A good thing that changed my life greatly starts with a strange text message from someone in school, continues with a summer connection, and begins something new with a tender kiss. Things begin for some of us in an odd manner. For me, the most important thing to me started with a text message on the day of my great grandmother’s viewing. It was approximately a year from February 8th when I got a text message from an unfamiliar number. In order to understand this completely, let me rewind to a few days prior to February 8th, 2012.
Just like in any high school movie or television show, friends hovered around my locker as they awaited the bell for the next hour anxiously. A certain friend, Alec, had the locker two down from mine and we were talking about how his grandma had just died. Going back to the 8th, when I’d arrived at the funeral home, I had noticed that the person on the marquee board for “Local Goodbyes” shared Alec’s last name. I had texted him, asking if that was his grandmother, but apparently he hadn’t known my number and as a result, sent my own number out to two of his friends requesting they text me.
Both of them had texted me, one of them being who this essay is about and the other currently holding a position as one of my best friends in the entire world. I found out the number that had texted me was none other than a kid I actually had attempted to annoy several times in my Government class. His name was Kyle and I knew very little about him. Nonetheless, we began texting constantly after that day. Andy, the other person that had texted me that day, didn’t talk to me much afterward until our last day of school, hich came around May since we were seniors. My step-mother works as an entrepreneur of selling saw blade art and baked goods. As such, she goes to farmer’s markets in order to sell her goods and get her name out in the world. She requires help on occasion, so the day I got out of school I went out to Stockbridge to assist her. At the time, Andy and I had begun texting more frequently. He wanted to hang out, and whereas I didn’t really have the time since I was hanging out with my step-mother, I told him that I couldn’t until later.
He came over that very night with a friend: Kyle. The two of them stayed at my house nearly all night, and that was how the friendship started. Summer brought all three of us together very quickly as the two of them continued to visit me at my house. Kyle and I quickly grew closer as we realized how alike we were; we shared the same taste in music, one of the most influential things in our lives. We felt as if our fathers had been there for us more than our mothers. And whereas he could play guitar, I had the ability to sing; both of us were musically inclined.
In time, we shared many secrets with each other. There wasn’t a moment we weren’t texting one another or trying to talk to each other. Even when I went to Georgia for nearly a month, Kyle and I constantly wanted to Skype with one another though we rarely talked. It was a particularly fun and enjoyable time in life. But as with all good things, there was a catch to it. I grew quite attached to Kyle near the end of my stay in Georgia. The problem: I knew he wasn’t interested in me, but rather, my best friend.
It was awkward and difficult to try and give him advice when he asked for help with her. Obviously I didn’t want them to become a couple seeing as how much I liked Kyle myself, and from my point of view (though my best friend had shown slight interest in him to me before I’d known Kyle) it seemed as if she were only going to lead him on. Honestly, it was how my friend worked. Nevertheless, I tried to offer the best advice I could to the both of them. My thoughts about my friend were proven right after some time, though.
The time in Georgia came and went quickly enough, leading to the point where I moved in with my grandmother so I could go to college. My grandma lived closer to Kyle than my dad had, bringing us even closer than before. He began going everywhere with me – mostly because neither of us had anything particularly interesting to do and spent most of our time hanging out with one another. Without him, I basically just grew more and more bored every day until I fell asleep. I was alone without him.
We spent one night together where we refused to sleep, watching a television show called Better Off Ted. We planned on going out early in the morning to find a nice laptop for myself as well as finish some things for my schooling. But the lack of sleep actually made it difficult for me to focus and instead had me worrying about the fact that Kyle would catch on to how much I liked him. He and I went to Best Buy to buy my laptop, and I nervously had to head back out to my car for the money I’d forgotten.
I was texting my friend, the same one that had led Kyle on in my opinion, about how nervous I was to tell him how much I liked him; I didn’t want to ruin our friendship because he was the best friend I had. I could tell him anything. She pushed me to just come out with how I felt though; she kept telling me that only good would come out of it. Kyle and I drove back to his house and while I drove, he told me he had something to tell me that had the potential to turn out awkward.
I told him he could say whatever he wanted, even though on the inside I was terrified. He didn’t end up saying anything until we got to his house and he set up my laptop, and even then he didn’t speak. Instead, Kyle sent me the most adorable text confessing that he’d liked me for some time and wanted to know if I felt the same. Of course I did. Exhausted emotionally, physically, and mentally, Kyle and I went to lie in the sun of his backyard together. We curled up in a patch of sun and eventually sealed our affections with a tender kiss.
