Chapter One

"Your clothes never wear as well the next day and your hair never falls in quite the same way. You never seem to run out of things to say. This is the story of a girl, who cried a river and drowned the whole world.." -Story of A Girl by Nine Days

So, this is the beginning. Chapter One of my story. I'm honestly a little excited to write this all down. But at the same time, I'm really not. I know that it's not going to be easy; remembering all these things and putting them down into words for what they are. I'm going to, though. I also am putting rules into place. Rule One: I will tell the truth all the time, every time. Rule Two: Some of these people might be pretty easy to figure out. Some of the stories people already know a little bit about. However, if someone were to approach me and ask who one of the stories was with; I would never tell. Rule Three: I picked the people for the stories based on who has had a major impact on my life in recent years; good or bad. That's not really a "rule" but it had to be said anyway. Also, I think it should be explained how I'm still telling my story through letters. They're not really letters, I suppose. They're just chapters of my experiences with people that combine and intertwine to make my life. I tell them separately to avoid confusion. Make sense? Now; let the story begin..

Individual #1, I don't remember "meeting" you, officially. I remember being in 8th grade history together and you calling me an "Amish boy" and me just taking it. That story always makes me smile. I don't even remember where that nickname came from. You just said it and I thought 'Well, that's weird.' and moved on. And we became unspoken partners for everything. You know that person in a class that's the only person you know, so you have this unspoken agreement to be partners in EVERYTHING to avoid being paired with the weird kids by process of elimination? That was us. I don't think we ever talked outside of class that year. Maybe so, but I'm not sure. Then, suddenly, freshman year we walked into first hour biology together and BOOM. It was like we were best friends all along. I remember being super relieved that I had class with you. We so seamlessly became best friends after that. I appreciated the qualities I found in you; the honesty, openness, and kindness. Looking back, I can't think of a defining moment where I realized you were my best friend. You were, just like that.

Individual #2, When we first met, I hated you. I had only one or two friends in the neighborhood, and being the eight year old's that we were, we decided to build a club. I think those seven, eight, and nine year old ages are the ages that you just have a desire to be imaginative and create. Well, our "club" was really a ditch with boards over it that we would sit inside of and eat popsicles. We kept our club pretty close to where our parents could see us if they came up the street calling us home, though, the open field of dirt and weeds where we had the club went on for miles, we never went much further than where our club was at. One day, two boys came from the opposite end of the field from where our club was. One of them was you. It was an immediate rivalry. Whenever we would go home, you guys would move or break some of the boards making our club. Being eight, we didn't have much to be angry about other than that. That was the peak of our eight year old anger. Someone destroying our club. To retaliate, I put dirt and pebbles and such in your bike helmet. My brilliant plan included you not realizing the dirt and stuff was there and putting the helmet on, obviously. And then, having all that stuff pour down your head and over your face; making you covered in dirt. Clearly, this was a brilliant plan. I've asked you before if it worked, but I can't seem to remember your answer.

Individual #3, The first time I ever met you was in 7th grade, I think. I used to envy you, to be honest. You had long hair, which I wanted. You were popular, which was something I wanted to be. And you could get everyone's attention, which I always wanted to have. You seemed to have it all together and I was the nerd with braces and a bad habit of wearing baggy jeans and brown and teal shirts. Then, in 9th grade I believe, you started dating one of my good friends. Truthfully, I remember thinking 'What does she see in him?!' Not out of rudeness to him, but just because I remember feeling like you were way above the rest of us. The first time I ever hung out with you was when we all went to a play at our school. You seemed nice enough. And you seemed to really like my friend. So, I passed you off as okay and didn't see you much after that.

Individual #4,  I've said it before; I didn't want to like you. I mean, I didn't outright dislike you. It was just instinct, I think, not to want to like you. I felt like you were taking away my best friend. So when we arranged a sleepover, it was understandable why I was not too excited. I figured it would be super awkward and quiet. And it was, at first, I think. I was probably trying to make dumb jokes to defuse the silence. Eventually, I think we all set stuff up to go to bed and we all kind of chatted about different things. And one by one, people fell asleep. We were the last two up. We literally had the best talk I think I've ever had with one of my friends.  You understood everything I was going through at the time, and vice versa. Then when one of our friends started talking in her sleep, we asked her stupid questions until we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. I'm not sure how late we were up that night, but it was then that I realized we could be friends, and you weren't trying to steal my best friend, and that you were actually really nice and down-to-earth.

Individual #5, The first time we met was in 3rd grade. I used to make fun of you, a lot. I guess I was kind of a bully. You were nerdy and super into fish and fishing, so I think you were an easy target for me. I don't think we were even friends. I just teased you a lot. We were in different classes in 4th grade so after that I don't remember you at all until you were put in my 8th grade history class. You also started to hang out with my group of neighborhood friends, so you were around more. I noticed you immediately. You had this incredibly charming lopsided smile and, at the time, your long hair that flipped out at the sides and curled around your hat was insanely cute to me. I don't think we talked much in that history class until second semester of it. But I remember one day in March or April of 2008, I was walking through the cafeteria and I saw your picture on the wall. I was, once again, struck by how cute you were. Back then, we had a really good student email program that everyone actually used, so I emailed you. I'm not sure exactly what it said, but it was something about seeing your picture in the cafeteria. You replied telling me that you were student of the month. We started talking and I remember each time that we started a new conversation, you would start off the message with "Salutations!". You didn't have a phone then, so email was the only way we really talked to each other. We emailed and IM-ed a lot, I remember. You would even IM me to my phone so we could talk whenever. It was obvious we liked each other. Everyone knew. You didn't ask me out because you kind of liked another girl too, you said. In the end, she became your best friend and I became your girlfriend; starting on June 29th, 2008.

End of Chapter One.