(a part of a look at the past)
Before I met Josh, I was dating a boy. I met said boy my freshman year of high school and we fell into a puppy love of sorts. It wasn’t a mature sort of love, though we thought it was at the time. Of course. The summer before my sophomore year, my granny was diagnosed with lung cancer, so my family and I moved back to Florida to be with her, leaving my boyfriend behind. We were unsure of what would happen. I was selfishly devastated. My world was ending–not because my grandmother was dying but because I had to leave all of my friends and the love of my life. I was a selfish fifteen-year-old girl. I find it amusing now–I was barely older than my almost-thirteen-year-old brother, and I actually thought I was in love, a love that would last forever. But I digress.
As I watched Granny become worse each day–as I watched her skin become paler and her moods change–I wished for something to happen that would take me back home. And then it did. My best friend, my granny passed away on August 6, 2004. It wasn’t what I wanted to happen. But it did, and there was no changing it. Just barely three months after the diagnosis, she was gone. And I was lost.
I started my sophomore year; however I rebelled in a way that only hurt me more. Any time someone tried to befriend me, I was cold toward them. I reluctantly made two friends who, no matter how hard I tried, would not leave me be. But that was okay, I guessed. I made straight As, going home right after school and doing my homework. I stopped eating as much, and any time I did eat, I became sick. I hid myself away from my family, locked away in my room while I talked on the phone to my boyfriend. But life kept moving. The silence and sadness around me started to turn into a laugh here, a smile there. From everyone else, of course. I felt like they were all changing, but I wasn’t. At least I thought I wasn’t.
I used to write at xanga.com. I had written there while I was in Florida, and I suppose this other boy had been reading for some time. Eventually, when I wrote about coming home soon, he commented saying he was glad I was finally coming home so that I could be happy. I didn’t even know this boy, and he was saying he wanted me to be happy. It was a change. An unknown change.
February 20, 2005. I finally came home. As soon as I got home, I went to see my boyfriend. He asked if he could hug me. Things felt different. I was disappointed, and in that instant, I knew everything had changed. I grew up; I moved beyond puppy love because I saw life and death happen right before my eyes. I tried to act as if everything were normal, but it wasn’t. But I pretended. And then I met Josh. I went to school the next day, and he was in my sixth period class. At first, I didn’t even know that he was the boy who had wanted me to be happy. He knew who I was, but he let me find out on my own. And before I knew it, I was in love.
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