Darling won’t you ease my worried mind

We used to be best friends, >>> and I. I didn’t think anything of us being together, until I was about fifteen. I had just started a new year in high school and decided that I was going to “up” my appearance a bit. I got a new hair do, upgraded my clothing, and tried my best to be a bit more “outgoing.” He decided to do the same. He bulked up a bit after playing football at his high school and decided to start shaving more and wearing more form-fitting clothes. We decided to meet up for one of our bi-monthly in-person chit chats. When I saw him, he looked pretty damn good. As good as a fifteen year old boy could look anyhow.

“Hey L!” he yelled at me as he walked toward me. We decided to meet at a park adjacent to his school’s campus. I chose to sit on a bench and absorb as much sun as the day had to offer. I don’t know how he knew it was me, but he did.

“Hey babes!” I opened my eyes to see him hovering over me, smiling. He has such an amazing smile.

I sat up and crossed my legs Indian style so that he could sit next to me. He told me about all the shit that was going on at his school and I gave him an update on what was going on with me.

“So you what’s going with you and ))) ?”

“Ugh, that lasted as long as a snowball in hell. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to like &&& again.”

“Good, L. You’re too good of a person to like him. He just screams asshole”

“Aw hun, you’re so nice to me.”

After all the debriefing, we’d hop on the train and go our separate ways. Several weeks later while talking on AIM, he brought up the possibility of us dating:

>>>: Hey… I wanna ask you something

L: Shoot

>>>: Well…

L: Jeez, just spit it out. You know I hate it when you do that.

>>>: You know I’ve always liked you.

L: Yeah, yeah, yeah…

>>>: No really, I like you. Like more than just friends

I mean, he told me he had a crush on me junior high, but I thought we had moved past that.

L: I thought we got over that.

>>>: Nope. I never stopped. I just didn’t bring it up.

L: Okay, so you like me. What do you want to do about it…?

>>>: How about if we date?

L: Umm… 

I really didn’t know what to think. After all, he was my best friend. But at the same time he was cute. And sweet. And basically one of the best guys I knew. So I went for it.

>>>: …..
L: Sure. Why not.

And just like that, I was his girlfriend.

What’ll you do when you get lonely?

Despite our endless talking on AIM for the majority of the summer, our relationship ended with in a month or two of school starting. Between the classes, the fact that we went to schools in different parts of the city, and the fact that we lived in two different states, meeting up was pretty impossible. He also found himself attracted to a girl at his school. She had apparently saw him bloom from a quirky anime-loving dork to a brooding jock and liked him all the more for it. I couldn’t be that sore about it. After all, she was there — where I couldn’t be. And since she was, after all, the girl of his dreams, I could do nothing but be happy for him. He was still my best friend.

Like a fool, I fell in love with you

He and the girlfriend went through several bouts and of course, being his best friend, I consoled him through them all. Somehow in between it all, I fell in love with him. Or at least something I believed to have been love. For my seventeenth birthday, he gave me a gift that included a rhinestone necklace and well… something irreplaceable.

As my friends and I headed up the stairs to my house after taking in a movie, he stopped me.

“I have something to tell you,” he said. “I love you.”

“Aw, I love you too, >>>. You know that,” I responded. But he didn’t let my hand go. Instead, he wrapped his arms around my waist and stepped in closer to me. Before I knew it, his lips were pressed up against mine and for the first time, a boy had kissed me. A boy who loved me, kissed me. It was the absolute best feeling in the world.

Turned my whole world upside down

I was without reason, and completely giddy after that. We talked more than ever, and almost had a renewed attraction to each other. However, we still couldn’t date. The distance was still too much for us to handle at the time (though looking back, we definitely could’ve tried to make it work) and somehow or the other, his ex made her way back into his life. I didn’t know at the time, but he definitely let me know… in the most awkward way possible during one of our in-person chats.

“I think you’re the best guy I’ve ever known, >>>.”

“Really L? You think so?”

“I know so. And that’s why I want to ask you for a huge favor…”

“What’s that?”

“Since you’re the only guy I trust… when the time comes, I want you to have it.”

“Have ‘it’?”

“My V-card.”

I couldn’t believe my own brazenness, but I just asked my best friend to be my first sexual encounter.

“Wow! That’s… that’s…”

“…Something I thought you’d jump on!” I laughed. I had to. His facial expression was saying enough for me to know that something was off. Something was wrong.

“I feel honored, I really do. But me and the ol’ lady are back together.” I think I felt my heart drop. I could only manage a meager “Oh” before regaining enough composure and fake happiness before telling him that I was happy for him.

Layla, you’ve got me on my knees.

He and the girl were off-and-on, and I was there for it all. It often seemed like when they were off, we were on, and it was just too much to handle. He often told me that he loved me, but that he still loved her two and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take being the second fiddle. Finally, I had to make him choose.

“I can’t take this anymore. I can’t handle the yo-yoing back and forth between me and her,” I told him.
We were at the pizzeria near my school. I had called my girlfriends for support. I couldn’t handle it on my own.

“I really do love you,” he told me. “Yeah, you say that all the time, yet you keep running back to her. What is it with her? Does she have a golden cooch or something? You’re always complaining about things with her, yet you can’t be with me. And I can’t take it anymore.”

I saw the look on my face. He was preparing himself for what I had to say next, which was the thing I dreaded most.

“You have to choose: it’s either you lead your happy life with her without me in it, or you be with me.”

“I love you so much,” he started, “and you’re my best friend. But I’m in love with her.”

Please don’t say we’ll never find a way and tell me all my love’s in vain.

That night, I vowed to stop speaking to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It wasn’t until a few months later he told me they were engaged to be married, did I find enough hate to shut him out. We stopped speaking for months. He’d try his best to send me a chat on AIM, but I had blocked him (though I’d occasionally check to see if he was online) and finally resigned myself to just put him out of my world. His friends would often contact me to tell me what a mistake he has made, and how he would’ve been better off with me.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda, but I wasn’t the one he loved.

Darling won’t you ease my worried mind…