Gutters of My Mind

I Was Just A Girl

A/N: This is a story from my own past, so it brought up a lot of real emotions in me... I just needed to vent it I guess...

To Boy: If you're reading this, I don't forgive myself, but I forgive you.

This is a long story, so strap in...

Once I was in love with a boy. I'll call him Boy because that's what he was. He was just a boy, and I was just a girl. Boy and I were in the same friend group growing up, but never really had any one-on-one time. The little time we did spend talking to each other was overshadowed by the rest of our more extroverted friends.

One year, in the 8th grade, Boy and I sat alone together at lunch. I don't remember why we were alone that day, but we were, and we got to talking. Boy had just started dating someone, but that conversation made me realize how much I actually liked Boy. I thought I was too late to do anything about it, so I kept quiet. That summer, I grew and became a bit more confident in myself, and high school rolled in. Boy and the rest of our friends and I all hung out as normal, except... Boy and his girlfriend had broken up.

This was my chance, right?

Wrong... Kinda.

See, Boy and I still met up at lunchtime with the rest of our friends, and we happened to share afternoon classes, so we got to spend a lot more time together. My feelings for Boy grew. He made me laugh, he made me feel safe, he made me feel like I could be every normal, weird, sad, funny, happy, angry part of me. And I loved him for that.

All of our friends thought we had started dating at some point, but alas "we were just friends". I wore his jacket every day, we met up every morning to hang out before he walked me to my first class (even though it practically made him late every day for the rest of the school year), I gave him a Valentine's gift, and he gave me one right back, he gave me his iPod password, and I gave him my heart. But we were just friends.

The school year came and went, and nothing changed between us. Then, summer came, and I ended up moving schools, away from Boy and my other friends. This was before I had gotten a cellphone, so I fell out of contact with them all. I was sad, but I moved on, the way I thought they all had as well.

But my little brother (who was, one year later, starting high school at the very school I had left behind) got recognized by an old friend of mine who gave him her number. With a hopeful heart, I texted her, and she told me all about the Boy I had left behind, the boy who after a year of missing me was finally connected to the tech of the modern world and wanted to text me.

I welcomed it with open arms, and we started the cycle again.

We talked for hours, we called each other every day, we whispered sweet words over the static of our phones, and we loved once more.

But we were just friends...

We fell out of contact again, once more and more responsibilities piled on each of us (read: I started to pull away from the heartache), and I graduated high school without hearing from Boy.

Fast forward another two years, and I was at Big College. I was working and living at home, but I was happy. I was looking forward to my future. And then I heard from Boy. But Boy was now a man, and I liked to think I was a Woman.

So Man contacts Woman after three years of radio silence, and Woman falls to her knees, right back in love with the Boy she remembered. But it wasn't the Boy she remembered. He was stronger and braver and kinder. Man confessed to Woman all he had felt, all he still felt for her, and Woman swooned and confessed the same. They fell in love for what they hoped was the last time, falling into familiar patterns of phone calls, video calls, texting, and loving from afar. A year went by, and they never met in person. You see, Man was overseas in the Navy, so Woman had to be strong and worry in silence for him. She wanted, no, needed to see him in person after so long. Man said felt the same, so they made plans.

They whispered plans of meeting like star-crossed lovers in the snow for Christmas, and Man got leave from whatever official he needed to beg and barter with.

Woman was scared. Excited, but scared. She waited.

And waited.

And waited...

He said they would meet, he promised her, whispered sweet nothings...

But Woman learned that that's all it was: sweet but nothing...

I've finally stopped waiting...