We all have a picture of our perfect person. When I was a little girl, I always loved blonde guys like Aaron Carter and Justin Timberlake with big green or blue eyes. I daydreamed about going to baseball games with them and my family and we'd adopt a million dogs.
When I met the guy in which later I would first fall in love with, I overlooked him completely. He was my height, dark brown hair, and super shy. Basically the opposite of my ideal guy. But every day freshman year of high school when he would sneak up behind me and try to scare me. Being a vain fifteen year old girl, I would see him in the reflection of my magnetized mirror reapplying my shimmery lip gloss. I knew he was about to try to scare me, and I let him, and he'd fall over laughing at my fake screams completely believing them. Seeing him smile always made my day.
Our sophomore year we had chemistry class together and when he was out sick for a serious surgery, I finally realized I liked him. One of my girl friends in the class pointed out that he liked me a few weeks earlier, but I was dating some other guy so I ignored it. He was out until winter break so when we came back to school in January, I planned on telling him I liked him. I had the whole speech prepped and prepared. But I came back to see his arm around a girl I played softball with named V.
V made him cut me out of his life, which was very hard on me since we grew so close the past couple of years, and I almost gave up hope on him completely, until he started talking to me again. He'd go to me to talk about all of his relationship problems which gave me a strange sickness in my stomach but also a weird sense of hope.
The end of Junior year they called it quits and we finally hung out. It took three years to get to that point, and a very embarrassing crush confession note later, but we were finally together. Looking back on every relationship I'd been in before and after him, I've realized I've never been as happy as I was when I was with him. He was my best friend, and I his.
So what went wrong? Everything. We were young and stupid and made some mistakes. When all was said and done, after all the lies and the pain, I was the one who ran. I ran from the man I loved because I didn't think I deserved to be loved by him. Even though he tried. Even though he shouldn't have still loved me, but he did.
You know, you never really get over your first love. But you can stop chasing memories.
Today, the one that got away came back. Not in the way I used to pray for. Not in the way I wanted, but in the way I needed. We're close friends again now. Sometimes old memories pop up and actually scare me, but our friendship is the kind worth fighting for.
My happy ending still has yet to be written and that's okay because I have faith who I'm destined to end up with will come into my life and never leave. If nothing else, he taught me to not run away from hardship. That true love stays and fights. And that love isn't just in fairy tales. It's the stuff of reality too.
