When The Lights Go Out

∞Broken Love∞

∞Broken Love∞

The memories I have of Samantha Carmichael are vivid and explicitly addicting as well as heart wrenching.

She was a beautiful mistake I'd made early in my childhood life and again in my teenage years and finally early adulthood which of course was the most influential. An event that, to this day, effects my mind, body, and soul more than any relationship I've been in.

There was our first encounter.

My family moved to Boulder, Colorado. I had to be no older than 7. She must have been 10 by then.

She was the girl all the boys wanted to be friends with and all the girls whispered about. She could play any sport that had a ball. She was agile and fast. Skinny and strong. She had a slight English accent that everyone enjoyed.

She dressed in basketball shorts and t-shirts and always had her sandy brown hair up in a pony tail with a beanie or a snap back on.

And I was the little girl who read books during recess and didn't have any friends. I was new in town but I wasn't really the type to dwell on it. I didn't mind not having friends. I didn't mind being alone. Kids didn't bully me because I made sure of it. I was tough, just quiet.

So when Samantha made it her mission to become my friend, I was unexpectedly frustrated by her efforts. I didn't want friends. I didn't want her to be my friend. I didn't want other people to get the idea that they could be my friend.

She'd always find a way to talk to me or sit beside me or be my partner in projects.

By the end of elementary school she'd convinced my parents that we were best friends. She'd convinced everyone that we were best friends.

She even convinced me.

Middle school had been our downfall. All the girls wanted to be her friend, all the boys wanted to be her friend. And I just wanted to read. Slowly she stopped coming over so she could hang out with others. She stopped sitting with me at lunch. She'd moved seats.

A part of me was satisfied. I was alone again.

But as the loneliness grew and the sound of her laugh had been forgotten, I began to crave her presence.

Then she got a girlfriend.

Depression, jealousy and sadness hit me hard. I wasn't prepared for that. I wasn't even aware that I'd been so emotionally attached to her. I told my parents that I wanted to move.

And by the end of 7th grade we packed up and road tripped to California. I hadn't said a single word to Samantha. And she had been the only one I talked to. So besides the teachers, administrators, and my parents' jobs no one really knew that we left.

It was in my senior year of high school when Samantha showed up in my life once again.

She was vacationing with her older sister while her parents were away for a rather long business/ personal trip.

I had still remained a loner with a book in my hand wherever I went.

At the time I worked as a bar keep in my uncles restaurant that turned into a little club for youth at night.