The next few weeks were a blur. I stuck to my convictions in regards to Sam. I still spoke to him in English class and if he was at an event I attended with friends I was polite. I just stopped doodling in my notebook and stopped drooling over every move he made. It wasn't hard. Ok, so that's a lie. It was EXTREMELY difficult at first. They are called crushes for a reason people! Each day however, it got a little easier to deal with.
Soon it was if it was all a bad dream. Graduation came descending upon us like a hurricane and then high school was over. I began planning out my situation for college and trying to get it together for my relocation. I was pumped! I couldn't wait to share a dorm room with my best friend Alex and we were going to take the new town by storm. Freshmen in college...we were going to have the time of our lives.
Then one morning my whole world changed. It wasn't any kind of special morning. My mom had taken my sister to swim practice. I was being a lazy bum of a teenager who had zero responsibility. So naturally I had the radio blasting and was dancing around the house with sweatpants on and my hair looking like a natural disaster on top of my head. The door bell rang and I sprinted to get it. Imagine my surprise when I saw Sam standing on the other side of the door. He was covered in some type of weird dust and was wearing a bright orange vest. He smiled his signature grin and my heart, which had once again turned back to stone, began to crack slightly. I asked what he was doing here. He said that he got a summer job doing construction and that it was in my neighborhood. I smiled back and gave some type of flip response like, I can see that or yeah I'm not an idiot. I wanted to know why he was at my house. He looked down at his feet. He said it was his lunch break and he remembered where I lived and wanted to know if I would eat lunch with him. As his eyes locked with mine, I felt all the emotions from earlier in the year return. I kept my stance and my face remained the same. I figured he was on lunch but I wasn't going to let him in my house. I wanted to know why he was trying to have lunch with me. I hadn't really spent any alone time with him since that day in the hall when he was trying to "get Julie back".
He took a deep breath and began telling his story. After that day in the hall he was pissed. He was pissed at me and he was pissed at himself. I was one of his best friends after all. He couldn't understand how things had gotten so out of hand. He had actually seen Julie that day after I yelled at him. He asked her what to do. She told him that if I had flipped out like that it was probably too late. As all my friends know, I am the queen of second chances but when I have had enough, you are dead to me. It's like you never existed. He figured he'd give me some space and let me cool off but that things would go back to the way they used to be. A few days passed and he never heard from me. Classroom behavior was normal but there weren't any plans being made after school. A few more days passed. Still no phone calls. Eventually graduation was upon him and he still hadn't heard from me. We didn't spend our graduation together. In fact, we barely spoke at all on the momentous occasion. Sam told me it was like a kick in the gut. He said that he realized too late how much he needed me and missed me. That I wasn't something that he thought he wanted but maybe I was exactly what he needed.
It was one of the defining moments of my life. When he locked eyes with me, I could see how much he cared for me and in that instant, all the walls I built came crashing down. I fell in love. It was like a tidal wave that crashed over me. From that day forward, my fate was tied to his. Our relationship was a whirl wind. Any time that wasn't spent working, we spent it together. I was never as happy as I was when I was with Sam. He made me feel complete.
After looking back at it, this was the problem. Having another person complete you. I feel like a successful relationship is more like the old saying "Your better half". They always inspire you to become better than you are today. Someone who looks at all the parts of you, the good, the bad and the ugly and they say 'all of this right here, I'm ok with it.' Being able to stand on your own feet as a whole individual with or with out them but not wanting to be with out them. Love is a funny thing.
I thought that we would be together until the end. Have this silly antidote to tell to our grand kids on the front porch or after a family dinner. When you rely on movies to be your emotional guide, all of these scenarios seem possible. The worst part about romantic comedies is that they end. They don't show all the gritty sides of relationships. If two characters split and get back together, they always say 'What about all these problems we have?' and the response is 'As long as I am with you, we will take all the problems on, one at a time and work it out together. Whatever life throws at us, let's face it head on together!'. I call shenanigans on the whole thing. The movie ends and the credits roll and you walk out of the theater with the delusion that you can make your life like that. Perhaps you can. The only missing component is your significant other. You can't make them fall in line.
I went that entire summer living like a rom com. We had a song, The Rolling Stones, You can't always get what you want. We made love in a quarry by a waterfall. I took his sisters to events and movies. He had dinner with my family. Then summer ended and school was about to start. Naturally my love couldn't be contained so I decided to with draw from my away school and attend a college that was closer to home to be near him. He seemed thrilled with the decision. Or maybe he wasn't thrilled with the decision and I just painted it that way in my head. Soon school started. He stopped returning my phone calls. He stopped returning his family's phone calls. Sam just dropped off the face of the planet. When I finally had enough and confronted him at his dorm, he just shrugged and said he was sorry if I felt like we were in a relationship and that he hadn't meant to lead me on again but now that he was in school, he just didn't have time for me. He asked if I was mad. I told him I was furious. I couldn't believe that I fell for it again. I was so mad at myself I could hardly see straight. Everything around me shattered. I told him to lose my number, never come by my house again and if he ever felt so inclined to try and reconnect with me at any point in the future to swallow it and bury it deep down because the next time we saw each other, I would make him regret it.
As I left his dorm room and walked to my car, I sat in the driver seat and stared off into the distance. I tried to pin point the exact moment of my stupidity and figure out what I did wrong. Had I misinterpreted something? It was like trying to review a play with out a recording. Then it hit me, I'm just a fool. It was my fault thinking that he would be the one for me. I made a vow to myself in the car as I drove away. I would never let a man control my emotions ever again. I would flip the script and change my heart. I would change my emotional mentality to that of a man. It was my time now...
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