*This may take ten minutes of your life, but it’s worth the read. I promise you that.
It was May of last year. My freshman year was ending. My sister, Karla, and I were taking our first year of French. We had it for different periods. We got two breaks a day. The first was a ten-minute break in the morning, the second was lunch at midday. One day my sister came to me, just like every other day, but this time she had news. There was a new student in her first period, which was French. The teacher sat him next to her and he seemed like a really cool guy.
For the next few days she would talk about the new student a lot. We could never find him during breaks, though, so I didn’t meet him right away. Apparently he liked good music, he had moved here (to Southern California) from Utah, he had a checker-patterened backpack, and his hair was black and spiky. She didn’t know his grade though because he kept lying about it. My sister thought he was a junior. This guy’s name was Uriel.
I heard about him quite a bit. He had no friends yet so Karla told him that he could hang out with us anytime. She was sure I’d like him a lot, as a friend, so I wouldn’t mind having him around.
One morning, my sister and I were looking for Uriel. She told me he was wearing a blue shirt that day, he had his checkered backpack, and that spiky black hair. In a crowd of students rushing to get a snack, I spotted him. It had to be him; I had never seen this guy before. He was walking in our direction, but hadn’t seen us yet. We got closer to him and my sister introduced us. I’m not sure why, but he walked away almost instantly. I thought it was a bit rude because we were trying to be friendly.
A couple days later, Karla and I were walking towards the restrooms during our ten-minute break. Uriel came from behind and kicked the sole of her shoe. We said hi and he actually walked with us. I was so happy that he’d come to hang out with us. That’s where our friendship started. Pretty soon Karla and I both added him on MySpace. We hung out every day and we became his closest friends here. I noticed one day that Karla and I were both on his MySpace top. We were the only Californians on there. The rest were his friends from Utah. For some reason that brought joy to me because it showed that he really did like us.
We had a small group of friends and once Uriel became part of it as the only guy, another girl became a part of it too. It was weird because Karla and I both knew that this girl hated us for no reason. Turns out she had Uriel in a couple of her classes and had a huge crush on him. I was told she was jealous because she thought that Uriel and I had a “thing” for each other. She’d noticed that I was the one he talked to the most out of the group. I didn’t like him that way, though. But he definitely became a best friend.
Despite the fact that he and Karla had a class together, he and I became closer and he put me before her on his top. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
I had been talking to another friend. This friend knew Uriel and knew that Uriel talked to me. He told him that we were gonna date. Uriel, Karla, and I rode the same bus home and got to know each other well. On a sunny afternoon, the three of us were at the bus stop. Uriel brought up this other friend and asked if it was true what he’d heard. I said it was. He gave me a look and turned around, but I didn’t think much of it.
I liked this other friend and on the last day of school, I became his girlfriend. This was my first relationship. He promised me a lot of things about never leaving me and things like that. Karla, who by the way is my twin, coincidentally started dating her first boyfriend on the same day. We were both sure that these relationships would last forever; we thought it was true love.
Summer break came to an end and sophomore year began. For the first time ever, Karla and I no longer hung out together. We hung separately with our new boyfriends. During the whole first week of break I looked for Uriel and when I couldn’t find him, I asked him online if he had gone to school yet. Finally, I found him the second week. He was leaning against a pole and he was alone. His hair was different now. It wasn’t spiky, it was all down. We had two classes together: French, which was first period, and English, which was fifth.
Most of the friends I used to hang out with in my freshman year had found new friends. Uriel was one of two who stayed with me. It was awkward at times when it was just Uriel, my then-boyfriend, and myself. I tried to talk to Uriel as much as I could so he wouldn’t feel like the third wheel.
Uriel’s assigned seat in French was next to me, on my left. We talked a lot and the teacher was constantly telling him “Theo, tell her later.” Theo was his French name. We were working on some kind of project in that class one morning and I called Uriel an ass. For some reason it bothered him a lot and I told him to forget about it and to pretend like I wasn’t there. He did just that. He changed seats and wouldn’t talk to me for weeks and weeks. I felt really bad because I didn’t know whether or not he spent his lunches alone. When we had to form groups in French, he didn’t want to work with us anymore. The teacher knew that we usually did, though, so she sat him with us. It was awkward because I was the only one he didn’t talk to.
Uriel had made a new friend and it hurt me to see them at lunch, especially when we made eye contact. My then-boyfriend didn’t treat me too well. In November, my sister and I were going to a football game at school for the first time. Before the game, she and I were walking around the town and I received a text message from Uriel. I remember I got tear eyed. They were tears of joy of course. We kept on texting. I was having a pretty bad night because I’d seen my then-boyfriend hanging with a million girls and he refused to some sit with me. It got pretty bad and soon I was crying of sadness and anger, no longer joy. The following Monday morning, Karla and I walked by Uriel and his new friend. He said something like “what’s up guys.” From then on, he talked to me. He didn’t hang out with me, but he talked to me and that was enough for me.
Fast-forward to winter break. I got my heart broken for the first time and it was really hard on me. At one point, Uriel had told me that my relationship wasn’t gonna last forever. He had had a six month relationship back in Utah. He talked about the girl a lot. He had said he was willing to wait for her until graduating so they could be together, but she had moved on. The way he talked about her was really sweet. Anyway, my relationship had also lasted just six months. Uriel had been right. We were too young to be “in love.”
The day we went back to school, I was still a disaster. I felt as though my heart would forever be broken into a trillion pieces and it was impossible to put it back together. First period came. Now Uriel sat next to Karla, again. I sat about two seats in front of them. I was pretty quiet that day. I overheard my sister tell Uriel that my now ex had broken up with me. I didn’t mind that she told him. That same day after English, which I also had with Uriel, he came after me once we were dismissed. He must’ve seen me walk into that class crying at the beginning because he asked me if I was okay. I said no. He asked why, pretending not to know anything. I told him why.
Two days later I had my odd classes again. That meant French and English with Uriel. Our English teacher had told us that wherever we sat next period would be our new permanent seat. I had never really socialized much with anyone in that class. That period came after lunch and once again I walked in crying. I walked towards the back to sit alone. Uriel saw me and called my name. He motioned for me to sit next to him in the front. I didn’t wanna be rude, so I wiped my tears and made my way to the desk next to him. Before I got there, another guy sat in the desk. Uriel asked him to move over one so I could sit there, and he did. For the whole second semester, I sat next to Uriel.
For the next couple of weeks, I came to English crying several times. No matter how horrible I was feeling, Uriel cheered me up. I became happier and happier. I started looking forward to going to English and even French, although I did’t sit by Uriel, just because he’d be there. My aunt had been praying for me. Each time we talked, she reminded me that God was turning my life around. She’d say that in six months I’d look back and see the differences.
Spring break came and I knew I wouldn’t see Uriel for two weeks. The day before spring break, Uriel and I hung out outside of school for the first time, at the beach. It was a little awkward at first, but I loved it. He didn’t know that I had a huge crush on him then, and I didn’t know whether or not he had any feelings for me. Throughout the whole two weeks that we had off, we talked online till two or three in the morning on most days. My feelings for him grew stronger and stronger. I suspected that he liked me too because he would give me songs to listen to, and they were all super sweet love songs. Plus, he stayed up really late talking to me, hours and hours at a time. Why would a guy do that if he didn’t care about a girl?
On April 2nd we were having one of those conversations that lasted up until the following morning. After I went to bed and got up to go to a friend’s house the day before Easter, I logged on real quick. Uriel wasn’t online, but I had a message that he’d sent right after I’d said goodnight during our last conversation. It said “i’ve fallen for you.” It had been sent on April 3rd at 3:34AM. That whole day I was filled with happiness and I couldn’t wait to go back home and talk to him.
He confessed that he had had a crush on me since before the end of freshman year. He had been planning to telling me, but then he found out that I had gotten a boyfriend and never said anything. I asked him why he hung out with me when I was with my ex. He told me that even though it was weird seeing us kiss, it was better to be friends than nothing.
April 5th was the day we went back to school. Of course I was extremely nervous. Nothing happened in French. But at lunch, after months of hanging out with someone else, he found me and stayed with me. He was alone. I asked him why he was alone. He said he wasn’t; he was with me.
That Friday we hung out again, and pretty much every Friday after that. We took walks on the pier, on the shore, we went to a park, we hung out at my boring-ass house. He met my family and they loved him. He stayed over until around eleven at times and it worried me when he went home, but he didn’t care. He was moving back to Utah in the summer and wanted to spend as much time with me as he could. He spent most lunches with me. It was just me and him now. We grew closer and closer. I was afraid of being too close because he would soon be gone and I thought he’d forget about me forever.
It seemed as if Uriel was completely serious about us. He and I began talking about the future: life after graduating from high school. He was willing to wait until then to be with me. I refused to have a long distance relationship, and so we talked about waiting two years. He seemed serious, and I was serious because I wanted a long-term relationship. Uriel was willing to have one with me. He cared about me in a way that no one ever had. The fact that he was willing to wait made me love him more. Waiting wasn’t what he wanted, though. He thought that once he was gone, I’d find another guy and move on. He wanted me to be his already.
His parents had heard a lot about me. I met them at the end of May and his mom already knew everything about me. She asked me what our plans were. Apparently Uriel had told her that we were getting married after high school. So I told her the same thing. She said that she and Uriel’s dad had also been separated for two years when they were our age and they made it. So I knew that we would too. It was possible.
On our las few days as sophomores, we watched movies in French class. Uriel and I sat in the back together texting each other despite the fact we were inches apart. I remember I kept changing his wallpaper on his iPhone to really girly things, but he didn’t mind it. I had to go to the restroom, so I left class for a few minutes. When I came back, there was a few students gathered around Uriel. Karla had made a comment about us out loud and Uriel told everyone in that class that we were dating. He made sure to lie to all his friends the last couple days. He told them we’d been together for about three weeks. When I asked him why he’d done that, he said he wanted everyone to know that I was taken once he was gone. I went along with it.
He asked me to be his girlfriend in May, and three more time in June after I said no. He didn’t give up and I finally said yes on June 12, 2010. Sophomore year was over and it was summer break. He was leaving soon, really soon. On the day we became official he was told that he would be leaving in six days. As his departure day got closer, it was changed to that Wednesday instead of Friday. We spent his last three days here together.
On his last day here, I went over to his house in the morning. He was packing. The moment I walked in the door, I felt like crying. But I didn’t. I held in the tears. We spent a few hours together with his two younger sisters while his parents ran errands. He was moving back to Utah alone. He was going to be separated from his family for two years, and I felt bad because I was there on his last day. I felt like they should’ve been the ones spending time together. He was only sixteen and he was practically gonna be on his own. Anyway, that day he played the guitar and sang me a song that he’d written for me. We took pictures together. I watched him pack. We said goodbye. And I cried, I cried a lot. We’d only had five days to be together and then he was gone.
It’s been almost four months since we’ve been together and almost four months since he moved. We talk on the phone as much as we can. We still discuss what’s going to happen after high school. We’ve decided that he’s going to go wherever I go, we’re going to get married right after graduating, we’re going to have between three and five kids, and we’re going to travel because he knows that’s what I want to do. We also still discuss the past and he regrets not telling me about the way he felt earlier. Even though it would’ve been nice to have known earlier, I don’t mind the way things turned out at all. We’re together and we’re happy and that’s all that matters.
The way I see it is that although many things in my life have changed this year, Uriel made the biggest difference, without knowing it at first. He took those trillion pieces and put them back together perfectly. Then he proceded to steal my heart. God has turned my life around. He has blessed me with the most amazing boyfriend in the world. He gives me the strength to make it through every single day no matter how difficult it may get. And I know that all this waiting is going to pay off someday. Uriel and I will grow old together and be the the happiest human beings alive.
Karla and her boyfriend, by the way, never broke up. They’ve been together for a year and four months and I’m very happy for them. I guess when it’s true love, you never fall apart.
His: http://urinallonme.tumblr.com/
Mine: http://nerdykarina.tumblr.com/
