Evolving

Boys/Gym

Boys are always an interesting topic. Whenever an author is writing a story, there tends to be an element of romance, or at least something hinting toward it. People love to read about romance of all kinds; storybook romance, failed and unrequited romance, first love. People love to fall in love with a story.
I always though I'd have one of those storybook romances. I thought I'd bump into someone in the hall like you see in the movies; he'd pick up the books I dropped, and help me to class. I always pictured the million different ways I could meet The One, and it took me a long time to realize that things wouldn't always go how I expected them to.
When I was in junior high about to enter high school, I was given an option by the faculty: I could either take a semester of gym for my PE credit, or I could go to a week-long summer camp called Summer Gym and that would be the equivalent of a half PE credit (basically I'd have to go to this camp twice to get a full credit). I of course believed that a week of camp would be so much better than changing in the stinky girls locker room every morning for half a year and spending the rest of my day at school smelling like dried sweat. I signed up immediately. It was around this time that I had also begun to start looking at myself differently. I begun to notice the girls around me changing in ways that were different from me; I had gotten blessed with breasts at an early age, and it seemed that everyone else had been blessed with tan skin, long legs, and a flat stomach, all of which I didn't have. The first seeds of insecurity had been sprouted in me.
I had chosen my clothes carefully; I was going to be gone for a week, camping in the woods with 99 other students, and we'd be spending most of our time exercising - running, kayaking, swimming, playing ball. I packed my comfiest sports wear and my favorite swim suit, a two piece that had cherries all over it. It was a bathing suit that made me feel confident. Later on, I began hating it, but that's because my confidence was built on the fact that I saw how boys looked at me while I was wearing it. Today, I realize that I don't need to please a boy to feel confident.
A couple days into our camping adventure, we went to the lake, and I met Alex and Will. This was the start of my awkward high school relationship roller coaster. During summer gym, I developed a ridiculously huge crush on Will, because he was tall and muscular and - one of my favorite things about him - he was in band like I was. My city school system had set up marching band so that everyone began in sixth grade learning how to play their instrument, and in seventh/eighth grade they'd go to pep band events, before finally entering the high school marching band. Will was a year older than I, and he was in marching band, and my silly little heart took that as a sign of fate; we were meant to be. We were all at the lake, and I took my shirt off to display my swim suit, and I smiled when I noticed Will looking my way. I didn't notice, however, his best friend Alex also looking at me. I hadn't noticed Alex at the start. He was tall and awkward and on the chubby side, so I instantly labeled him as friend material, which on my part was a quick judge, and I regret that now. I really do.
I remember in vivid detail swimming in the lake, but at the time I had revealed that I was actually afraid to swim because I hated deep water, and Alex let me wrap my arms around his neck and he swam with me on his back. It was actually very fun. At the end of summer gym, I had secured Will in my heart, and unwittingly Alex had secured me in his.
A few weeks after summer gym had ended, marching band practice started. We always spent most of the summer learning drills and techniques, as well as the entire show that we would be performing in the fall. The very first week was called pre-camp, as it was the week before we went off to a college campus a few hours away for a week of band camp. Pre-camp was the week devoted to freshman, where they learned techniques and skills that would carry them through the next four years of marching band. I was a freshman and I was so excited. Part of my excitement was rooted in my knowledge that I would see Will. I quickly became integrated into his friend group, with him, Elaine, Alex, and Katie. I quickly learned that Elaine, who was a senior at the time, was someone who Will had been crushing on for the entire summer. I was crushed, of course, but I moved on from my silly crush. That's when I started to hang around Alex more. Alex was quickly becoming a great friend. We would text a lot, since he had given me his number, and we'd eat our meals together during band camp. I learned day one that he had a longtime girlfriend, Katie, who was in my section. We both played clarinet, and became friends easily. Shortly after band camp, Alex revealed that he had a crush on me, and ended up breaking things off with Katie, which made me feel like I was in between a rock and a hard place. If I got closer to Alex, it would make Katie hate me, and I had to deal with Katie everyday for the next three years because we were in a section together and sat near each other in class. If I didn't get closer to Alex, Katie would still hate me, because he had broken it off to be with me, but it would have been for no reason. So basically I was stuck. I could tell that Katie resented me, but she put on a kind face. It wasn't an act, either; she was a born and bred 100% sweetie and she couldn't be hateful if she tried. We became close friends and ended up spending most of my junior/her senior year together hanging out, but that's a later story.
I got close to Alex, and we never really labeled ourselves as together, but it was kind of assumed by a lot of people that we just were. After a while, I had decided that I was not going to date him, because I just didn't want to and didn't feel like I should, and you should never enter into a relationship that you have reservations about. Don't ever do anything you aren't sure about.
I finished out my freshman year, and when band camp started up again that following summer, I got a random surprise to see that Alex was in a relationship with Celia, a girl in my grade who I knew but wasn't close with. It hurt to see them together, and I was jealous, but I covered it up.
I eventually moved on from those feelings and met Brandon. Brandon was also in marching band, and was in a year ahead of Alex, making him two years older than me. We got close when our drill books for that fall's show had us closing out the show near each other; practically right beside each other. We started texting each other every night. We bonded over our shared love of music, food, and wrestling. My cousins, who had loved wrestling for as long as I can remember, instilled a sense of love for it in me as well. Brandon and I flirted it up for a few weeks. I hadn't been speaking to Alex as much due to this, and his current relationship with Celia.
Sometime in the late fall, Alex came to me about his relationship: he had found out that Celia had cheated on him, and they broke it off. I was shocked to say the least. I didn't see Celia as the type to cheat, but I did know her to be someone who followed her heart. Alex wanted me to spend the evening with him at a local coffee shop, and originally I agreed, but ended up cancelling due to my unstructured home life not allowing me to either have a ride or be able to get a ride there. I knew it crushed him to have me cancel, but I had no other choice; if I did, I would have tried my hardest to make it.
Our relationship struggled in the upcoming weeks due to his feelings for me returning, but me being unaware of it due to my blossoming relationship with Brandon. I'd continuously tell Alex about all of the sweet things Brandon would do or say, and he'd listen, being the supportive best friend, but inside he was hurting. Later in that fall, around Christmas time, Brandon broke things off with me with no tangible explanation. He just said he didn't feel the same way. I was crushed, of course. I went to Alex, hoping he'd console me. He did, and we rekindled our somewhat old romantic feelings for each other.
I later found out that Brandon was pursuing Celia. It was awkward to say the least.
Alex and I talked for a while. He was about to ask me out, he had told me later on, but didn't, because right around that time, Brandon came back into my life, claiming he was over Celia and knew he still had feelings for me. Me, being a clueless high school teenager and a hopeless romantic, immediately fell back into his arms. Alex was once again spurned by me.
I should have seen what happened next coming, by a long shot. Brandon ended up cutting me off once again, this time for good, because he was graduating and wanted to pursue a girl he had met on a college visit. I wasn't happy, but I understood it in a way. I tried going to Alex to speak about this, but this was the end of sophomore year going into junior year for me, and he was entering senior year, and things had changed. Right around the start of pre-camp, I noticed a change in him. He stopped talking to me as much. I noticed at band camp that it was because he was hanging around a freshman girl, Cassie, who was new in the band. She interested him and he completely forgot about me. That year was really difficult for me; I definitely understood the saying "you don't know what you got until it's gone". I noticed Alex in a completely different way, feeling jealousy whenever I saw him with Cassie.
I still had a shot, though. Alex still talked to me regularly, he just wasn't flirting like he had used to. He had offered to drive me to school in the mornings, because we lived somewhat close to each other, and I turned him down, which I realize now was stupid. He began giving Cassie rides to school soon after.
I felt a sense of relief when I learned that Cassie had a boyfriend, iconically another boy named Alex, who was in my grade. I had known this Alex for many years; we went to elementary school together. It seemed like comic relief to me; so many twisted relationships and missing pieces and so many timings being slightly off. Alex and I started flirting again, but I knew I didn't have his full attention, because he was always somewhat focused on Cassie.
They eventually started showing signs of having a secret relationship; the constant rides to school that he gave her instead of her boyfriend; her spending evenings at his house with his family; her mother knowing him by name better than her actual boyfriend; and just in general how close they were. Eventually someone clued Alex, her boyfriend, in to what was going on. He didn't want to believe Shaina, who was the one who told him, and confronted Cassie. The truth came out, and their relationship ended for a short period. They ended up getting back together, and they're closer than ever now, and I'm genuinely happy that she has someone to call her own, even if I had seriously disliked her for a long time.
After this, Alex and I still talked, but barely. He graduated, and I didn't go to his graduation party, because I knew it would be seriously awkward to everyone involved if I did. I laughed about it later when someone informed me that not many people showed up besides Cassie. That summer was the last one before my senior year, and I had just landed the role of drum major. A drum major is the person who leads and conducts the marching band during shows; there were four of us in total. I was excited and so ready to get the year started. That summer, Alex started contacting me again. We began flirting, but it was different this time. Alex showed me a different side to him. When we had been together every day leading up to this, he had always been shy and sweet and awkward; this time, he was cool, confident, and had no problem blowing me off when I didn't immediately jump at his texts. He was also overtly sexual, asking and telling me things that made me blush. I'd show some of them to my closest friends, because I wanted to show someone, and they ended up telling me that they agreed, he seemed like a completely different person. They noticed that we fought a lot more, that it seemed as though I was putting more effort in, and that I generally seemed uncomfortable in most of our conversations.
That summer, before the school year started, I broke things off. I told him I didn't like where things were going. I started the year upset and uncomfortable and alone. Later in the fall we started talking again. In case you haven't noticed, I'm the type to immediately jump back to anyone who has given me a second chance, because I have always hated being alone. My entire childhood I had been alone. I loved my independence and alone time at home, but everywhere else except for my home, I wanted constant company. I craved it.
We started talking again, and after not much time had passed, I broke it off again, except this time for good. Alex had always been the type of person to break easily, and every scar ran deep for him. I pushed just the right buttons this time when I broke things off, because I wanted it to be for good. He deleted me off every social media account, I'm pretty sure he blocked my phone number, and every time I saw him after that was an awkward encounter at best; we'd quietly ignore each other and try our hardest not to look at the other.
I didn't realize it then, but this had begun a trend for me: I saw boys in a different way, and I looked for relationships that were similar to the ones I had already experienced, because I had been conditioned to believe that those were what I deserved.