The Boy I Could Never Love

Bleeding Heart

I entered our sophomore year with a new boyfriend. A 15-year-old, home-schooled young man who lived two hours from me with his Christian family. I met him at summer camp shortly after Crazy left me. This became my turnaround as the previous relationship could not compare. My insecure self kept him on the phone for hours, racking up a hefty bill. He didn't mind as he worked with his dad so could afford it.

I had yet to say anything about him when my friend asked me out again. This decided I would break it off with the other guy and go for it. Not that I didn't like my boyfriend, I did. Being the first girl to agree to date him, he felt so honored that when we met someone, he introduced himself as my boyfriend before giving his name. This made me feel like I meant something just by being me. Yet, my friend still burned for me after everything, and he knew what I'd been through. Plus, he lived in the next town, not a two-hour drive away.

However, here stood the first and only person to ever listen to my circumstances. Not my peers, teachers, family, or any other person, but him, and never did he ask me to stop or get out of my head. He gave me space to lay my demons to rest, if only for twenty-five minutes. It caused this boy to know my entire life story as I knew it from the moment he pressed about home. And, not hearing that I came off as too much when I was with him brought a sense of belonging. He did agree that I could act dramatic, but I owned that.

Still, my dramatic self would prove overwhelming if I let him in that far. With no knowledge of how to turn it off, especially where my friend stayed concerned, life, as I knew it, would destroy him, or at the very least, it would destroy what I maintained with him. My friend remained my only outlet where no one else cared about the goings on in my life. A falling out between us would rip away the light he brought to my dreary existence.

The fear of losing him rendered me silent, and trying to nod my head made me rock. A comment made by another individual said I looked like I stood there having a stroke. I kept repeating, I can't. I can't do it. Why can't I do it? Which my friend took to mean no, but actually meant the words stayed locked in my throat. That saw the first time I tried to say, I love you.

*The closest I came was to wrap my arms around him, absentmindedly kissing his neck as I went in. I told him not to let me go, don't ever let me go. My friend asked if that meant yes, but still, I could not find the strength to say that word. All I could do was hold him tighter. It saw him unable to take my actions as proof. When my hand froze trying to write it, I wanted to cry.*

Two days of using homeroom to plead with me to go out with him, and not uncovering a way to say yes began to feel like the last time when I nearly lost him. This led me to become even more scared. Without a way to tell him how much I wanted this, I broke, and informed him I had a boyfriend.

My friend felt hurt, naturally. Not being able to tell him why I never said anything held him convinced that I started a new relationship with someone despite him, breeding a deep seated hatred in myself. I never told my boyfriend about it and never divulged the truth about the encounter.

Disappointment drove me to start acting poorly toward my friend, flying out of control whenever I saw him. Certain my inability to convince or voice my feelings suggested they weren't real, I became angry about considering leaving a relationship with a guy who treated me like gold. Every time the thought came about, I lashed out, telling my friend to shut up when he spoke and randomly voicing that it would never happen between the two of us. I wanted to move on and forget what I'd almost done. *I wanted him to hate me.*

He took it all, watching in the shadow of the storm I rained down on him. Frankly, I don't know what he saw in me at that point. I'd refused his advances to acquire another, rejected and insulted his work while using him as a sounding board, our interests never aligned, classes never synced up, and now, I refused him to speak. It steadily got worse right up until Christmas break.

On one of the rare occasions that I allowed him to talk, my girlfriend and I came in discussing the meaning of Christmas, as it was that time of the year. I thought his belief leaned closer to Native American or Celtic by the way he talked about the spirit of the wolf. So, when asked what he thought about it, I sat there in shock to hear he believed in God.

We began talking about our experiences growing up in Christianity, and I voiced how I felt the good book was dry reading. A few weeks later, he gifted me a set of children's Bible stories he and his sister enjoyed as kids for a Christmas present. I acted ungrateful to receive it, when in truth, it made me reflect on how I treated him. I fell for my friend all over again. He still wasn't what I needed, but I stopped dismissing him.

Feeling my life required someone to take my hand and say I got you, our routine chats fell short. I loved him, but my friend only existed in homeroom. I needed a person who could take on the world beside me. He would not be the boy to stand and fight the nightmares that faced me, *and being with him brought too much risk to my preservation.

*Accepting him would make me realize how every person in my life bred toxicity and the illusion of safety came from their treatment. Even those I idolized would fall under question with more of my friend in my life. I feared I would break him when in reality, it was he who would break me.*

My friend started giving me other presents after that, revealing some level of affection still remained. I can't tell you how many bleeding hearts I received that year. I inquired about their meaning, but he informed me he enjoyed drawing them and nothing more. A part of me wondered if it stood for the blade I stuck in his heart, but he would never admit that so I dismissed the opinion. My long-distance relationship remained ongoing, so I accepted the gifts with prejudice.

The sword and anatomic heart looked like the makings of a bad tattoo, and I made known they didn't look real enough for me to appreciate them as an art piece, but where he did it, I loved it. I realize how shitty a comment that is, but my flaw of honesty never fully left me. In my opinion, his style remained better suited for animation, but his stubborn self refused to acknowledge that, and my stubborn self continued to insist.

^*Do I believe that now? Of course not. If I had one today, I would get it done to prove it. It would stand as a reminder of old wounds in need of healing. Coming from something my friend did would serve to show that healing remains possible.*^

I don't remember him ever really getting upset about my dating. At least not that he showed. I'm sure he did, yet the fact remains that I never witnessed it. The initial blow hurt, but after, things went to normal. I thought often in high school about how if he said, you're the one I want. It's always been you. There is and never has been any one else. Leave him and be with me. I would gain the confidence I searched for.

My favorite landed on the words, no one else, and I longed to hear him say them. However, I would accept one variation of these statements as I looked for some kind of assurance. Something to say dating him would remain worth it, and I wouldn't lose him.

If school held the only place I could see him, I required him to come on strong and never give up. He did so in junior high, and as we got older, I searched for that confidence I knew him capable of. When I didn't see it, I felt his admiration existed in fleeting passes. Something he came back to when another didn't pan out as his advances never persisted with any constancy. My friend never sought me out, and other than his sister that one time, no one came to me saying he liked me. Truth is, I don't know what I would have done as it never happened the way I needed it to. We stayed friends in homeroom, nothing more.

My favorite gift that year came in the form of a scratch. Another bleeding heart I remember insulting, only to be told the lines I looked for couldn't be done in that art form. Knowing little about art myself, I looked at it again and put it in my bag. He wrote to and from on the back and whenever I needed peace, I would flip it over to read our names. Occasionally, I touched the words where they existed the only place the two stood together.

That piece traveled with me through two apartments, a trailer park, and an unfortunate move to my in-laws where my one-year-old son found and destroyed it. I suspect he had help in that endeavor. From sophomore year to the tenth year after graduation, I carried it with me. I never did like the picture throughout that time, but the work grew on me over the course of it. Throwing it out, I had to look away as it dropped into the can, crying as it hurt too much to watch it fall from my hand.

Talk about the best gift you received from a friend and vote please.