One Boy, One Girl, and a Park Bench

The Story

Quote: "Love is what makes two people sit in the middle of the park bench even if there is plenty of room at both ends of the bench" ~Unknown author

It took place during camp in the summer of the year 2015. Probably one of the best summers of my life. That's the year that met Blake, who turned out to be my best friend in the world. At the start, it didn't seem like two people so different could become such great friends and it's all thanks to one little wooden park bench in an old park.

When I first met Blake, we did not get along very well. Most people would say that we didn't get along at all! It was morning game, and we were playing capture the flag in the field behind the school. My friend Matt had introduced me to Blake as his boyfriend (he is gay and Blake is bisexual). When I was first introduced to him, I thought that everything would be fine. I love meeting new people and I honestly didn't think of anything. Well, that is until he goes "Hi I'm Blake. Quick question, are you a lesbian?"

I was astonished to hear that come from him and even more astonished that that was his first impression of me because I am pretty certain that he knows that I am clearly wasn't a lesbian. I was mad at him for saying that to me, so I did the only logical thing I could think of and I grabbed a handful of the new freshly mowed grass off of the ground and threw it right at him. It seemed pretty logical in my head at the time but now that I look back at it, it is actually quite stupid. But if it didn't happen, we may not have even become friends. He fought back after furiously wiping the grass out of his hair and it grew from there. Eventually, we stopped fighting when I got up and left the situation in a fume of anger still brushing off all the grass from his hair.

A bit later, we moved over to the park. I sat on a nearby park bench that was in the middle of the park right by the playscape. It was covered in just the right amount of shade by a tree which had shaded me from the intense ninety-degree heat of the summer sun. I had my notebook and a pencil in my hand trying to get an idea of what I wanted to write, but I was suffering from writer's block and nothing really came to my mind to write about.

That's when I saw his green eyes looking at me. He asked if he could sit next to me on the other end of the bench. I agreed quietly and went back to thinking. There was silence for the first few minutes of us sitting on opposite sides of the bench until he finally asked me "what are you writing about?"

I told him about how I had writer's block and how I really had nothing to write about at that moment. After talking for a few minutes he did something that I would never have expected from him. He turned to me and said, "I'm sorry for what I said earlier, I didn't mean to upset you like that."

I have never met someone not to mention a guy that had the guts to apologize for something that they had done wrong. It meant a lot to see that from someone, so I accepted his apology.

We began talking about a few different things and before you know it, we had lost track of time and it was time to go!

After that day, the park bench became our place. It was our bench and that's where we spent hours of the day talking to each other to no end. He made me laugh and smile and no one, especially not me would have thought that two people who went from fighting one morning to becoming the best of friends talking on a park bench later that day.

One day while we were on the park bench, Blake explained to me that he broke up with Matt for the way that he had acted about us hanging out on the bench together. It turns out that Matt got really mad at us and mostly at me because he thought that the two of us were flirting with each other.

Flirting? That's crazy talk. I had just met him. By then it was only the second day of camp but after a few more days of talking to him on the bench that we called ours, I started to feel a bit different. Could this be what I thought it was? No, it couldn't possibly be. I can't be falling in love with him! I just met him! And plus, Matt would hate me and it goes against all of the possible codes about dating a friend's ex. Like Gretchen in the movie Mean Girls, "Ex-boyfriends are off limits. It's like the rules of feminism!" And that is honestly what I had believed so I locked my feelings for him inside me and never let them out of my head even though that would be the only thing that I could think about day and night.

The last day of the summer camp came and we spent our last and final day on the bench together. We had built up a trust with each other to share our deepest secrets with each other and a few other things about ourselves to each other. He had then asked me "Have you ever had a boyfriend?" And I completely hesitated.

At that point, I had never had a boyfriend before, but I wasn't sure what to say to him. I mean yes, I could tell him the absolute truth and let all my feelings out for him out and get it all off my chest, but that would be too risky to do, so I didn't.

I finally managed to make out "No, I've never had a boyfriend before." And right after I said that he smiled at me and he asked me for my number so we could talk after camp as well.

Was he trying to flirt with me? What should I do? What would Matt think if he found out about all of this? All those thoughts were going off in my mind like fireworks on the Fourth of July. This all just feels so different to me. He then smiled at me again and all of a sudden, all my guilt that I had been feeling had instantly faded away. The crush that I had on him didn't feel like the crush that I had on a boy when I was younger, but it felt true, almost pure. It felt right to me. Like he was the one that I wanted to be with. I wanted to tell him but I couldn't, I just couldn't do it. It was just too risky for me to do.

We spent the rest of our final day on the park bench like normal and like nothing had happened with that question even though the thoughts and questions were still going all around the inside of my head like crazy! We still laughed the same, joked the same, talked the same, and it all just felt the exact same to me like nothing had changed.

The hearing of the end of the last day of camp was drawing closer and closer and with each minute that passed by during the day, I dreaded the end of it so much. I did not want it to end at all. I didn't want our special time together on our special bench fade away as the school year drew near and he entered 7th grade and I entered 8th grade. We would still be in the same school and be on the same floor, but it just wouldn't be the same as us talking on our bench.

Back at the gym where the camp was being held, we played our last game before it was time to say goodbye and leave for the last day of camp. We had made the best of it. We played matball, and for fun, we tried to get each other out friendly and it was a lot of fun, but out of the corner of my eye, while playing, I observe Matt's face and how it had a mean and angry look plastered across it. I could tell that he was pissed off me and I could clearly see that. I started to feel that guilt again but I looked at me and saw Blake and his smile that lit me up and I just felt that guilt melt off my mind like ice cream. It was gone immediately.

I liked him and I clearly knew that with all my heart and mind. I may have only known him for a week, but the feeling was stronger than I ever felt with any other boy.

After having a great time with him, the dreaded time came to say "goodbye". Even though those words were said, we knew that it most definitely not the end. Those words were probably the hardest words to say.

A year later and Blake and I are still the best of friends, sharing each other's hopes and dreams, fears and sorrows, worries and despair, deep dark secrets, and happy, funny, silly, and goofy memories and times.

When I take a look back at this story, I think back and know that this all happened with one little park bench in the middle of a worn down park in the summer at the end of July made everything possible. And who knows, without it, all of the things that happened between Blake and I might not have even happened, and sometimes, the greatest friendships and relationships happen accidentally and they always start with something small to start it all.

And to think that this whole story started with one boy, one girl, and a park bench.