After high school all of my friends went away to college. They are all over the country, no, the world, experiencing amazing things. I stayed home. I still live in the same boring town with my boring family. I have the same boring job I did in high school. Community college is boring and severely lacking in opportunities. I had the same boring boyfriend too, at least until last month when he dumped me for his anatomy teacher. Apparently he was learning a lot in her class. At first I was devastated, but I have begun to realize that any change can be good change, especially when it’s the only change I’ve experienced in the two years since college started.
Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays because it is the one weekend of the fall semester that my friends are all home. If I had to wait until December I think I would die. My very best friend, Zach, has lived next door to me for as long as I can remember. I used to beat him up when we were kids. Since I am a girl and he’s a man he naturally outgrew me, so now I avoid picking fights at all costs. Zach goes to school on the other side of the country, so I rarely see him.
This Thanksgiving started off in the usual way. Zach arrived home the day before the holiday with a very large suitcase. After spending time with his family he came over to see me. I sat and listened as he regaled me with tales of his new life. He told me about a girl that he had dated, who had in turn broken his heart. I felt a pang of grief mixed with jealousy. The grief understandably came from recalling my own pain, but the jealousy came out of nowhere. I had never had feelings for Zach before; could there suddenly be some after 20 years of platonic friendship? I comforted my friend, and filled him in on my similar situation. We sat in silence, each appreciating that the other understood how they felt.
The next day was spent celebrating with our families, and on Friday we were both busy with other friends. We had agreed to spend all of Saturday together since Zach was leaving early Sunday morning. As promised, Zach knocked on my door at the crack of noon. (We both thoroughly enjoy sleeping in.) Around 9 pm we ran out of things to do. (Like I said, our town is boring.) We decided to go for a stroll on the beach in the moonlight. After walking for a while, we sat in the sand to relax and talk about our lives. In all the years that we had been friends I had never felt so close to him. I tried to push away the romantic thoughts that had popped into in my head.
Just as I was trying not to crush on my best friend, he turned to me and stared deeply into my eyes. I had never realized how blue his eyes were or how symmetrical his face was. (I have a thing with symmetry, so shoot me.) My eyes had been clouded by our friendship; I had never wanted to be attracted to him. Now I was truly seeing him for the first time. I giggled and brushed the hair from in front of my face, at the same time being shocked that I was actually flirting with him. "I never noticed how beautiful you are until just now," he said to me. "Yeah me too, you, I, never mind." I blushed and turned away. Why couldn’t I tell him how I was feeling? "No, Sam, I mean it." He pulled me back. I looked into his blue, blue eyes as he said "I think I’m in love with you." "Wait, what?" God, I am so awkward. He continued, "After I got dumped, all I could think about was getting back here to see you again. Having my heart broken made me realize who I should really give it too."
I was speechless for a few minutes. When I finally regained the ability to use words, I told him "I’ve never thought about you like that before, but the last couple of days have been very different. Obviously I’ve always cared about you, but suddenly it’s in a new way. I don’t know how or why, but I have fallen for you." I was impressed with my eloquence. Zach grinned and then swooped in to kiss me. It was the most romantic moment ever.
There’s no way to tell how this new phase of our relationship will work out, but I know that I have never been so happy before, and for me that is enough. Zach promised to come home more often and I promised to go visit him. One thing is for sure, my life is definitely much less boring.