Wait For You

“Lorelei, will you go out with me”, Hudson asked as he leaned against my locker.

‘Absolutely not’, I thought. A number one rule of mine is to never go out with friends. Friends are just so hard to come by and too important to lose over something as silly a courtship half of the time, it doesn’t even work out anyways, especially when you’re in seventh grade.

            Hudson Reid wasn’t just one of my best friends, he was my best friend. No if, ands or buts about it. At 5’11 and only in the seventh grade, Hudson was a giant. With Blue eyes, and overly, outgrown dark brown hair, Hudson was classified as a nerd, a dork, or any other derogative terms you could call somebody smart, with not a enough money to fit up to social standards. So, Hudson was a nerd it didn’t matter one bit to me.

As I looked up to Hudson’s eyes, they were full of hope, hope that I was about to make disappear.

“Hudson, I love you, you know I do but as a friend and nothing more”, I said as put my hand on his shoulder. “I would never want to do anything to endanger our friendship and dating a friend is always a sure fire way to end a friendship”.

“Lorrie”, Hudson mumbled looking down, fidgeting with the end of his sweater. “I love you though” he finished.

“No you don’t. You just think you do, you’re getting friendship feelings confused with other ones. Honestly Hudson we’re twelve, I don’t think we know what love is” I said matter-of-factly.

“No, Lorrie, you just don’t understand and you refuse too. If you just don’t like me you should come out and say it instead of sugar coating things. I get it okay. You just made my choice that much easier”, He looked up at me, anger apparent in his eyes.

“What choice”, I asked scared. Just because I didn’t return his feeling, doesn’t mean I don’t value him, and love him as a friend.

“It doesn’t matter Lorrie, I’ll see you tomorrow” he said as he turned around and headed into the mass of teenagers trying to leave school for the day. Before I protest his abrupt leaving he turned around.

“Next time Lorrie, when a guy who clearly has feelings for you asks you out, try not to be such a shallow heartless selfish”, he continued, “Bitch”, with that, he walked away.

I was thunderstruck. I was speechless and, I was hurt. I felt horrible for saying no. I should have said yes just to appease him instead of hurting him. Hudson was my only true friend and having him mad at me is worse than me, having said yes to him. Hudson was right, I was selfish, and I only looked at my feeling not his. He deserved someone way better than me, someone who could return his feeling and think of him.  I vowed right then and there that tomorrow when he came to school I would make it up to him and apologize for my rash behavior, If after all that was said, he still wanted to go out with me I would say yes to make him happy.  With that in mind, I headed home.

            Later on that night, I went to sleep with a smile on my face as I had a resolve. I woke up the next morning determined to go to school and talk to Hudson. As I got ready, I put my clothes on and even a little bit on makeup with my mom’s help. When I check myself in the mirror and felt that my look was complete I was off to school.

            At school, I sent Hudson a text to meet me at my locker. I waited, figuring maybe today he was still a little angry at me and I need to give him time to cool off. So, the next day I waited again, and then again and again. Finally, after weeks of waiting for him to come to school or even reply to my text messages, I was done waiting. I realized Hudson Reid wasn’t coming back.