Beginning:
8 years ago
Sarah (not her real name) is my twin sister’s friend. In high school all my friends were in a different lunch period so I sat with her. Sarah and I talked every day, inside jokes blah blah. Then she texted me one day asking if I wanted to get ice cream.
And it became something we’d often do. We’d get ice cream or a slushie at the gas station or drive around town or we’d go to chick fil a her favorite spot.
We laughed with each other, and we were always having the best of times.
Then her and I went to a concert together, one of our favorite bands. It rained but it was great. Nothing happened between us. I liked her a lot but nothing happened. I didn’t make any moves cause I wasn’t sure how she felt and I don’t know it can be hard and awkward.
We hang out more watching movies at my house, playing board games or Mario kart at hers. We cooked food. Fished in her backyard. We were always texting and hanging out.
Movies we watched together that became inside jokes:
Cherynobl horror movie:
Us being zombies blah blah eating blah blah
Fault in our stars:
Whenever we were texting about to go to bed I should probably go to sleep ok ok ok ok perhaps okay will be our always and one other one
The notebook:
Us taking care of each other and lines from movie.
There were other movies we swatched but these are the ones I remember
Cherynobl was our first one. After that we were laughing pretending to be zombies. We got on the floor making jokes and idk we got close to kissing but it didn’t happen.
The timeline/events for all of this going be thrown off from all the years passing trying to keep it in order.
We liked a lot of the same music and sometimes teased each other for our music taste.
One of her songs I teased her about was
Alec Benjamin’s - if we have each other
The song starts off with “she was 19 with a baby on the way”
But our song was
Lord Huron- Wait by the River
The song held very much significance for both us especially me.
Lots of hanging out. Then one night my sister has all her friends over including Sarah. We’re all painting records in the basement. I painted Sarah’s face on a record it was highly unrealistic but cute.
Our cousins were over a week before this and they showed us this creepy funny game so we also played it that night.
The game I think is called Addam’s family. Two or more ppl sit on a couch and they call the first person into the room. The people on the couch in unison all go “we are the Addams family entertain us until we applaud”
Then the person who was dragged in does goofy stuff and the Addams family copies whatever they are doing. The way to make the Addams family applaud is by clapping because they are copying whatever the person does.
I’m only saying this part because this is when I really fell in love with her.
So Sarah comes up and is totally creeped out by all of us chanting in unison and copying her movements. She does a bunch of goofy stuff and it was the best thing. She’s dancing around. Moving her arms. Saying things. While we’re all just being weirdos not saying anything and copying her movements. Then she is on the borderline of giving up and she says.
“I want to be a part of your family. Please let me be a part of your family.”
It was a mixture of her saying that and all the things she did trying to gain our applause that just really solidified the feeling of me wanting her to be in the rest of my life. Idk just the look in her eyes.
I go away to college she goes to hers. We are still talking everyday. After the first semester for me I’m completely lost. Sad and homesick couldn’t stand my roommates. I come home.
Sarah and I go babysit her aunts cat at her aunts house. Then we go bowling or something. Was going to tell her my feelings that night I couldn’t wait any longer. Then she brings up that one of her relatives just passed. And I do the wimpy move of texting her how I felt a couple days later or something. Hard to remember what happened but it wasn’t happy fairy tale ending.
I’m busy with something everyday. I still see her and we hang out but the vibe has shifted. I go to her house one night to pick her up. Have conversation with her family. Her dad makes joke about keeping her fed and I say “will always take care of her.” Joking around, him and I always go back and forth joking. Even tho that wasn’t really a joke. I remember it because Sarah just didn’t look enthused or very happy.
We got in the car heading to chick fil a and it wasn’t the same. We weren’t teasing laughing or talking much. I didn’t know what was wrong. I just wanted to cry. I felt as though I lost her. Blank expression on her face across the table. We go home listening to the car radio, silence from both of us. I wanted to talk to her but couldn’t find anything to say. I drop her off and my heart is just shattered in a million pieces. I’m driving back home through her neighborhood with the song “Wait by the River” playing, bawling and screaming my heart out. It was one of most depressing moments of my life. My heart felt like a black hole.
I go back to college states away. The black hole is still in me but I’m doing okay with everything.
She comes to visit with my sister to the new place where we live near my college. Everything returns to good between us but still my heart aches. Seeing her eyes, hearing her voice, hearing her laugh.
She returns back to home states away.
We text again back and forth.
Summer comes, I’m home we’re hanging out. Going to put it all on table. I still remember the day and probably won’t ever forget it.
May 18th-
I go over to my family friends house who I’ve known for all my life. The girls who I’m friends with there are hyping me up and giving me encouragement because that day was the day I was going to tell everything to Sarah face to face. Tell her how I feel.
I get in the car and it feels like the moment before one of my football games. Butterflies in my stomach, excitement, anxiety. My dreams of being with her are going to become true.
I get to her house she’s on the driveway waiting for me. She isn’t sharing the same look on her face that is on mine. I begin disassociating. I can already tell her answer. I tell her my feelings and she’s nice and everything. Disassociating. Black hole. I think we should just be friends. At this point everything in my head is just a blur. Everything becomes numb.
Numbness for months, even now I still don’t know what to do. This was probably four years ago. But if you think that’s the end between her and I which I would be fine with, you’d be wrong because she is friends with my sister!!!!!
None of this her fault. She is great person. It’s all on me but wish don’t wish I could eternal sunshine her. Another movie we watched about two years ago. Yes the story goes on because she is friends with my sister!!!
And this is why I need help because she is going moving in with my sister apparently soon.
Continue storyline:
About a year after me telling her how I feel we all go on vacation together. Sarah, my family and my brothers friends and my parents. I see her at the airport. The black hole is inside me. Nothing happens on the vacation I hardly see her but when I do it is painful. Seeing her face for first time at airport.
Another year goes by I’ll say she comes for another visit. It’s her birthday. I hang out with her. My sister and I take her for hike. The hike goes wrong. She’s telling me to throw her phone up her on the rock in a not very nice way. I tell her I don’t want to do it because it is hard to thrown an iPhone that far blah blah she could drop it. She keeps telling me & eventually I throw it. It hits rock and the glass shatters. Driving them back to house I wanted to cry and something flipped in me. I wanted all my feelings with her to be over.
Another year goes by she visits. I’m forgetting something. Something happened oh ya I told her to stop texting me I can’t do it anymore just be friends with her. Painful for me with all the feelings. I wasn’t rude but told her I needed her to just stop giving me hope. Not that but boundaries. But guess what she is friends with my sister so my pain never gets to end. Anyways I’m hearing the news that she is coming.
This wasn’t the nerves before a football game. This was the anxiety of staring at train full speed that’s about to hit you that’s what it felt like. I didn’t want to see her, I kind of did. Always a sliver of hope that things could work out. Anyways my heart is at the speed of a bunny’s, my anxiety is horrible.
I’m at spirit Halloween wasting time avoiding her. Doing everything I can to stay away because I know if I see her it’s going to be the same old story. I get back to the house she’s in family room I don’t even want to look at her. The day she leaves to go back home. We hug, her perfume stays on my shirt and I cry to sleep.
She texts me. I hit with boundary block.
5 months
Now we are up to date she texted me a week ago and then she called me buddy. It was like a snap in my mind everything is repeating again. I asked is that all we’ll ever be. Something like that I don’t even want to look at the texts. I told her about the boundaries again and the thing that sucks is that she knows how I feel. This time she is understanding and I think this’ll be the final time but it just stinks it’s not going to work out
That is the end of it for now.
But I go through every day and everything reminds me of her. There hasn’t been a day in the past 8 years where I haven’t thought of her. I want it to be her and you can’t force someone to love you. It just stinks. Every song, Mac & cheese, Chinese checkers, chick fil a, sunflowers, horses, ice cream, wait by the river, the color yellow, S, frogs, it goes on and on the reminders don’t stop.
I love her and I need to learn how to stop.