Checkered Flags and Finish Lines

History Repeats Itself

Being young and dumb was fun, but it also had a fair share of setbacks to go along with it. I guess 20 isn't really young, but it's young enough to be dumb. I remember when I first met Justin. I was twelve, he was thirteen, it was Fourth of July weekend at the races where he was going to be running his race car. We both came from families who loved dirt track racing...guess it's just a Midwestern thing. Our parents were friends because my dad also raced in the same class as him. My parents loved him, his parents loved me. They were glad that we hung out together because we were both pretty good kids. We had texted for what felt like forever and we talked on the phone all the time, but something clicked that night when we were together that made things sort of fall into place. We rode around on the four-wheeler and I watched him race, but towards the end of the night we were walking back to the car trailer and he pulled me aside and kissed me. Right there under the fireworks. First kiss and all. It was one of those movie moments, but I was only twelve so I didn't ever realize what it really meant until later. We stayed best friends and even dated a couple of times, but it was all a joke since we were so young. High school was a good time and we kept in touch for the majority of it, but it's like every time he or I dated someone, our friendship fell apart. It was like this the whole time I was in high school. With him being a year older than me, he had been graduated for a year by the time I started college. It's almost as if time was the only deciding factor in our friendship turned relationship. The fall of my freshman year in college, things changed. We hung out at his house and it's like everything fell into place. One kiss and it was just game over for the both of us. We both fell into this infatuation trap, one that we couldn't get out of and kept up as long as we could. It was really secretive, always movies and dinner at the house, hooking up and falling asleep. I never thought anything of it because that's just what our friendship came to. We'd drive around in his truck, we'd sing along to all these songs we both loved, we'd get lost on back country roads..hell, we even had a song. It was "Starving" by Zedd and Hailee Steinfeld. It was so fitting for the two of us. We spent the whole fall into winter and spring together, but, like always, someone else came around and we broke apart again. It was hard to deal with, losing my best friend AND someone I convinced myself I could see a future with all in one, but I did it.

Suddenly, he was engaged to a girl he had been with for less than 6 months and my heart was broken. I'd come to the conclusion that I'd never get my best friend back. Ever. He was gone for good this time and I had to start moving on. It was one of the hardest things I'd experienced in my 20 years on this planet. As if according to life's plan, that engagement broke off and he came back to me, apologized, and attempted to fix everything. We hung out again and it's almost as if history repeated itself. Movies, dinner, sex, cuddling, napping. And it's like all the feelings I said I didn't have for him overtook my mind and boom, there they were again. Prominent and waiting to be acknowledged. When I left the house that afternoon, he held me a little tighter, a little closer, a little longer than he usually did. I knew this because he initiated the hug, he kept it going, and he kept me close. Maybe my overactive imagination was the reason for thinking it was anything other than normal, but for some reason it just felt different. It's like our "fuck buddy"-esque relationship was back in the full swing of things, but at a more extreme level. There were more I love yous, more I miss yous, sweeter texts, better Snapchats, cuter conversations, and overall, a better connection with one another. I have a hard time talking about my feelings about us to him because I know it's always going to be the same thing: "Lyss, I love you, but I don't see myself with you.". And if you've ever been in love with someone, hearing that is not worth it if you already know it.

It's almost as if the world was taunting me at this point. All my friends and family knew the situation between me and him, but nobody ever had the heart to really sit me down and tell me to stop trying. They would always tell me if he was the one, life would make it work that way, but how many times could I be taunted with the future I dreamed about so much just to have it yanked away so often? Was life really setting us up to be together or was it just playing a joke on me? I wasn't going to get my hopes up for this time around like I did the last, but it's like the more and more we talked and spent time together, I wanted to believe that it was for real this time. It was one of those things where I didn't want to take the chance and waste the time, but I knew that I had nothing better to do with my time anyway so I might as well. What if this time was REALLY it? And I didn't take the chance?