Meeting Him

I was 15. I had just moved from an abusive home and was finally starting to experience what it was like to be a normal teenager. Most of my childhood, I was told that I was worthless, ugly, overweight and that I wasn’t worth anyone’s time. According to my abuser, I would never find anyone who would ever love someone like me. I don’t mention this information because I want someone to pity me, I mention it so that you have an idea of what life was becoming for me. I was happy. I was in a new home, I was making new friends and I had just started new classes at a nearby high school. Everything was falling into place.

I met him a couple months after moving. It was on Halloween. I was dressed as a hobo and we were heading to a trunk or treat event that my neighbors hosted. I didn’t know who he was until I saw my brother come up behind him. Initially, I wasn’t too interested. I thought he was cute but something about the idea of being with someone younger than me, not to mention he was my younger brothers best friend, was unappealing to say the least. We hoped in my moms car and headed to our event and life went on as usual. I was with my friends and he stayed with my brother and we pretty much kept to ourselves.

Several months went by and I would see him around the house occasionally. He would say hello. I would be polite and say hello back and usually went on with my day. It was about early July and we were getting ready to head out on our yearly camping trip. We would usually end up in a sunny camp ground with a bunch of my moms friends. Now for context, my mother is deaf and so are all of her friends. I later found out that his family was curious to see what it was like to be in a deaf environment and asked if they could join. My mother had agreed and made arrangements for them to join which didn’t bother me. I was excited to go on the trip and didn’t really pay attention to the fact that they were coming with us.

As we packed up, I found that I was assigned to ride in the car with his family. I was a little nervous being around people I didn’t know too well but was relieved when I found that my brother would be going with me. It was a beautiful ride up and I got to know his family pretty well. I liked his parents and ended up getting along with his brothers pretty well too.

When we arrived at the camp ground, we unpacked our stuff and got everything set up. By the time we were done, the sun was starting to set so we started a fire and sat around telling stories. I was mostly translating for my mom the entire time but occasionally, I’d look over and see him staring at me. Now I’m pretty used to getting stared at when it comes to sign language as people are often fascinated by the language but the way he was looking at me was different. Almost like he was more interested in me rather than what I was doing. I found myself starting to check more often to see if he was staring and finally stopped when he caught me looking at him. “I can’t do this.” I told myself. He’s a friend and honestly, it probably wouldn’t work anyway. As the days passed I found myself staring at him more often and kept repeating the same mantra. “You can’t be together, it won’t work out.” But then I caught a voice in my head that said “but it doesn’t hurt to look right?”

Towards the end of our trip, we decided to make a trip out to a nearby river to take a swim. We packed up our stuff and hiked out. The entire way, we all talked about things we liked and dislikes and made jokes about how we would push each other in once we got there. As soon as we arrived, we found the water way to cold to get into but decided to walk up on the exposed rocks in the river. As we walked up we reached a point where there were mosquitoes everywhere. As I was ahead, I tried to yell back to him and his family that there were mosquitoes in the area but they couldn’t hear me over the river. After several attempts of yelling across the river I finally motioned, in a series of explicit movements that made out “mosquito breeding grounds.” They ended up laughing and gave me a thumbs up that they received my message.

A couple hours later we headed back to camp and changed out of our wet clothes. Him and I ended up at the camp fire talking to each other again and I found myself relaxing around him. He was kind, thoughtful and had a smile that could kill. While we were talking, his mom picked up on the chemistry and stated “you two should get married. I like the in-laws!” Shortly after he responded with an “Eww”’and any hopes that I had about being with him were crushed. I repeated to myself the mantra I had going through my head all week: “it wouldn’t have worked out anyway”. Before I could get up and leave, one of his brother pipes up and said “you guys would be perfect for each other!” I asked “how so?” Curious as to what this little boy thought made a perfect couple. He then crossed his legs, and looked at us very intensely and blurred out “Well you both have glasses, you don’t like pickles and you both look funny with your glasses off.” I laughed and looked at him and said, “Well I guess that’s it. You have to date me now”. He laughed and said “Alright babe. I guess that settles it then.” I felt my stomach lurch as he said that but knew he was just joking back. However, I had secretly wished he wasn’t.

When we headed home, we ended up keeping the fake dating relationship alive. Whenever I’d see him I’d always say “Hey babe hows it going? and he’s reply with “Hey beautiful, it’s going great!” As time went on, my feelings got stronger and there was a point where my pretend words became real. Only he didn’t know that. Then one day, I found out he had a new girlfriend.

We were walking home and I had started talking to him when my brother interjected “Congrats on the new girlfriend! She’s a babe.” My heart felt like it had been blown into a million pieces. With all of the fake relationship conversation, I had been hopeful he had started to mean it too, only to find out, it really was only fake to him. I started walking faster to avoid hearing any more about his new girl and walked home as fast as I could. He tried to catch up with me when we neared his house but I had just kept going.

When I got home, he ended up texting me. He had gotten my number from my brother as he was “concerned” when I didn’t talk to him on the way home. I told him I was fine and left it at that. The next day, he told me that it wasn’t going to work out with his new girl and that I could call him “babe” again. My heart filled but this was short lived by the fact that I told myself “He’s not interested”.

A couple more months flew by and it was getting harder and harder to put my feelings aside. I had told my best friend at the tome what was happening when suddenly she stopped me mid sentence and said “Just tell him already!” I looked at her and said “What if he doesn’t feel the same?” She told me, quite explicitly I might add, that if he didn’t want to be with me then that was that and I could move on. I figured she was right and decided to tell him.

Now you can’t blame me for doing this in the worst way possible, but I was 16 now and scared of what he was going to say. We were up late one night and I was texting him. He asked me how my day was and what I was doing. I gave him a breif answer of “ oh my day was fine but I’m just a little stressed.” He asked me “What about?” And I decided to shoot my shot. “ I just have a couple of family things that have happened and it didn’t help when I started crushing on you and I also have a long list of things to do...” I ended my text with some lie about my schoolwork and sent the text. Shortly after I threw my phone across the room and waited for a response.

What seemed like and eternity later,my phone buzzed. It took me forever to work up the courage to look at it. “What if he doesn’t like me back? I’ll have ruined our friendship.” I finally opened the phone l, clicked on his name and read the words across the screen.

“I love you too.”