I wish I could say that the first time I saw you, sparks flew, that fireworks went off in the background, or maybe a violin started playing softly from some unknown corner. I wish I could say that I remember our eyes meeting because it was so magical or that we met under romantic circumstances. But I’ve always been one for telling the truth. So here it is.

We met over the blistering summer of my senior year in high school. You were a newly employed lifeguard and I was just a red-cheeked swimmer working as a guard for my second year in a row. I was counting down the days till I was out of this place, home felt like a prison and I needed to escape. I don’t remember the first time our eyes met, and the only reason I remember the first time I saw you was because my friend informed me that you were staring. I honestly don’t even remember doing a double-take.

I wish I could say from the moment I laid eyes on you I immediately had a crush and that it lasted for the entire summer, that I went weak in the knees every time you talked to me, and blushed every time you smiled that crocked smile I loved so dearly. But honestly, I thought you were childish and a bit of an asshole. You liked to spend most of your time making fun of me and how awkward I was around you. Therefore, I spent most of my time attempting to avoid you. I knew you were bad news from the late night booty calls that I refused to answer. I heard through the grapevine how you preferred to sleep around, and that you didn’t believe in love. Girls were just a game to you and you loved to play games. You knew I wasn’t an easy target since I didn’t care to give you the time of day and that further engaged you to chase me down. You were determined to win; you wanted the bragging rights of winning what you viewed as the ultimate prize, me. You were a spider spinning his cunning web while I was just a measly fly terrified of falling into your trap. No matter how many times I shot you down, you kept pushing my barrier attempting to break the walls I had placed around myself. I easily let people in for my trust had been broken by other guys before you. Yet you didn’t give up, even though I had already informed you that I was interested in someone else.

He was a very nerdy boy who was a friend of my brothers. We had attended prom together and I was attracted to his quirky personality because it meshed well with mine. I could tell this boy was going places with his reputable grades and manners. But then you came into the picture and messed everything up. I could’ve been very happy with someone who was so very considerate of my feelings and always complimented me telling me that I was beautiful and a wonderful person. Except you trapped me in your web by taking an interest in my life, wanting to know more about me, connecting with me on a personal level and causing me to catch feelings for you. I grew to like your bad boy persona, your constant flow of cuss words, your troubled past with drugs and alcohol, and the influence you had over me and I cursed myself for it.

With time, you became more persistent. Texting me during all hours of the day, causing me to stay up way past my bedtime just so I could talk to you. The worst part about it was that I wanted to stay awake, I didn’t fight the feelings that were unraveling in my heart. I remember when our eyes met the second time around. Mostly because I was blinded by the sun shining over your shoulder, when you showed up to free me from the stand, announcing you had come to relieve me from my duties. If I squinted just right I could see your beautiful brown eyes, they became one of the things I loved most about you. Whenever I looked into them I could see the real you, the person you kept hidden from the world. The rest of the world saw the guy who would deny having any sort of relationship with girls a huge player, but I got to see the guy who wanted to get married, have children and grow old together. A guy who liked to play tough but on the inside was truly just someone looking for love. I remember your lips curling back into a smile when you realized that after staring into your eyes my cheeks were turning red. I wish I could say everything went over smoothly. That we fell in love right then with no complications. That we lived happily ever after. But I can’t say that.

I wish I could say that our first kiss was beautifully romantic in front of a golden-pink sunset. That I saw fireworks when our lips met. But it was in the pitch-black living room of your friend’s house in the middle of the night while we babysat his dogs and I didn’t see fireworks, just the back of my eyelids. It must have been because I refused to kiss you at first or because I awkwardly giggled in the middle of kissing or how afterwards you told me that the kiss meant nothing that it was just you acting on instinct. Which completely ruined the moment. You stole my very first kiss, something that can never be returned. You led me to believe that I could trust you, I gave you my heart, but in the end you threw it away like it was trash. Because of you I became terrified of trusting yet another guy, I didn’t want someone else to break my already fragile heart.

And in the midst of all this craziness, I fell in love. I'd like to think you did too.

I wish I could say our first date was just like you see in all the movies. Where the boy plans some huge romantic gesture with flowers and fancy wine showering the girl with expensive gifts. Yet love doesn’t work like that instead of a personal one-on-one dinner full of lavish food and clothing we ate at Moe’s. An awkward conversation over chips and salsa, while you pointed out how attractive all these other girls were online. Yet amidst this date from hell you somehow were still able to capture my heart by ending the date with a simple text stating “Today when I dropped you off you were like, I had a really great time thank you, and you looked at me and smiled. It sounded like the ending of a date in a movie…swear.” Pulling me back into your web when I had almost broken free.

I wish I could say the first time I cried you were there offering your shoulder assuring me that everything would be okay. You knew I had a rough life with losing my mom and living under my stepmother’s tyranny. Yet no prince in shining armor came to my rescue, I was still stuck up in my tower alone.

I wish I could say that the first time I told you I loved you, it was everything you could’ve ever hoped for. A planned beautiful execution of words most people are too terrified to say. As the summer drew closer to an end, and we grew closer as an unlabeled couple I screwed up and blurted it out to you in your car. I had been trying to hold the words in, but somehow they slipped out and I turned bright red terrified that you wouldn’t be able to tell me that you loved me back. You did though. We had been through a lot together that whole summer and even though our relationship was more complicated than a rubrics cube, I couldn’t help but love everything about you: the way I fit perfectly into your body when we cuddled, how you could easily make me laugh, the way your heart quickened when I laid my head on your chest, how we could sit and talk for hours our love felt like a fairytale. Except it wasn’t a fairytale I didn’t get the prince and there was no happily ever after.

I wish I could say you were my first and only love, But I can’t. But I can say you’ll be the love I’ll always remember.

Among all the moments that were not as I had imagined, there were moments that I would never ask to change. They intensified my love for you, they showed the vulnerable side of you that only I ever got to see. The side you kept hidden from your friends and family. You let me feel like the most important girl in the world when the second time I cried about my mom you held me in your arms and told me that looking into my eyes you knew that nothing could ever get better than this. There was also the kiss I will never forget where I was one hundred percent engaged in a video game and you just came up tilted my head back and kissed me, we stared at each other after that and time was unimportant, all I could think about was how much I loved you. I always told you that I didn’t deserve your love, that you were too good for me. You always complimented me on my red cheeks, the ones that I just can’t control, it was your favorite thing about me. You also loved my coconut shampoo when I would come over after swim practice with my wet hair and you would lie there and inhale telling me how great it smelt. You told me how when my hair was up in a ponytail it made me look so innocent and that you really liked that about me. Although half the time you would end a compliment with “you’re still ugly though,” I knew it was just your way of avoiding being overly mushy since we both hated to talk about our feelings. Our last date together before I moved to college was one of the moments where I couldn’t help but fall deeper in love with you. It was a complete surprise where you took me out to Maggiano's, since I loved Italian food and during dinner we reminisced on all the amazing moments that we shared from how perfect cuddling was to the time we spontaneously took off in your car and just drove not caring about the world or time or any responsibilities.

I wish I could say that we lived happily ever after, but after a year of being together and only two months apart, you’re off doing that with another girl now. You think I don’t know, but I know.

I wish I could say that we survived the long distance, but you eventually gave up. Telling me that it didn’t make sense to be in a relationship with someone who you could only see two days of the year. You said that it wasn’t worth the time or effort. Up until this moment I had always believed that miles apart didn’t matter. That love could still survive, I thought that we could be the couple to overcome the distance to make Florida and Indiana work, but I guess I was wrong.

I wish I could tell you that I don’t even think about you when I kiss other guys, but that would be a lie. I spend the nights comparing them all to you, and trying to fill this empty void in my chest, but they seem to never come close to mending the gaping hole that you left.

Yet there is hope, I know that there is someone out there who will make you disappear from my mind, who will take my breath away, hold me when I cry, laugh at all my jokes even when they aren’t funny, who will tell me I’m beautiful every single day even when I don’t believe it myself. We had our story, but that chapter is written. Its time to close the book and find the next story. And even though I’m moving on I will still think about you

Because, though our story may be awkward and not the best, I’ll always love you.

To infinity and beyond.

To Infinity and Beyond