Six Years

the six year story

Six Years

Year One: 2011/2012

So many things had changed over the summer, she had gotten braces, one of her best friends moved away, and she was about to start school at a new place. She wasn’t very happy about that, it would be her last year in elementary school and she wouldn’t get to experience any of the past sixth grade traditions. Last year her elementary school had closed due to education budget and lack of students. The students were split into two different local schools, meaning some of her friends wouldn’t be going to the same school.  At least she wasn’t going to be completely alone, she had a good friend who was switching to the same school as her too. This was the first footstep towards a time that would completely change this girl, forever.

A few months passed and she was now two months into the sixth grade. The one good friend who came with her to the new school decided that she was too cool, she made fun of her with some of her new friends. However she wasn’t alone, she made new friends who she really liked. She started going to the skating rink with them on weekends. This is the time the girl noticed other girls who started doing their hair and wearing makeup. At that age, the girl believed fitting in was everything and she would do anything it took. She tried a bit too hard but she started changing, straightening her hair everyday, wearing clothes that other girls wore, and doing her makeup. She became even closer to the friends she’d made, there was even this one boy who she had a crush on too. He sat at her table during art and always made her laugh. It wasn’t that easy though because he was dating one of her good friends. Very complicated. Her friend complained about the boy all the time and she didn’t even like him very much. After a few weeks, they had broken up and the boy had started talking to the girl a lot more. He had a crush on her too. After long conversations on the phone with her friend and a confession on a trampoline, the boy and girl started dating. She didn’t know how complicated he would be, but that’s later. They both played on the playground at recess with all of their friends. For his birthday he planned on going to an amusement park with his guy friends, but he invited her too. One red slushie and the Finish Fling caused that day to be anything but normal. It ended up being strange and awkward between them and the girl was horrified for months. Now summer had started and every Friday they’d go to the skating rink to hang out. This is where it became complicated. They were apart of too much drama, they became the center of stupid jokes, and had disagreements because they didn’t think the same things. It was a bit too much and it was completely pointless to deal with all of the drama at their age. At the end of the summer they argued all the time and eventually broke up. This girl has always had the problem of putting people she likes above her true friends, so she felt alone, with no good friends to comfort her. What was worse is she knew the boy was teasing and joking about her to his friends. She was about to go to a new school again, except this time everyone came with her and so did a number of kids from other schools. Her and this boy lived in the same neighborhood too so they’d have to ride the same bus. She knew when he saw her he’d make some sort of joke. Now entering Middle School, the most awkward terrible time for this girl.

Year Two: 2012/2013

Seventh Grade. A lot of new people, new classes, and finally a locker to decorate. This school seemed huge to the girl and she was afraid she’d be lost in the crowd. Everything started out somewhat normal, the same kind of math, english and science but then came gym class. A locker room that smelled of cheap perfume and sweat, two wretched combinations. It was terrible, everyone forced to wear gray shirts that showed every sweat mark. Needless to say, this girl was good at sports so she managed to make her way through the class.

After a few weeks the routine became more normal for the girl, she could finally take a breath and meet people around her. She noticed a boy in a few of her classes, he had almost the same hair color as she did. She made an effort to get to know this boy and learned that he played bass, loved music, and had an epic movie collection. He became interested in her too and invited her to a bonfire on Halloween. This was the first time she’d ever done something like this with a boy. On halloween the girl and the boy had costumes and went trick or treating with his older brother and some of his friends, they had a great time. Finally they went back to the boys house and sat around the bonfire, he gave her his jacket and they cuddled under a blanket. Everything seemed perfect until this new girl started to the boy. They became too good of friends you know? But the girl still did things with the boy and for Thanksgiving she drove down after having dinner with her family in Nebraska to go see the Plaza lights turn on. She remembers this as one of the most beautiful moments. They walked down the street together holding hands and they shared a hot chocolate from a tiny coffee shop. One thing that her and this boy did that wasn’t particularly nice was make fun of people. Not the occasional one or two words about somebody but constant conversations about people in their lives. There was this boy that the girl was friends and they made fun of him all the time together, the girl realized how bad this was later. The girl became interested in new things and started talking to old friends, specifically the boy she had dated the summer before. He talked to her about auditioning for the school musical and that him and his friends were planning on auditioning too. This intrigued the girl because she had never done theater before and was terrified of embarrassing herself in front of people, aka major stage fright, but she ended up auditioning anyways. By this time the girl and the boy she’d been talking too all fall had grown apart because he became closer with the “too good of friends” girl. They became a thing is what happened. She wasn’t too fazed however because she was meeting a lot of new people in the musical. Some of her old friends from sixth grade had new friends that she was introduced too. One of the people she was introduced to was a really tall blonde boy, this was when she thought she was interested in blondes. Every week at rehearsal for the musical the girl and the blonde boy would talk and laugh and flirt occasionally, but he was dating a different girl at the time. The musical they were doing required cowboy hats for the boys so backstage her and the blonde boy played frisbee with his hat which was a lot of fun. Then he accidently got hand sanitizer on her skirt and he was pinned to a locker by the stage manager, they laughed about it later though. The girl was glad she did the musical, it turned out to be something she’d never expected.

Year Three: 2013/2014

This year the girls summer lasted forever, which was both a good and a bad thing. The boy she became close friends with from the musical was talking to her again, him and the girl he was dating recently broke up. They talked more and more everyday and then started dating. They occasionally went to the park to hang out together. They sat at the picnic tables, went down by the lake and once went canoeing with one of their friends. The friend insisted on playing what he thought was romantic music and pressured us to kiss. They had never kissed each other before so it was kind of a weird moment and they didn’t kiss. However they had a lot of fun on the canoe, the three of them almost tipped it over a few times too. Once they got off the canoe they walked down the path next to the lake, when they got to the trail opening their friend ran ahead, leaving them alone together. They felt like this was the only time they’d be alone and took the chance to kiss, little did they know the friend who had ran ahead was taking a picture of them at that exact moment. Awkward. So now there was a picture of them kissing. Later in the summer the girl and one of her friends went to a concert. It was so fun because they got to walk around by themselves and got to buy their own tank tops. It wasn’t the most special concert considering it was a popular boy band at the time but they still had a great time. The girl and her friend started hanging out all the time. They were the girls who wore 3D movie theater glasses with the lenses poked out everywhere they went. The girl stopped talking to the boy as much too, he never seemed to have time to hang out with her anymore. School was about to start and they broke up for a few days. In these few days the girl barely ate anything and talked to no one. Once everything was resolved they started dating again, which ended up being a mistake.

School had started and now that it was eighth grade everyone seemed to know their place, except the girl. She still had the bad habit of putting people she liked above her true friends, so she didn’t really have a best friend. There were a few people on her bus she was close to, a boy and a girl she had known since kindergarden and a new boy she’d barely talked to. They all started talking on the bus about how they wanted to go to the spinach festival together. That Friday the four of them walked all around their neighborhood, to the spinach festival, to the McDonalds near their old elementary school and all the way to a different elementary school. None of them could drive so the girls mom had to pick them up when it was getting late. When they got in the car the girls mom gave her a look that meant “do you like this boy?” and she nodded no. But when the girls mom dropped them off at one of their houses that started to change. The four friends started to watch movies and joke around, it was a lot of fun until there was a competition between the two boys of who could keep their arm around the girl they were sitting with the longest, it was stupid. The boy who had his arm around the girl was the one her mom thought she liked and in that moment she started to like him. Somehow the girls boyfriend heard about this and the following Monday broke up with her through her bus window, classy i know. The girl was so confused because she really hadn’t done anything with the boy and only she knew that she was really starting to like him. The girl and the new boy started hanging out all the time, it was easy because they lived in the same neighborhood. On weekends they would hang out for hours talking, playing board games and eating too many tubs of cookie dough. The chemistry between them was undeniable but the girl didn’t know that she was falling into one of the worst situations. The started dating and everything started to change. The boy wanted more from the girl than she was willing to give, but for some reason she thought the only way to keep him around was to do what he wanted. Big mistake. Too much happened between them. The only way to explain it is that the girl wasn’t as fresh faced anymore, she no longer had a genuine smile on her face because she was hiding every bad thing going on. Since the girl was hiding the bad things from everyone she unconsciously started hiding it from herself. Every bad thing that happened she would ignore. Anything that he wanted from her, she would do it without question. It was terrible. Some of the girls friends could tell something was wrong, they could tell that he wasn’t treating her right and that the girl needed to get out. But by this time the girl had blinded herself to all the s**t he was putting her through and ignored her friends advice to get out. Her innocence started to fade, she wasn’t who she used to be. The girl had an opportunity to audition for the school play but the boy told her that she couldn’t because of the other people who were in it. The boy had major jealousy issues over people who weren’t a threat but kept her away from them anyways. So she didn’t audition for the play. Things between them became even worse and the girl did something she shouldn’t have done. More of the girls friends tried to get her out of the toxic relationship but she still didn’t listen. But the girl became more and more aware of how horrible this boy was.

Year Four: 2014/2015

The time had come to audition for the musical and despite what the boy said, she auditioned. She started to be happy again and connected with old friends, but still didn’t have any super close friends. There was one friend who was in a few of her classes that she could talk to but she didn’t think it would be the best idea. The girl had lead this boy on multiple times in the past and really didn’t want to give him the wrong idea again. The girls boyfriend didn’t like that she was in the musical and became jealous. Finally came the day when the toxic terrible boy broke up with the girl, and even though she realized how terrible their relationship was, she was heart broken. She was so hurt she kind of shut herself off and didn’t take other people’s feelings into consideration. On a work call for the musical the boy who she had lead on started to talk to her again and made an effort to hang out with her. The girl knew what was happening but kept talking and hanging out with him anyways. She didn’t want to hurt him but spent time talking to him because she knew that he was nice and genuinely caring. Near the end of the work call she realized that she had lead him on again and didn’t want to hurt him, so she tried to avoid him. She went in every direction that he wasn’t going and tried her best to hide from him. One of his friends told the girl that he was going to ask her out at the end of the work call. The girl really didn’t want to be confronted by him so she left early without any warning. This was the last straw for the boy, he was tired of the girl leading him on and treating him terribly just because she knew that he liked her. He had even told her that he loved her but she didn’t say or do anything to him. He texted her saying that he was done, that he wouldn’t like her anymore and that he would leave her alone. The girl knew this would be the best thing so she wouldn’t hurt him anymore but was sad that she had to lose him. She knew that the way she had taken advantage of him just because he liked her was wrong. The boy had two good friends (one being the boy the girl dated in sixth grade) who wanted him to be with the girl because they knew that he liked her still. So the two good friends of the boy invited the girl and the boy to go paintballing, it was really awkward for the girl but she had fun. When they were paintballing the boy protected the girl and told her what to do because she was absolutely clueless. She freaked out when he got out and she was left alone, eventually she was shot in the face. Her and the boy laughed about it. On the way home the boy and the girl sat next to each other, they didn’t really talk much, but the girl's head was filled with thoughts about him. Show week for the musical was finally here and at the beginning everything was how it had always been between them, casual conversation but then during matinees for the show they started flirting. This time was different than any other time he had pursued her before, this time it was going somewhere. They were backstage together on the last night of the musical and two girls came up to them and warned them that if they didn’t make this official then they were going to. Neither the boy or the girl said anything and they both kind of pushed it away because it was still a sensitive subject. The girl believed that the boy was done with her just like he’d said and that she’d missed her chance to be with him. The boy believed that the girl was doing what she always did to him. Deep down the girl knew it wasn’t like before but she didn’t know what would happen between them. Before one of the last musical numbers they were backstage together and they both had to go to different sides of the stage, right when they were about to go the boy took the girl's hand and kissed it then turned and walked away. This left the girl in shock, happy shock, but she didn’t expect him to do that and that’s the moment she knew for sure what she was getting into. So much for just friends.

Year Five: 2015/2016

Flash-forward about a year from that day backstage, and the boy and girl had been dating for almost a year. She never expected to fall so hard for him. Everything about the time they had been dating was close to perfect. She was so glad that she had him and that he was the one to mend her broken heart, even if didn’t know he did. They learned a lot more about each other and became closer than they ever had been. They started high school together and went to their first homecoming dance, acted in the fall play and went to wpa together.

On their One Year, he surprised her with a picnic in the park. It was perfect, it was a sunny day in May on a little island in a pond. He had planned it all out. He made the girl happy. They spent the summer together hanging out every week. He made her laugh and was weird with her, he even knew all the places she was ticklish and used that against her every once and awhile. He was her best friend, she loved him.

Year Six: 2016-Present Day

The next summer started out amazing for the girl. Her soccer team won the state championship for the first time, it was such a cool experience. Once the girl got home she started hanging out with her friends and the boy. They all went to the park and hung out at their favorite bridge some nights. Weeks went by and something started to change between the girl and boy, they both didn’t really want to talk about it until one day after they went to dinner. They were sitting in the boys car and the girl finally asked what was wrong, if something had changed between them. The boy said he was confused and didn’t really understand what he was feeling. She felt like she was losing him and her heart dropped. Everything about the girl tensed up as she turned her face away to cry. He did his best to comfort her. They sat in his car for a long time and talked things out, everything was okay for a while. A few days later they were hanging out at his house and they didn’t really talk or do anything. Something was still wrong between them and they both knew. They both sat down on the couch and the girl brought it up again and they talked for a while trying to figure out why they were both feeling this way. Farther into the conversation both of them were crying and the boy finally said that it would be best for both of them if they broke up, she looked at him and something inside her broke. She just couldn’t believe that it was over, they just spent all this time having fun together and then it just ends. The girl had to get up off the couch and go over to the window to cry, she kept saying to herself that she couldn’t believe this. The boy was also upset because he really didn’t want to lose her but didn’t know how they could be happy together anymore, he got up off the couch, slouched against a wall and slid down until his face was in his hands. The girl turned from her spot on the window and went to sit in front of him. She didn’t know what to do but some part of her managed to say something that really caused the boy to think deep into his heart. Think about why we shouldn’t give up on us. After a long time the boy realized that he really didn’t want to give up on them and he looked up at the girl. He grabbed her hand and said we can work through this. They did work through it, but for months that day was engraved into the girl's head and she broke down every time she thought about it. They worked up from that day and weren’t afraid to talk about things that were bothering them because they knew they could work through it. They weren’t afraid of having problems anymore because it’s a normal thing. They started going out and doing things together again, he went to a soccer game with her, they went to Deanna Rose Farm together, anything they wanted to do because it made them happy. The girl began to think about the day less and less and finally not at all, because she knew everything was okay. They were happy.

Now it’s two months before their three year and everything is perfect. The girl never imagined that she could be this happy. She is grateful that someone genuinely believes that she deserves to be treated right. She knows she can be weird with him because he would be weird too. They are both truly happy. The girl hopes they can be happy for a long time

For six years I have been the girl who has had many experiences. I have been through the heartbreak and the awkward moments. I have changed so much in six years it shocks me. But for almost three out of the six years I’ve been happier than I’ve ever been. I hope he knows how much happy he makes me and how much he means to me. We went from being just friends in sixth grade to almost dating for three years. We’ve been through a lot together and we’ve been through a lot separately but we have made it to today. I will never forget the moment he kissed my hand backstage, I didn’t know then that I’d be so hopelessly in love with him. I’ve known him for six years and we are almost even.