The Worst Year of my Life - Part Two
With a rocky, one-and-a-half-year relationship officially over, I began to figure out just what I wanted with my life. I started my second full semester of community college and tried to move on. The problem was, Faith also enrolled in one of my classes. I had planned this with Faith’s mom before we had broken up. We figured it would be a good opportunity for us to spend time together and I could help Faith study. Every morning, for three days a week, I sat in front of Faith and worked hard. I eyed every boy that eyed her and did my very best to not get jealous. Three weeks after Faith broke up with me, I realized that it was for the best. Through her lack of responses to my heartbroken texts and need for answers, I found the answers I truly needed. Faith was moving on and I needed to do the same. August was coming to an end and September was approaching, pushing me into my favorite season. I worked a few more gigs with the summer camp as a lifeguard and found a new group of school friends to spend my time. One day, toward the end of August, a life long friend of mine by the name of Henry, enrolled in a university forty-five minutes from our hometown. Henry was smart, and I’m not talking just average smart. At the age of fifteen, he was enrolled in the same community college I was currently attending. By seventeen, he had an associates degree and was now enrolled in a nice university, pursuing his master’s degree. Our intellectual mindsets were so far from similar that people wondered how we were such good friends.
Henry and I had met while playing soccer years earlier. His dad was the assistant coach and Henry had playing forward since he was six. Henry didn’t know this as the time, but the only reason I had reached out to him was to get closer to his older sister, Harper. The first time I had ever seen Harper, she was standing in a dress on the edge of the soccer fields. I didn’t know she and Henry were related at the time, but when I figured it out, I knew that I had to get close to her. It sounds wrong, using her brother to get close to her. I’m not saying it was right, but in the end, it worked out for the better. At the beginning of 2012, I received a call from Harper. While I classify 2015 as the worst year of my life, 2012 was the best year of my life. Harper was three and a half years older than me and showed next to no interest in me in any sort of romantic way. The call was about a volunteering opportunity an hour away. Harper told me that she thought I had a good personality for it and she wanted me to come. She had invited one of her close friends and her friend’s brother to help. She told me that Henry was out of town and would try and make it, but there were no promises. If you think that I was just going to sign up for some volunteer opportunity for some crush on a girl I barely knew, then you are absolutely right. I immediately agreed, and in February, I met Harper and the others to experience an amazing weekend of volunteering. The weekend flew by and I fell more in love with Harper. As the summer rolled around, I began spending more time with Harper and Henry at their house. I became good friends with Henry, apart from his sister, and Harper seemed genuinely interested in me. I couldn’t believe my luck. In July, Harper invited me and my family to come to her graduation party at the community college I ended up attending three years later. This was the highest point of my crush on Harper before the down fall. That’s right, this too failed. If you’re wondering why I told you about Faith first, it was because my relationship with Harper never amounted to anything. Not in 2012 anyway. Despite the pain that Harper would bring me, the earlier happenings of 2012 would still hold so high in my life that it remained the best year I had lived. As the summer changed into fall in 2012, Harper began dating a boy. Another boy that wasn’t me. My heart was broken and, while I had no right to be upset, I couldn’t help but feel he had been picked over me. So, for the time being, I moved on to pursue other girls, never truly getting over Harper the way I wanted.
However, it was the end of August in 2015 and I was helping Henry move. Of course, Harper was there. She had broken up with her boyfriend of almost three years just four months prior. It was her decision. I guess she decided that he wasn’t what she was looking for. It didn’t phase me. I was in a relationship with Faith at the time of her breakup and far from thinking our relationship was over. However, come the end of August, I was fresh out of my relationship and so was Harper. We bonded during the move and began talking. We hadn’t truly talked in over three years and I realized how much I missed our friendship. Being reunited with Harper sparked a new sort of interest in this girl I thought I had given up on. September came, and I transitioned from a cashier at the local grocery store to a lifeguard at the local pool. I would get up at four every morning, way before the sun and the rest of the city. The pool opened at five, and I was one of the two lifeguards to open it up for the morning swimmers. That was the month I started drinking coffee. Harper and I texted on occasion, and I kept my options open. As October grew closer, I began to talk more seriously with Harper. With most of my high school church friends away at college, I had more time for school and maybe pursuing another relationship. Dating Faith had messed me up emotionally. I didn’t know how to be in a real relationship and I wasn’t confident at all. However, despite my fear, I threw myself into whatever was between Harper and I. We never officially dated. Whatever you call going out for activities, texting good morning and good night every day, holding hands on the couch, and hanging out at least twice a week, well that’s up to you. But Harper never called it dating. In fact, she emphatically claimed that she did not want to date me. She said that she wasn’t quite ready for another relationship yet, but when she was, she wanted it to be me. Or so she thought. During the month of October, Harper told me that it was coming up on six months since she had broken up with her last boyfriend.
“I told him that we would re-evaluate at the end of six months,” she said quietly.
“What are you going to do?” I pried, desperate to know where Harper’s feelings truly lied.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
If that doesn’t deliver a crushing blow to any males confidence, then there is something wrong with you. The jerk that had broken her heart, causing her to break up with him in return, was back in the picture and I was just the side chick; with absolutely none of the benefits. Harper started holding my hand after that. She said it was okay for us to hold hands and lay together on the couch as long as I knew we weren’t dating. I should have seen the signs. When Harper finally received the six-month text that we had both been anxiously awaiting, it was time for Harper to make a very tough decision.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
Harper smiled.
“I told him that I was talking to someone.”
That was news to me. Maybe I had finally made it. However, while it takes months to build up someone’s confidence again, it takes only a moment to break their heart. October moved toward it’s close, and I felt Harper pulling away. She had gone out with a few guys during our…whatever it was. But now she was glued to her phone. She smiled at it and suddenly I knew I was going to lose her. So, in one final effort to save whatever we had, I skipped my last morning class and drove to the office building where Harper worked as a paralegal. I had done some digging online to find the address and had spent all day trying to contact her co-workers so that they could help me. I found one, a middle-aged woman who truly cared. She listened to my crazy plan and agreed to help. She said that Harper had talked about me. Maybe I really did stand a chance. I know what you are thinking. I was planning on running into the office, just like in the movies, and fall onto the ground, telling Harper that I loved her and needed her. That wasn’t entirely my plan. See, I never told Harper I loved her. Maybe that was the problem, but I knew how she felt about those words and I knew that I better steer clear. I never kissed her either. That was probably my second mistake. But who could blame me after my first failed and embarrassing kiss with Faith? I had thought about kissing Harper on several occasions, but my insecurities never let me. I guess it turned out for the better.
I arrived outside Harper’s office building around lunch time. I had been sitting across the street for nearly an hour, attempting to work up the nerve to storm into the office and beg Harper to be with me. Not one of my proudest moments but definitely one of the tougher ones. This would later play a key roll in my life. As I stormed into the office, the look of pleasant shock on Harper’s face put me at ease.
“Harper, I know that this isn’t really like me. I respect your decisions and who you choose to be with. But this last month of my life has been…incredible and I don’t want to lose you. I know we weren’t together in 2012, but I lost any chance of being with you when you started dating. I can’t lose you twice to the same guy. Please just give me a chance. I promise I’ll make you happy. Let’s see where this goes.”
Harper smiled.
“I’m going to think about it,” she said. “You can relax.”
I felt better. It was out of my hands now and I just had to let the future unfold, trusting that Harper would make whatever decision made her happy. Within a week, Harper texted me and told me that she couldn’t do this anymore.
“I don’t want you or him,” she told me. “I’m sorry.”
I begged her to reconsider, but she wouldn’t have it. Finally, laying in the same bed that I had lay in after Faith had broken my heart three months earlier, my heart was broken again. The hole in my chest was bigger than anything I had felt. That may sound silly since Harper never called me her boyfriend, however, I felt more loved in that month with a girl who wouldn’t date me than I ever did with Faith. I had tasted a real relationship. What made it worse, was that Harper had lied about not wanting either of us. She quickly began dating her first boyfriend all over again and I realized that he would win over me every time. Harper was the second girl to shoot me down in 2015 and the second out of two girls to truly break my heart.
TO BE CONTINUED