This is a story about a boy named Q. I can't even give the real first letter of his name because giving him even that would be too painful. Q was...the most beautiful boy I had seen in high school. He was my best friend. He had a girlfriend and I understood we would not be together. For a while I was fine with receiving only friendship from him, and oh what a great friendship it was. I trusted him with everything, ever little bit of information concerning my life. When I was excited about something I told him. When I was upset he was always the one I turned to. On prom night I called him up crying and he stayed on the phone with me until 5 am. That was the first time we admitted that we liked each other. I was so sure it was only a crush that I didn't think much of it. I had only gotten my first kiss when I was 17, and after so many years of going unnoticed by guys I was somewhat used to having affections for someone who wouldn't return them.
We spent the whole summer talking. I was excited about a boy named C who I met at my college orientation. The two of them were so much alike that I knew me and C were going to be fast friends. I told Q all of this, which he didn't seem to like very much. He was concerned for me. He knew I was a virgin and he didn't want me to rush into anything with this guy. He was also afraid of losing me. He felt that C would replace him and we'd lose contact with each other. This and more we talked about. We called each other every single night that summer, getting to know more about each other, cracking jokes, and sharing things we'd never shared with another living soul. We trusted each other. That meant so much to me because I never thought I could trust anyone. Growing up, feeling like you're different than everyone else will do that to you. Everyone wants to know what you have to say only because they want to hold it against you later. But I never for an instant felt that way with Q. He made me feel safe. He made me feel normal.
Q and I were spending more and more time together. We went to a car show, along with his girlfriend, his sister, and his friend. He told me how nice I looked that night, though via text so his girlfriend would not know. I liked his girlfriend. I had met J at prom and from what little I knew of her upon meeting her I told Q how cool I thought she was. I truly did like her. What I didn't know was that she did not like me.
I drove to Q's house one afternoon, just to say hi. As he went in to hug me goodbye I felt a wave of excitement and anxiety wash over me. He was leaning in, but not to hug me. I could feel the kiss coming and was too stunned to move. At the last second he turned so the kiss turned into a mere hug. I didn't know what to feel. I was frightened by the prospect of being "the other woman" but I found myself blushing all the same. We texted about it later, but in such an oddly casual way. Later on the phone he urged me again to not be with C when I went to college. "Before I leave I was planning on..." I stopped myself to try and convince myself to not say what I was thinking. "I was planning on just walking up to you and kissing you." I couldn't even hear his breathing on the other end. I thought for a second I had blown it. I cursed myself inside, wishing I had a rewind button. It was one thing for me to share that I had a crush on him and a completely different thing to tell him I intended on acting on it. Stupid, stupid me. But before I could beat myself up too badly I heard him say, "Okay." That one word, clear as day, and just as sure. Okay.
Kissing him was one of the greatest moments of my life. It was hot out, and rainy. We sat nervously in my car, making small talk to either ease our way into the kiss or delay it, I'm not sure which. He kissed me like he missed me all his life, like we had been in love all our lives and had never known it before. I only dreamed of this moment, running my fingers through his brown hair, trailing my fingers along his damp shirt. I had never been touched before, and was terrified of it up until this point. If he had made a move to touch me I would have let him. I would have given him everything and more because I was already in love with him.
Three months went by. I went to college and things didn't work out between me and C. Not at all. We made out one time and then he ignored me, even though we had a class together. I had gone through disappointment after disappointment. Q was disappointed as well. He and J were having a lot of trouble. She got into fights with him over the slightest things and broke up with him for a few hours for what seemed like an almost daily basis. He told me it was killing him and I couldn't stand to hear that. I missed him. I didn't want him to hurt anymore.
When Thanksgiving break rolled around I could hardly contain my excitement. When I came home I found a bouquet of roses on the seat of my car. "Smile. I missed you." I cried when I read the card. It was the first bouquet I had ever gotten from a guy. I was so excited that I had to see him that night. Q drove us down to the beach, cloudy and cold though it was. He gave me his jacket and kissed me so deeply that I could have drowned in the love I felt. He broke apart for a moment to say, "I love you." Tears welled up in my eyes. "I love you too."
Things...didn't work out the way I wanted them to. Q promised he would break up with J for me, but after three weeks of waiting I told him I wouldn't wait anymore. It was tearing me up inside. I felt like his little secret who he wanted only for excitement. Whenever I asked him why he hadn't broken up with J he gave me some obscure reason. "Breaking up is a process." Or "I slipped on the ice today and hit my head really hard." I believed him at first because I needed to. But after awhile I delivered my response. "I can't wait anymore." It was meant to be an ultimatum, but he didn't see it that way and continued dating J. I could have died.
I received a lot of nasty text messages and phone calls from J. She hadn't known about me and Q but she didn't like the fact that we spoke so frequently. She even dyed her hair blonde like me, convinced that her boyfriend wanted me. I was constantly berated with hateful, hurtful things that Q did not make any motion to stop. I complained about it to him. I begged him to make her stop. All he told me to do was to let her say what she had to say and that there was nothing that he could do. His sister even did the same thing, though only once or twice.
I lost my virginity in November of 2010, grateful that I did not lose it to Q, though both of us always thought he'd be the one to take it. It was dangerous nevertheless, because now that I had entered the world of sex, there was mentally nothing holding me back from sleeping with him when our friendship strengthened again.
It was late March, 2011. He had just broken up with J (for good), though we made plans to sleep with each other before then. For the life of me I can't remember why. I just remember the pain of it, and how utterly unloved I felt the whole time. I told him how I felt and he assured me that he loved me, that it went without saying. Still, I could feel no love in any of it. I wasn't turned on at all, but I somehow knew that this was the only opportunity I had to have sex with him. I don't know how I knew. But I just did. So we had sex, painful and emotionless though it was. I couldn't even bring myself to look at his...at all. Not even a glance. I know now that I wasn't in love with him any longer, that he had hurt me too much. The reason why I wanted to have sex with him was because I was fond of the memory I had of loving him. It seems silly to not know the difference, but I didn't. Not then. That was why I wanted to date him. Maybe finally having an official, exclusive relationship would fix my feelings for him. I wasn't going to bring it up right after we had sex, so as not to scare him off. But it turns out I shouldn't have waited. Two weeks later he started dating someone else. Someone he had even told me he thought was ugly. He had started dating her right after I told him that I thought I was pregnant.
I was ashamed that I had had unprotected sex. I was on the pill, but I know from experience to expect the worst when it comes to medication being effective. I got a very, unusually light period. I had never had one so light before, even on the pill. My breasts hurt. I did not think this meant pregnancy at the time, but things started coming together in my mind. I told Q I thought I was pregnant and went out to buy a test, which was a mortifying experience on its own. I was so embarrassed that I drove 20 minutes further than my nearest pharmacy just in case I bumped into anyone I knew at my local one. I took both tests and an error occurred on both. I peed on them too much. Perfect! I was unable to deny my pregnancy to Q, which I told him. Yet he started dating a different girl anyway. He said that since I never brought up the prospect of a relationship after sex he got the hint that I didn't want one.
Q didn't have the balls to tell me about his new relationship himself. I found out over facebook, and that night drank myself completely drunk. I was on an antidepressant, another one of Q's little unwanted gifts to me, and after three shots of vodka I forgot. I only remembered when I was stinking drunk. I thought I was going to die, so I called Q to tell him goodbye. He didn't answer. I called him more times than I could remember, left more messages than I could remember, and texted him more times than I can remember, telling him all of this, and still he did not answer.
Obviously, I did not die. It was an overreaction. Instead I spent the whole next day in bed, nauseous and depressed. And for whatever reason Q and I still remained friends after that. Looking back on it I feel stupid. He gave me the biggest metaphorical slap in the face so many times and I kept giving him more chances.
One night when I was home on break, Q texted me that was having suicidal thoughts. He didn't pick up his phone when I called him, didn't answer my texts. I got in my car and drove into his town, looking all over for his car. I drove around his street, neighboring streets, his friend's house, the spot where we had sex, everywhere I could think to look before ultimately going to his house to tell his father. If anyone has a friend who expresses suicidal thinking, I would advise not doing what I did. I would advise calling the police immediately. What I did was stupid, but I knew that if I called the police and he was actually fine then his father would kill him. It's a stupid reason, but my not yet fully developed teenage mind found logic in my thinking. I told his father I was worried about him. He asked me if I thought he was suicidal, and just before I could answer he texted me saying he was at his new girlfriend's house and that everything was okay.
One day I received a message from his new girlfriend. I can't even remember what it was or via which technological devise it was. All I remember was that it was very much like the nasty remarks J had said to me time and time again. Q and I were on thin ice with each other. He had wounded me so much that it hurt to talk to him. But what could I do? He was my best friend. Our friendship ended for good October 2011. We were messaging on Skype and he sent me a youtube link for a Snow Patrol song, with a comment that said, "Our song." It wasn't our song. It was his and his new girlfriend's. I told him to never speak to me again.
I thought about talking to him for a few months after the Skype incident. It hurt not talking to him, but I knew I would hurt even more if I did. After a while I began to feel happier, more level headed, and started to think more clearly. I was such a fool. I wasted years loving him, letting some great opportunities to be happy pass me by. All I got out of it in the end was sorrow. I got complete and total joylessness for two years and he got a fiancee.
I'm older now and wiser than I was back then. Looking back on it I can remember how in love I thought I was and realized how I actually wasn't. I knew nothing about love back then. I didn't know passion. I didn't know what it was like to be a part of someone else's life, nor did I know how to let someone be part of mine. I was foolish, like most teenagers are. I try to live my life with as few regrets as possible, but Q was the biggest regret of all. I regret every moment of my time I dedicated to talking to him, spending time with him, or thinking about him. I should have never given myself to someone so underserving, and I should have never thought that I was special when I was with him. I thought that being the other woman made me special, but I was a fool to think that way. I hate what I did and feel so utterly guilty about it, even if his girlfriend was a b*tch. I went through high school feeling so undesirable, so unwanted, that I was all too quick to fall for someone. Q. My best friend. My everything and now my nothing.
Forever the honest,
Stephanie Lato
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