Just Friends

Piece includes subtle mentioning of an abusive relationship + mental health. Reader’s discretion advised.

I knew it was wrong for me to let it happen. When he walked through the library doors where I worked, something shook within me. His face was somehow new to me. Something lost in time to me. Could this be a face I knew from seven years ago in middle school? I had wondered. 

But this story really begins with that day. When I had realized I was giving in to a decision that would alter all I thought I knew.

Suddenly, the old draw to hang out like the old times became real. You would think that he would have forgotten his first girlfriend after seven years, but he admitted he never did. I had been present in his mind all those years. And to think we had lives so close to each other.

However, before I continue, I must advise that at this point I was amid ending a hurtful relationship. Not to excuse my feelings or actions, but I am human and flawed and I do make mistakes, but are we not shaped by these experiences?

We decided to see each other secretly— as friends. So, I stifled my guilt and hid this from my boyfriend; I knew his reaction all too well. I feared what he would do to me or him. 

Our secret hangouts started innocently with me going over to his house. The more I saw him the more I knew I needed him. Not just in any way, but in a way where I was scared to live in a world where I lost him again. Seven years was long enough, I could not let it happen again. 

I knew lying down beside him that Sunday that our story was not over. We were older now. We could make these decisions if we wanted. And we wanted.

When his hands grazed my skin with such gentle care, I knew this is what real love had to be. To finally be loved for me and not the idea of me. Here was a man who showed me without my asking. I think he even read it in my eyes that I wanted him to kiss me, but I had a boyfriend. I had a boyfriend. Could I lie to myself and pretend that I did not yearn for this? Surely it was painted on my face.

He wanted me too. Oh, the confusion! The confusion! He wanted me; even after I bared my soul to him, every thought, every grievance. And still he accepted every flaw without questioning why.

A few days later, we kissed. Our feelings were no longer secret. His lips locked on mine as we lay beneath the stars. And when he broke away, I cried. I cried out of guilt. I cried out of fear. I cried out of love and pain.

The secret was out that we wanted each other. I could not tell anyone about this. Ours was a secret to carry to ourgraves. But you cannot hide from your mother. She would playfully tease me claiming I was in love. Of course, I would play coy and say he is just a friend, but after such a kiss we could not be just friends.

We carried on in secret for a little while longer — but what we had was so good already, we did not mind it staying private. Like my own mother, his parents assumed the same notion. We were in love, weren’t we? It is why we spent so much time together, right?

It had become so obvious to our friends. They even joined the teasing — urged me to break things off with the one I was dating; but I had still been plagued with this fear. He had already known I had a boyfriend, so surely he knew what was to come? That did not make it any simpler.

I was left confused and angry at myself for doing this to someone I had once cared about all this time ago, but if I did not do it now, I would be unhappy for however long the relationship continued. I wanted to get out, but I feared those consequences of what would happen. What if he hurt me again? I could not think like that anymore.

So, I finally told my boyfriend. I could not string him along. I could no longer accept or look into his eyes after what he had done to me. I was sixteen, he was nineteen when we started dating— It was never going to be forever.

And I was not sure what forever meant. I do not really know that I even understand the concept. Which is why this had to be the decision I made.

As guilty as I felt, I could not change the past. We must live our lives forward. Now that I know love, I can finally heal the broken pieces. I can finally piece every shard back together like a brilliant jigsaw puzzle; finally be me again, and not some fabricated version pressed upon me by another.

I can hold his hand and tell him that he means the world to me without saying more than a squeeze of the hand. I can look him in the eyes after we pull apart from a kiss and smile. I can hold him close to me — his head on my chest. I can love him for who he is, just as he loves me for who I am.

I can think about how he made me feel and write on and on about those small moments, those big moments. Whenever I feel sad, I know I can call him and ask him to meet me on my front porch to talk, to stand out in the street and look up into the sky. I know I can count on him to save me from myself, just as I would do the same for him.

Now that I have found love, I cannot put an end to this story. A new story, my story, has only just begun. I have found a happiness that had escaped me these last eighteen years of my life.