Growing up in a small town is weird. You grow up knowing all the same people as everyone else. You grow up knowing everyone without really knowing that you know everyone. For me, I lived in my own bubble. I had my circle of friends that liked what I liked which meant that we all got along because we liked each other. I remained in my bubble for pretty much all of my elementary and middle school careers. I continued to live in my bubble until the second semester of my freshman year was approaching. I remember the day that schedules were handed out for the next semester. I looked at my schedule and skimmed it as most people do, when I noticed that the one name everyone said you didn't want on your schedule was on mine. There it was, staring right back at me. Stufflebean. As a freshman in high school, you pretty much listen to what everyone else says about the good, bad, and the ugly. Word on the street was that Stufflebean was the mean PE teacher because you couldn't just coast through her class if you wanted to pass. So, little freshman me ran to the guidance office and demanded that my teacher be switched. And after many failed attempts there was no way I was getting out of Stuff's class, so on the first day of the second semester of freshman year, I cried to my big sister, hiked up my red PE shorts and walked onto the Roundhouse floor, not knowing what to expect.

I can remember looking around and thinking I have no friends in this class. I already hate PE. Looking around I saw about nine other faces that I knew by name, most of whom I had never actually talked to. So I thought to myself, "what's the simplest way to break my leg right now??" Now, let's take a minute to go back to my opening statement. As I mentioned growing up in a small town means that you grow up knowing everyone without really knowing them. My first day of PE class was a true testament to this. Looking around, I could identify the names of all my classmates, but the one classmate that we'll be discussing I had never really spoken to before this. For privacy purposes, we'll call him Texas. I'd seen Texas around before, I'd been playing soccer with and against him for most of my life. I would later come to find out that Texas knew me as "kick him in the shins" girl, a phrase that speaks it for itself. All I really knew about Texas was that he played soccer and was a country boy. That was pretty much it. Little did I know that I would soon know a LOT more about Texas than I had ever thought. Flash forward to June 2019. High school is over now and freshman year Daphne is long gone. As I write this, I'm sitting alone in the dark of my room, doing what some might call, wallowing in my pity. A lot has changed since my naive self stepped foot on the Roundhouse floor for PE that day. For starters, I now know the true feeling of betrayal. I now know what people mean when they say that you don't finish high school with the same group of friends, let alone with the same best friend. I now know who my real friends are and who I want standing next to me when I reach the top. It's funny to me that I was so naive at one point. So stupid to think that people are honest. And that when a boy says he loves you, he means it. I was stupid to think that just because you love someone with your whole heart doesn't mean that they feel the same way about you. So, you're probably wondering what this has to do with Texas...

After being in PE class together for a little over two months, Texas and I started dating. Neither of us was technically allowed to be dating at this age, so we kept our relationship on the down low. In fact, it was so far on the down low that we didn't even know if we were really dating. Nonetheless, Texas and I became best friends quickly. It didn't matter that we didn't like the same things, we liked each other and that was good enough for us. The next three years were full of some of my favorite high school memories, like... nights at the pond, screaming Lizzo at the tops of our lungs in the car while doing stupid dances, ice cream dates, the occasional kitchen dance, mixed in with more laughs and smiles than I could ever begin to count. I was in love, and I thought he was in love with me. It was this person that I had "known" all of my life that I was now knowing better than I ever thought I would. Three years later and the truth came out. It wasn't just me. You know the feeling when you've cried so much from being scared that it starts to feel like you can't breathe...and you kind of just let it happen because well maybe my time is now...that was me. I can't really tell you how I functioned. I can't really tell you where I was or what I spent my time doing because I don't know. But I can tell you that I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stand to walk around when everyone else's worlds were perfectly fine and mine was crushed...I imagine my world was similar to what the apocalypse would look like. Sometimes, even now that everything is okay, I still can't breathe. Maybe it's because I haven't forgiven fully yet. Maybe it's because I'm forcing my foot into a glass slipper that doesn't fit. Maybe it's because I know that I'm setting myself up to be hurt again. I don't know how long it's going to hurt for, but if it doesn't stop soon not even an inhaler will be able to save me.

So, Dear Texas...

I thought I finally knew you. But maybe I didn't. Even so, I knew I loved you.