story of my life

This story is very simple, and involves three characters: a young girl, her best friend, and the love of her life. As you may have already guessed, the girl is our little hero; she's the innocent soul we all remember being at some point in our lives. This is the story of what really fucked her up.

The girl and her best friend were closer than any other friends could be. They shared every secret wish, every insecurity, and every spoken breath was later recounted in extreme detail for the other to relive. Sleepless nights were spent on the phone talking until the next days began and the following days at school, they were, as usual, inseparable. Both girls supported the other in the search for true love. The girl never had a boyfriend, never had a love, never had any boy fall for her as hard as she fell for him. Her best friend had several boyfriends, a different one each month, and shared her frustrations with the girl. For years they lived this way, attached to the hip and completing each other's sentences--the girl trying to find love, and her friend trying to fight it away.

One day, the girl met the love of her life. Even eight years after that moment, the girl can remember exactly how it happened. He walked into the classroom cracking easy jokes that made the girl giggle from across the room and casually running her over with his moss green eyes. She was immediately drawn to him, moments like that made the idea of "love at first sight" possible. A chill ran through her veins every time their eyes met, even from across the room. Of course, she bored her best friend with hours of excited wishes, seemingly the same unrequited feelings for a boy that she's felt for years with previous boys. The best friend sadly listened, knowing that she was always the one who got the boys and the girl was the one who never could. She prepared to comfort the girl when the boy broke her heart, but alas, this didn't happen as soon as she expected. In fact, at the time, she didn't realize that she would break the girl's heart more than any boy ever could.

The girl and the boy began to talk. A little bit at a first, and by the end, for hours. They were as close as the girl was with her best friend. She loved this boy more than she thought possible. Every word he offered her was remembered and she loved him more every day. At night, she dreamt of nothing except being in his arms. During the day, her mind wandered off into daydreams of him. Little moments between them replayed over and over in her mind. And then she moved 3000 miles away.

She decided, from across the country, that he was still the one for her. She loved him so much and she refused to give up. She also knew that her best friend and her's friendship was stronger than the distance. She lost sleep every night, staying up until 2am in their time zone just talking with them, resting her head on her pillow at 5am in her time zone, only to rise at 6am. She repeated this routine every night until she was delirious from lack of sleep. And she still continued on, his eyes in her mind the entire time. They would send emails, pages of them, and spend days online playing with words and being apart from each other became unbearable. Her parents began to see the shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. Her best friend, from across the country, told her to give it up and just let go. But she couldn't. She missed her best friend, and she missed the boy. She would do anything just to talk to them for ten minutes. Her parents put a password on the computer. She hacked into the computer. Did this a couple times, and then got caught. Her parents put a lock on the door of the computer room. She climbed on the roof and entered the room through the window. Did this a couple of times, then got caught. Her parents put a lock on the door and on the window, put a password on the computer, and made the dial-up internet sound extra loud when connecting in that room. She climbed on the roof, picked the lock on the window, and removed the keyboard, moniter, mouse, and hard drive one by one and set the computer up in her room. She did this every night for a couple of months, even though he sometimes wouldn't come online and neither would her friend. And then she got caught. She never realized love would yield so much pain and desire.

When desire is that strong, it is physically painful. She loved him so much. And her friend knew it. Her best friend was there to listen to her cry about how much she missed her home. Her best friend knew how much she loved the boy. Hours and hours were shared together on the phone, talking. She would occasionally fly to her home, 3,000 miles away, and spend time talking with her friend or being with her boy. The boy and her eventually gave themselves to each other completely. They were both each other's firsts, and firsts for everything. The girl knew, even then, that it was impossible for her to love another man as much as she loved him. In fact, she knew then that it was impossible for many people to love anyone as much as she loved him. She continued to fly back and forth, seeing him and seeing her friend.

Until one day when her mother told her she could never go back home to see them. For months, the girl cried herself to sleep. She missed the two people she loved the most in the world, for a year. She was still with her boy, he still reassured her they could make it through it. They still had a future together, even though they couldn't see each other. She shared this pain with her best friend. Her best friend empathized with her. She grew closer with the boy in her absense. By the time the girl and the boy gave up, her friend was already trying to get with the boy. After they broke up, her friend was still there, seeing the boy every day. She began to see what the girl saw in the boy, and she began to want what the girl had worked so hard to have with the boy. One day, she got it.

Eight years later, I still think of that. When I see you, I see you like that. I see what you tried to take from me, and what, for some reason or another, you still want. I loved you. I loved you so much, and you betrayed me in a way that I never thought possible. There are good people in this world, and bad people. I used to think everyone was good, and the bad ones were just misunderstood. Now I know better. Now I don't have close girl friends; you were my last. I'm the girl that says "I don't get along well with other girls," I'm the girl that says, "True love is just a fairy tale" and I'm the girl that doesn't know how to feel anymore... because it hurts too much.