Ryan

The truth about Ryan and I... So complicated, yet so unrelated at the same time.1

I moved to Bremerton when I was two years old or so. My parents had just divorced, and Ryan's family had just moved into the house next door to my grandmother's. I can remember so clearly the day of my first seeing Ryan, it almost scares me. I don't know the time... I don't even know what season it was. But I remember how I asked my mother with such conviction, "Can he spend the night?" I was overjoyed at having a new friend, being the social butterfly that I am... Moving to Bremerton caused me to lose all contacts with my friends. Besides--I was lovestruck. He was the coolest boy I had ever met in all of my two years (and I had an infatuation with glasses).2

As the years progressed, I hardly spoke to him. His sister, Emily, is my age, and we became best friends, talking about the Spice Girls, and all of the other humiliatingly dorky bands we were obsessed with back then in the nineties... And boys. We talked about boys a lot. Our mothers would always say, however, that Ryan and I were destined for each other. That we would one day wind up married, in a sweet little house in the suburbs. Emily was most likely the one to take the most offense to it.3

Emily is dreadfully jealous, and devastatingly competitive with her brother, especially when it came to her friends. If one of her friends had a crush on Ryan, they couldn't possibly like her, too. So of course, I couldn't admit to the child's love I felt towards Ryan, because if I did, I would surely pay the greatest price there was--my best friend.4

So time drifted on and on. Birthdays passed. Fights were had and made up. And on and on. I moved back to Poulsbo, and Emily and I were fine. Ryan and I, however, never talked. The only interaction we had with each other were the few and widespread visits I took to see Emily. But if I dared to fix my glance at Ryan for more than a mere second, her rage would be released, and I would pay dearly.5

Now we are older. I am off to the high school. He can drive... Some may say we are still young, and we are. We are younger than anyone would imagine. Although he is one of the most un-innocent people I think I know, I secretly wish and hope that he's not as bad and knowledgeable as the whole world makes him out to be. 6

But perhaps that's my folly--falling for a man that does not exist, at least not as I want him to. Or perhaps it's allowing myself to dream too freely, and to think that these dreams will somehow bring Ryan to me. Somehow, we will be together, if even for a moment's love...7

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My stomach is clenched into tears right now--tears that can never fall. If they do, then the world will somehow know. They will know of my wish. They will know of my despair... They will know of my anguish... They will know. And if they know, then this will die--my love... my childish infatuation with Ryan.9