5. Unrequited

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Once, I met a boy. He had straggly long greasy hair, and he was very awkward. He was the kind of boy who felt more comfortable behind a computer then he did talking to people. The two of us hung out with a group who were refered to as the "recy's" because they hung out at the recreational building across from the high school and smoked cigarettes. I desperately wanted to be a part of these people. A part of me was always a bit rebellious.

One day, this boy asked me out. I don't know why I said yes, I had just broken up with Juan, and I had my eyes on a number of the other, more popular boys in my class. As his car came to pick me up, I remember laying out on my bench in my backyard, trying my best to look cute. I was so nervous. Maybe I made him nervous, too. He was only seventeen, and I was only a freshman. I was taking him to meet my grandmother. I always took my boyfriends to meet my grandmother because she always had such good insight into their personalities. She could meet someone once and tell me if they were right.

It was supposed to be a simple, easy day, but things never turn out the way we plan. As we turned onto her street, we crashed. Or rather, an oncoming car crashed into us. Right into the passenger side door. I can still see it as if in a movie, like slow motion. The paramedics needed the jaws of life to pry me out of the car. The smell of crumpled metal is something that never leaves you.

I spent the night in the hospital with a fractured hip. I remember at one point being rolled past that awkward boy's room as I was taken in my hospital bed to the x-ray machine. I covered up my head so he wouldn't see me in the condition I was in. I was blind out of one eye from the airbag dust, and dressed in a horrid hospital gown. Later he would tell me how he thought at that moment that I hated him. I would laugh, and explain to him that no, I was just vain.

He felt so bad. He spent the rest of that month, that entire summer, at my bedside.

And that was how we fell in love.

His name was Bill. People in school asked me why I dated him. He wore a trench coat every day; he was labeled as a dork, an outcast. I would shrug my shoulders and think who cares what they think. It doesn't matter, high school. Life after this is what matters, and if we get married, then who cares. I loved Bill so much. It was puppy love to the extreme. I couldn't wait to get out of class so I could see him in the hallways. We spent every second of every day with each other, even when we weren't really with each other. He would write me poetry, and I would in turn write him poetry in answer. We would exchange it between classes.

When your eyes dance in mine
I feel that time would wait for us
and forever would forgive us
just this once
so I would never have to look away.


He wrote that for me and I will never forget it. He was the smartest person I had ever met and I admired him, I loved him, and at the time, I had no idea we would have so much destiny together ahead of us.A month before he left for college we were lying in bed together, locked in each others arms while I cried. I knew that things were never going to be the same. He wasn't going far, he wasn't even leaving home. But I knew.

We dated on and off for five years. During those five years so much happened. He was diagnosed with depression, and put on medication, but for the first two years I stood by his mood swings. In turn, he stood by me as I cheated on him three times. My family always told me I was too young to settle down, and after all the grass is always greener, especially when you are fifteen. Things weren't ever perfect, but I always went back to him. And for those first three years, he kept me out of trouble.

His mother was a raging alcoholic, and because of that he wouldn't permit any form of drinking or drugs. And me being the doting girlfriend, I listened. At least, at first. If only it could have stayed that way forever. I really do blame myself for what happened to us. To what happened to him...little by little I wore him down. My cheating became more to rebel against his wishes then about the men. I wanted to party, I wanted to experiment...eventually, he had to make a choice. It was either join me or leave me, and Bill did love me so much.

My life and Bills life have intertwined so many times that our story sometimes becomes one in the same, so I had to introduce you to him now. I met him six months after my father passed away, and really, Bill shaped me in more ways during that time then any other man in my life to date. Our influence over each other took us to very dark places, but it also took us to heights I never would have imagined. So my story is also Bill's story. I will never love anyone like I loved Bill.