I Capital L Love You

death by a thousand stings

January 11th
Dear Oliver,

Freshman year. Gross. I'd rather not relive that... time period for many reasons, but it's pretty damn essential in the story of us. Skipping it would be like skipping the first movie in a very long series – the rest of the plot would be meaningless and confusing.

We went to the same high school. Thankfully. My parents were planning on sending me to an all-girls private school with uniforms and the whole nine yards, but somehow, your mom talked mine out of it. We didn't know how it happened, but we rejoiced over being able to spend four more years together without asking questions. In hindsight, it isn't too difficult to figure out why my parents sent me to public school and kept me close to you. I was a constant in your life, and we needed each other a lot more than we knew.

     I constantly wonder how things would have panned out if I got sent to that all-girls school. Would I still be so in Love with you, to this day? Would the feelings have disappeared with distance? What about our friendship?

     We'll never know, but I think they wouldn't have disappeared. An absence would just make the heart grow fonder.

     There wasn't any absence in our friendship during high school, but my heart still grew a million times fonder of you.

I wonder how that could be, but then I remember you. Your curly blond hair, emerald green eyes, and your freckles – there are as many of those as there are stars in the sky. Your self-deprecating sense of humor, easy-going personality, and uncanny ability to cheer me up when I'm in a pissy mood. The way you care for your family and are so protective of those you love. The way you are so passionate about everything you do, and are always able to give your undivided attention.

The real question becomes how would I not grow fonder of you, Oliver?

I digress...

So. Freshman year.

Yuck.

The year of braces and awkwardness. The year that we felt so cool, finally being in high school with the 'big kids.' The year we thought we knew everything.

Spoiler alert: we were just two idiots who knew nothing about the world and how it works. And, right now, at the ripe age of twenty-two, I still don't know anything about the world. I know more than I did eight years ago, but I still know next to nothing. If I knew everything, I would have the answers to why you don't love me back. I would have the answers to why I fell in Love with you and why I still Love you.

I would also have the answers to how everything went wrong during freshman year. Boy, Murphy's Law really came into play; literally everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong.

The first thing that went wrong was on the first day of that dreadful school year. I thought my life was going to change forever. I thought I'd express my new-found feelings, and we'd ride off into the sunset happily ever after.

I had a whole plan. (I actually started concocting it as soon as I got home from the beach that July afternoon). The plan was to pull you aside at lunch and give you the special pink heart-shaped cookie with 'S♡O' in navy frosting. I would give you the cookie, explain everything, and ask to start a romantic relationship.

But, as you know, that didn't happen.

You friend-zoned me in homeroom, and I was still too humiliated to tell you how I really felt during lunch.

"Is this seat taken?" Jake asked you that morning. I was just walking in the classroom and was able to witness a snippet of your conversation.

You shook your head. "My best friend, Soapy, was going to sit there, but I guess she can sit somewhere else."

Best friend.

You giving my seat away didn't even hurt; I understood that I couldn't hog you 24/7. I didn't even feel embarrassed that you called me 'Soapy.' But you calling me your 'best friend' stung like a whole nest of wasps was dropped on me. My throat felt tight and the proverbial wasps pricked my skin all over to the point where I wanted to crawl into a real wasp nest and die a death by a thousand stings.

After the sting faded, I walked into the room and sat at the closest empty desk to you. The unanticipated second wave of stings came when you didn't even acknowledge me. You were too busy talking about your summer with Jake to send a subtle nod or wave in my direction.

I shook it off, once again reminding myself that you weren't mine and that you could have other friends. There would be plenty of time for me to talk to you at lunch.

But that didn't come either.

You sat with some of your basketball friends from middle school – the jerks I absolutely hated. They were always teasing me for hanging out with you so much. Even though I was a few months older than most of them, they thought of me as the classic little sister who bugs her older siblings' friends. I had no desire to listen to them tease me for giving you a pink cookie.

I ended up scraping the frosting off the cookie and wiped the tears out of my eyes. My new friend, Lyssa, and I shared the messy cookie at a lonely table in the back corner of the cafeteria. Lyssa was new to town and quickly became my second best friend.

Keyword: second. Nobody but you could take the number one best friend spot.

     We did all of the girly things together that you didn't want to do anymore. And she was the only one who knew the true depth of my feelings. As a result, Lyssa was my biggest cheerleader. She hyped me up and eased the perpetual sting of you rejecting me to hang out with your friends. She never judged me for being so in Love with you, and I am forever grateful for that. I honestly wouldn't have survived high school if it weren't for our friendship.

     At least one good thing came out of that year that was filled with so much darkness.

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