front lifter who tossed it back to me as I made my way down the extreme inside. I hated it-- I was a terrible runner. I had fair hands, but I have horrid target fixation, so if there is a tackle going to occur in front of me, I don't have the smarts to deke I just collide with the contact and call it good. So the day that play actually worked was the day that D and C came to watch. I'd seen them but was too focused on the game at hand to pay them much mind, except when the line out occurred right in front of them. It couldn't have gone better if I was professional-- the ball went in a perfect arc, the lifter handed it off, my hands were sure. There was a girl standing the requisite 10m back-- I saw her and made peace with what was going to happen. I sped up, pumping my legs like they'd told me to for all those weeks. I remember my knees making contact with the poor girls collarbone with full speed. I remember vaguely her wrapping me, or attempting to wrap me in a tackle, and I definitely remember her falling over as I bowled her over with little fear for my own well-being. I ended up tripping from the force of our collision, but I'd made it about 20m from where we'd started, and my team was excellent at recovery. D and C marveled at my prowess, and spoke nothing but platitudes at how fucking brilliant it had been to watch me annihilate a girl on the pitch. I never did it again, but we went on to win the city championship that year (thanks mostly in part to our star 8-man who scored well over 30 tries during our season).
The summer between grade 11 and 12 something happened. I can't explain it in words, because I still don't exactly know what changed.
I think it had something to do with the night in June where we'd played shot for shot with Bacardi 151, something I'm fairly sure is just poison that they say is rum. Like dumb teenagers we chased the foul tasting liquid with more alcohol. There was a walk, and a mad dash across a 3 lane divided road, drunkenly. There was a park, and some misguided fondling (oh my god, even thinking back at that night I can't believe it was happening). I didn't want to make out with D (though he was pretty sure that's what he wanted to do with me) so I feigned needing to pee and instead of peeing I fell into a dry riverbed, face first into some very solid rocks. I didn't break anything, or die, but I did end up throwing up a lot while D sat behind me on a bench, squeezing the life out of me like a well-meaning anaconda; an anaconda that was repeating how sorry he was as he tried to show his affection for me in my wounded state. Had I been sober, I would have been in heaven. As I was not, I was in a foul mood that expressed itself between me upchucking all of the alcohol in my body as well as the blood I'd managed to swallow from the cuts I had all over my nose. For the rest of the summer, D and I and his friends and sometimes K hung out every weekend. I was a junior manager at my job and D and his friends worked in construction, so we all had similar schedules. I've never played so much volleyball in my life-- we were all fiercely competitive. I've also never drunk so much. We hung out a lot at D's friend C.S's house. I hated C.S. but he was infatuated with K, and he was always where D was, so it was forced association.
There were so many moments that summer. D and I sitting atop my neighbors garage roof sharing gummy candies, having something he called 'sharing circles' in my garage (he always seemed to press the issue whenever I was around, but I was so scared that I never took the hint). We went to something called cornfest at the end of summer and I might have broken down when he wanted to spend time with his cousin's attractive friend. C found me and, doing what he's done best from day one, made me feel better. We try not to talk about that night even to this day. It's a closely guarded secret on my behalf as to why I'd been crying that night, and I never told C the truth. I doubt I ever will.
Grade 12 started with me staunchly avoiding D. He'd started dating this girl that was in his math (? I still have no fucking idea how he started dating her, and moreover I have no idea why she was so foul) class and I was busy doing stupid things with a boy a year younger than me. He was a ponce, but he was my first if-you-know-what-I-mean so naturally I had to fawn over him a little. D and I had a few classes together, but we were terse with one another, C having no doubt told D about what happened at the end of cornfest and me being a little bit uncomfortable with how much power he had over my emotions. We played volleyball together, and I dislocated my finger in one of our practices. It was gruesome, and apparently he was squeamish, so naturally I had to wave it in front of his face repeatedly. The pain didn't touch how disgusted he looked-- he might have thrown up if he wasn't so morbidly curious. It was the first time we'd talked in weeks and I was extremely happy that things seemed to go back to normal. Except he was still dating the horrific slut that no one of his friends tolerated. Even S admitted that my persistent lusting was better than her, which I took as a supreme compliment. The year seemed to fly by-- we drifted a little bit but by fortune of our birthdays being at the start of the year we spent a lot of time procuring $2 steak sandwiches and cheap shots at a neighborhood pub. Many pitchers of beer were consumed and we debated heartily over NBA (the only common sport between D, C, S and I), our speech slurred and slowed, stupid grins on our faces.
Finally graduation. D had been scouted to play volleyball for the university, I had no idea what I wanted to do at that point. I was going to take a well earned year off to upgrade (I'd failed chemistry) and to sort out what it was I wanted to do with my life. Our graduation was what you'd expect, lots of hugs, lots of 'oh my gosh you look so good's' and what have you. D and I shared an awkward hug, and his mother got a picture of the two of us in our cape and gowns smiling up at one another stupidly (D's sister never failed to say that it was her favorite picture of her brother which always makes me feel both awkward and warm in places that bring tears to my eyes even if I've never seen it). The summer I spent working a lot and playing a lot of rugby and he spent with his girlfriend (that hated me for reasons I both know and refuse to acknowledge, but we'll get to that soon). We went our separate ways, though he never failed to come out whenever I'd send a message.

The year I took off and his first year in university was a strange one. I never saw him. He was too busy being cool, and as it was he and his friends as well as me only saw him during summer break. I'd decided that year that I was going to go away to university so we had an impromptu going away party. My year away was lonely and I came home often but not to see D or any of them. I spent a lot of time with a different group of friends and I honestly didn't think about D very much during that year. Or the following one, when I'd come home to go to a different university. I don't even remember why we planned an end of semester get together, but I was relishing in our nostalgic gathering.
Except everyone bailed on us (call is kismet) so it ended up just being D and I. I should have felt it in the air, the heaviness of what was to come, but I didn't.
We ended up getting exceptionally drunk together and doing what we do best-- have adventures. Thinking back on it now, I can't believe that we drove but we did and we survived (I will admit that while I don't condone drunk driving, when I was younger I was a fucking excellent drunk driver). We ended up at the same park that we'd gone to when I'd broken my face, mostly because it's an excellent place to pee when there are no bathrooms around, but also because it was fate. I'm not sure how it happened, but he ended up carrying me, bridal style back to my car, where we ended up talking about his wedding to Jess (the girl that hated me) despite the fact that he'd been cheating on her with anyone he could stick his dick in for the last 6 months and had recently broken up. Inside I rejoiced, by my stupid mouth kept saying stupid things like I would be heartbroken if I didn't get invited to their wedding, to which he said that he'd personally see to it that my name was on the first invitation, handwritten by him personally. It was very touching, and we were very, very close to one another by this point.
Then we kissed.
Okay. We did way more than that. It was drunken and awkward and ugh. Not how you'd want your first time with the boy that you were pretty sure you were in love with to go, but beggars can't be choosers.
It was horrid and awkward, mostly because he's well over 6ft and we were doing it in the front seat of my very small coupe. I think my knees are still bruised.
It was over before it began, and we were both spent. I couldn't help but feel mortified at what I'd just done. The sun was coming up, and I took him home, feeling cheap and so uncomfortable beside someone I'd known for almost 6 years. Thankfully he was going to Europe for 6 weeks in two days, and I was going to Vegas. We would be worlds apart, and I wouldn't have to see him and deal with what had just happened.
And we didn't. For nearly two years. We'd see one another, he'd invite me out to his volleyball team's numerous fundraisers at bars but not only did I not know how to respond to these invitations (were these just friendly invitations, or were they something more? Did he really want me there because I'm me, or because the team needed bodies?), I didn't know how to deal with him. I had the emotional maturity of a teaspoon then, and I honestly couldn't imagine what would happen when I saw him again. Would we fall madly in love? Did I want to fall madly in love? Would he treat me like a friend? Are we still friends? Could we ever be friends after our drunken tryst in my car?
It wasn't until we went out shortly before (or after? I can't remember) he went to Australia. We were at our bar, the one we'd all spent so much time at in high school, and we finally spoke. Or he spoke to me, or I spoke to him, or whatever. I had this thing in NYC and I was happy. And D and I talked about what had happened 2 years in the past, and he either buttered me up (which he might have been, he's always been a bit of a lothario) or said the most honest and panty-wetting thing he's ever said to me: he said that we'd had to have sex because the sexual tension had been building for years.

CUE THE SHOCKED EXPRESSION ON MY FACE. I'd known him for 8 years, and never once did he ever give me the inkling that I was anything more than a good girl friend. At that moment I wanted nothing better than to create more sexual tension again. But he had a girlfriend, and I was dating my whatever in NYC.

He's always had a girlfriend and I've always been doing my own thing. People grow up and change, but our friendship seems to last and it's something I've taken comfort in when times seem the darkest. The koala he'd brought me back from Oz at my request sits proudly on my shelf.

I sit here, paranoid that my boyfriend of 4 years will read this and realize that perhaps my friendship with D was never really a friendship, that despite it all I still think I love that stupid goofy grinned boy.

I recently learned that he'd broken up with his most recent long-term girlfriend and I couldn't help but feel hopeful like I had all those years ago when we sat for hours on a roof, gazing up at the stars.

I guess it's just a torch I'll carry for the rest of my life...

b; old enough to know better; attached.
college student of historical events, future educator. canadienne. i like to read, but i don't do it enough. i run. i like zombies. i'm obsessed with all things batman, except not batfleck. i'm a terrible video game player, but i'm getting better through attrition. i can play piano pretty good, though. the sound of city streets soothes me, but i love the silence of the forest. curious stargazer.

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Story time, folks. I'm about to tell you a time where I was a stupid teenager with a stupid, stupid crush.

It's beyond uncomfortable for me, since sometimes I'm not entirely sure that I'm completely over it. There's still some... things... I don't think I'll ever let go. First love and all that bullshit.

Okay. Here goes nothing. Me attempting to put it all into words for the millionth time. Undoubtedly it will fall flat. I apologize for the length, it's wordy but there's just so much that happened between us.


Grade 10. New school without many of my friends. I had a summer boyfriend who was still lingering, which at the time I thought was okay but this would later prove to be a downfall. The way that the high school worked was that it was fed by all four of the junior highs in the communities surrounding my house-- Higgins, Sansom, Gale, and Terry Fox. Since the kids from Sansom and Gale were the closest to us, we Higgins people were well versed with them-- many of us had gone to elementary school with them, or played with them on various sports teams outside of school. The Terry Fox on the other hand was from well up the road-- they were the kids who lived north of us and we rarely ever got to know them. Since there was a high school within walking distance from my junior high, the obvious choice for all of my friends was to go to the nearest high school.
I did not, and neither did a bunch of my friends. It was a close-knit group, mostly because we numbered less than thirty, and we had all been a relatively close group in junior high. There was the jock, B*, and all of his friends from elementary through to high school, his lackeys and his various women. Then there was my friend K and I. When we started high school, we weren't friends at that moment. I'd spent my summer hanging out with my boyfriend, who was a member of B's hangers-on, and K didn't like any of them. She was picky, that girl.
Anyhow, grade 10 began and we were all filled with the promise of something wonderful. Immediately, my small junior high group branched out, but we were still skeptical about those Terry Fox kids-- the girls held hands in the hallways and kissed each other when they parted. It was weird, and gimmicky and I didn't like them.
Volleyball season started, and I was on the team. This introduced me to more of the Fox kids, and we forged tentative friendships. I wanted them to tell me all about the tall, shaggy haired boy on the boys team. They informed me he was S, and my teenage hormones went nutty. He was gorgeous, and he had this penchant for wearing white track pants with black briefs. To my teenage mind, this was what sex was like. I was very obvious and ridiculous-- there were many instances of me making a complete fool of myself in practice just to be noticed by this tall stranger. He chatted with the girls that I had recently become friends with, and I burned with jealousy. I couldn't string together two words to this stranger and there they were having full-blown conversations with him. It just wasn't fair.
His locker was closest to mine, so I saw him every morning-- me frantically stuffing my strawberry pop-tart breakfast in my maw and him looking like a sex god.
My summer boyfriend broke up with me shortly after volleyball season started, and K became my friend again. She was chagrined by the whole S infatuation, and told me in no uncertain terms that I was being ridiculous. She just didn't understand, we were destined to be together.
My love of S aside, school was why I was there. I had social studies the first semester with a friend from junior high and a whole bunch of new people. We instantly bonded with some other friends, relationships sprouted, the usual high school bullshit.
It was in this class that I met D.
It seems so fortuitous now, so romantically perfect.
Our class had been assigned, for what felt like the nth time to colour maps of Canada. Being the perfectionist I am, I had brought my own pencil crayons from home (as if I could be so ordinary as to use the school supplied nubbins), so naturally I was doing my best not to loan out any of my precious pigments.
I had rebuffed numerous questions to borrow my precious pencil crayons from many of my classmates; I deemed them shady characters and likely to steal them. I loaned them without worry to my friends, but not to these leering strangers. I wasn't about to loan them out to just anyone.
He had to be so bold.
In the library, this tall stranger wearing the most garish yellow hooded sweatshirt and wrinkled khaki pants strutted (in my memory he strutted, but in actuality I think he simply walked) towards my table and asked to borrow my yellow pencil crayon.
I looked him up and down, weighing his outward appearance with whether or not I thought he was virtuous enough to borrow AND return my items. He smiled that stupid goofy grin that I would one day come to hate, as he stood awaiting my answer.
I admit, as a teenage girl with eyes I knew that he was relatively attractive. His stupid mushroom cut was... alright, I guess. He wasn't bad looking, he was just... normal.
I judged him sound of character, so I handed over my yellow pencil, but explained in no uncertain terms that he must bring it back, or I would hunt him down and murder him. He chuckled and saluted, stating that he'd even bring it back sharpened. He returned back to his table of friends, each of them furtively looking at my table (I was seated with three of the most sought after girls in my year, after all. I always aligned myself with the right people) as their friend returned triumphant with the pencil crayon.
That was our first, and last interaction for almost a year.
I never gave him another thought, to be honest. He was on the periphery of my vision, as I had my eyes solely set on the shaggy boy who played all those sports. I even tried out and (to my absolute shock and horror) made the basketball team because he was playing basketball. It was a disaster.
I went on to play rugby for another school (since mine didn't) and it was all well and fine-- I met other people, especially other boys, and I moved on. S was still my top priority, but as the year progressed and I met other people, I learned he was saving himself for one specific person, and I was not her.
I became good friends with one of S and D's best friends, which would blossom into something beautiful as we aged, but I didn't know that at the time.

Grade 11
I spent the summer working and hanging out with K and our newly expanded group of girlfriends. There were some parties, I think. I can honestly say I don't remember the summer between grade 10 and 11 being anything special.
School began, and it was all much of the same, except I had English first term with D. I've always been very, very good at English. I take pity on my friends sometimes and assist them, but sometimes I know when things are hopeless. D was one of those times.
I edited his poetry, both for spelling and because I felt that he was an idiot. He is, especially in English.
This is also when my problem began.
You see, I also had class with S and I got a better chance to get to know him. And I learned that I hated him.
Not really, to this day I still don't hate him; we just don't see eye to eye. Plus he's wittier than I am and I can't stand for it. He bests me and I am not best-able. He makes me crazy, but not in a heart-fluttering kind of way, more like I would like nothing better than to beat him repeatedly over the head with something hard. I digress.
S could often see through me and I'm fairly certain he saw through me where his best friend D was concerned. I had to be ultra careful in this regard, tread lightly lest I be totally found out.
Years later I would find out that I was an open book and that everyone knew that I carried the strongest of torches for D. It makes me laugh now, but at the time I was made aware of this I was a little bit... upset.
The year progressed with little excitement. D started dating my friend M (I think I helped them get together... as I did with many of his girlfriends that year now that I think of it). We had gym together, and I would constantly play so many pranks on him because he was just this goofy kid that I was mad after, after all. Lots of pantsing, which should have been a huge tip off but he might have been a bit thick back then. There were other boys in the class and they showed me the same attention that I was giving D, but I only had eyes for him. I was a fool. I'll never forget the day that I dressed up for game day and this boy in our gym class nearly fainted when he saw my knee-high leather boots with the pointy heels. He creepily felt my leg, D looked on with a bemused look in his face. He was my best friend.
I don't think I've ever felt better about our friendship than when he came to watch me play a sport I excel at-- rugby. It was a stupid play that I dreaded to call. I was a hooker (titter away, folks), and it was my duty to throw the ball in a line out according to the play I'd been given by the coach via scrum-half. This particular game was in the bag, so my coach decided I needed a run. The 2 play where I faked throwing the ball to the jumpers, but instead lobbed it to the front lifter who tossed it back to me as I made my way down the extreme inside. I hated it-- I was a terrible runner. I had fair hands, but I have horrid target fixation, so if there is a tackle going to occur in front of me, I don't have the smarts to deke I just collide with the contact and call it good. So the day that play actually worked was the day that D and C came to watch. I'd seen them but was too focused on the game at hand to pay them much mind, except when the line out occurred right in front of them. It couldn't have gone better if I was professional-- the ball went in a perfect arc, the lifter handed it off, my hands were sure. There was a girl standing the requisite 10m back-- I saw her and made peace with what was going to happen. I sped up, pumping my legs like they'd told me to for all those weeks. I remember my knees making contact with the poor girls collarbone with full speed. I remember vaguely her wrapping me, or attempting to wrap me in a tackle, and I definitely remember her falling over as I bowled her over with little fear for my own well-being. I ended up tripping from the force of our collision, but I'd made it about 20m from where we'd started, and my team was excellent at recovery. D and C marveled at my prowess, and spoke nothing but platitudes at how fucking brilliant it had been to watch me annihilate a girl on the pitch. I never did it again, but we went on to win the city championship that year (thanks mostly in part to our star 8-man who scored well over 30 tries during our season).
The summer between grade 11 and 12 something happened. I can't explain it in words, because I still don't exactly know what changed.
I think it had something to do with the night in June where we'd played shot for shot with Bacardi 151, something I'm fairly sure is just poison that they say is rum. Like dumb teenagers we chased the foul tasting liquid with more alcohol. There was a walk, and a mad dash across a 3 lane divided road, drunkenly. There was a park, and some misguided fondling (oh my god, even thinking back at that night I can't believe it was happening). I didn't want to make out with D (though he was pretty sure that's what he wanted to do with me) so I feigned needing to pee and instead of peeing I fell into a dry riverbed, face first into some very solid rocks. I didn't break anything, or die, but I did end up throwing up a lot while D sat behind me on a bench, squeezing the life out of me like a well-meaning anaconda; an anaconda that was repeating how sorry he was as he tried to show his affection for me in my wounded state. Had I been sober, I would have been in heaven. As I was not, I was in a foul mood that expressed itself between me upchucking all of the alcohol in my body as well as the blood I'd managed to swallow from the cuts I had all over my nose. For the rest of the summer, D and I and his friends and sometimes K hung out every weekend. I was a junior manager at my job and D and his friends worked in construction, so we all had similar schedules. I've never played so much volleyball in my life-- we were all fiercely competitive. I've also never drunk so much. We hung out a lot at D's friend C.S's house. I hated C.S. but he was infatuated with K, and he was always where D was, so it was forced association.
There were so many moments that summer. D and I sitting atop my neighbors garage roof sharing gummy candies, having something he called 'sharing circles' in my garage (he always seemed to press the issue whenever I was around, but I was so scared that I never took the hint). We went to something called cornfest at the end of summer and I might have broken down when he wanted to spend time with his cousin's attractive friend. C found me and, doing what he's done best from day one, made me feel better. We try not to talk about that night even to this day. It's a closely guarded secret on my behalf as to why I'd been crying that night, and I never told C the truth. I doubt I ever will.
Grade 12 started with me staunchly avoiding D. He'd started dating this girl that was in his math (? I still have no fucking idea how he started dating her, and moreover I have no idea why she was so foul) class and I was busy doing stupid things with a boy a year younger than me. He was a ponce, but he was my first if-you-know-what-I-mean so naturally I had to fawn over him a little. D and I had a few classes together, but we were terse with one another, C having no doubt told D about what happened at the end of cornfest and me being a little bit uncomfortable with how much power he had over my emotions. We played volleyball together, and I dislocated my finger in one of our practices. It was gruesome, and apparently he was squeamish, so naturally I had to wave it in front of his face repeatedly. The pain didn't touch how disgusted he looked-- he might have thrown up if he wasn't so morbidly curious. It was the first time we'd talked in weeks and I was extremely happy that things seemed to go back to normal. Except he was still dating the horrific slut that no one of his friends tolerated. Even S admitted that my persistent lusting was better than her, which I took as a supreme compliment. The year seemed to fly by-- we drifted a little bit but by fortune of our birthdays being at the start of the year we spent a lot of time procuring $2 steak sandwiches and cheap shots at a neighborhood pub. Many pitchers of beer were consumed and we debated heartily over NBA (the only common sport between D, C, S and I), our speech slurred and slowed, stupid grins on our faces.
Finally graduation. D had been scouted to play volleyball for the university, I had no idea what I wanted to do at that point. I was going to take a well earned year off to upgrade (I'd failed chemistry) and to sort out what it was I wanted to do with my life. Our graduation was what you'd expect, lots of hugs, lots of 'oh my gosh you look so good's' and what have you. D and I shared an awkward hug, and his mother got a picture of the two of us in our cape and gowns smiling up at one another stupidly (D's sister never failed to say that it was her favorite picture of her brother which always makes me feel both awkward and warm in places that bring tears to my eyes even if I've never seen it). The summer I spent working a lot and playing a lot of rugby and he spent with his girlfriend (that hated me for reasons I both know and refuse to acknowledge, but we'll get to that soon). We went our separate ways, though he never failed to come out whenever I'd send a message.

The year I took off and his first year in university was a strange one. I never saw him. He was too busy being cool, and as it was he and his friends as well as me only saw him during summer break. I'd decided that year that I was going to go away to university so we had an impromptu going away party. My year away was lonely and I came home often but not to see D or any of them. I spent a lot of time with a different group of friends and I honestly didn't think about D very much during that year. Or the following one, when I'd come home to go to a different university. I don't even remember why we planned an end of semester get together, but I was relishing in our nostalgic gathering.
Except everyone bailed on us (call is kismet) so it ended up just being D and I. I should have felt it in the air, the heaviness of what was to come, but I didn't.
We ended up getting exceptionally drunk together and doing what we do best-- have adventures. Thinking back on it now, I can't believe that we drove but we did and we survived (I will admit that while I don't condone drunk driving, when I was younger I was a fucking excellent drunk driver). We ended up at the same park that we'd gone to when I'd broken my face, mostly because it's an excellent place to pee when there are no bathrooms around, but also because it was fate. I'm not sure how it happened, but he ended up carrying me, bridal style back to my car, where we ended up talking about his wedding to Jess (the girl that hated me) despite the fact that he'd been cheating on her with anyone he could stick his dick in for the last 6 months and had recently broken up. Inside I rejoiced, by my stupid mouth kept saying stupid things like I would be heartbroken if I didn't get invited to their wedding, to which he said that he'd personally see to it that my name was on the first invitation, handwritten by him personally. It was very touching, and we were very, very close to one another by this point.
Then we kissed.
Okay. We did way more than that. It was drunken and awkward and ugh. Not how you'd want your first time with the boy that you were pretty sure you were in love with to go, but beggars can't be choosers.
It was horrid and awkward, mostly because he's well over 6ft and we were doing it in the front seat of my very small coupe. I think my knees are still bruised.
It was over before it began, and we were both spent. I couldn't help but feel mortified at what I'd just done. The sun was coming up, and I took him home, feeling cheap and so uncomfortable beside someone I'd known for almost 6 years. Thankfully he was going to Europe for 6 weeks in two days, and I was going to Vegas. We would be worlds apart, and I wouldn't have to see him and deal with what had just happened.
And we didn't. For nearly two years. We'd see one another, he'd invite me out to his volleyball team's numerous fundraisers at bars but not only did I not know how to respond to these invitations (were these just friendly invitations, or were they something more? Did he really want me there because I'm me, or because the team needed bodies?), I didn't know how to deal with him. I had the emotional maturity of a teaspoon then, and I honestly couldn't imagine what would happen when I saw him again. Would we fall madly in love? Did I want to fall madly in love? Would he treat me like a friend? Are we still friends? Could we ever be friends after our drunken tryst in my car?
It wasn't until we went out shortly before (or after? I can't remember) he went to Australia. We were at our bar, the one we'd all spent so much time at in high school, and we finally spoke. Or he spoke to me, or I spoke to him, or whatever. I had this thing in NYC and I was happy. And D and I talked about what had happened 2 years in the past, and he either buttered me up (which he might have been, he's always been a bit of a lothario) or said the most honest and panty-wetting thing he's ever said to me: he said that we'd had to have sex because the sexual tension had been building for years.

CUE THE SHOCKED EXPRESSION ON MY FACE. I'd known him for 8 years, and never once did he ever give me the inkling that I was anything more than a good girl friend. At that moment I wanted nothing better than to create more sexual tension again. But he had a girlfriend, and I was dating my whatever in NYC.

He's always had a girlfriend and I've always been doing my own thing. People grow up and change, but our friendship seems to last and it's something I've taken comfort in when times seem the darkest. The koala he'd brought me back from Oz at my request sits proudly on my shelf.

I sit here, paranoid that my boyfriend of 4 years will read this and realize that perhaps my friendship with D was never really a friendship, that despite it all I still think I love that stupid goofy grinned boy.

I recently learned that he'd broken up with his most recent long-term girlfriend and I couldn't help but feel hopeful like I had all those years ago when we sat for hours on a roof, gazing up at the stars.

I guess it's just a torch I'll carry for the rest of my life...