Just for Preteens
Chelsea Murphy
You learn to like someone when you find out what makes them laugh, but you can never truly love someone until you find out what makes them cry.
I was a summer person, a true believer that good things happened in the summer. It's a season meant for love and happiness and change. It was the season I matured and found myself. It was the season I overcame all my insecurities because someone told me I was beautiful. It was the season I met Tyler. It was the season I fell in love for the first time. It was the season when a boy had my heart and I had his. It was the season that changed my life.
It all began the night Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out. I was working at the local movie theatre saving for a trip out west to visit my brothers. That's the night I met Tyler. All the soon-to-be twelfth grade guys came to my cash before their movie. I was self-conscious to be seen in my work uniform by the popular guys but I made the best of it and tried to play it cool. After all, I was only a soon-to-be tenth grader.
Tyler was the last in his line of friends. I was trying not to seem like a total loser so I attempted to make conversation with him. I asked if he actually liked Harry Potter, to which he laughed and replied, "No, there was just nothing else to do tonight." I smiled at him and said I happened to love Harry Potter and couldn't wait to see the movie. He gave me that perfect smile of his and said, "I'll let you know how it is then."
As promised, he messaged me on Facebook that night and told me the movie sucked. I told him that was impossible. We teased each other back and forth until I went to see it and admitted it wasn't the greatest. We talked all the time after that. We seemed to really click and never ran out of things to say. But of course being the guy he was, he had a reputation for breaking hearts and I didn't want to be just another girl to him. I wanted to be the girl that stole his heart and made him fall in love.
Over time we really began to trust each other. I told him about my troubled childhood with my dad. I told him how it affected me and how to this day it still does affect me, even after the divorce. He told me how his father died and how his mother had a terminal illness. We helped each other through whatever life threw at us and it brought us even closer together. All my friends told me I was wasting my time. "He's never going to change Chels, that's just how he is. He isn't a good guy. He's only going to hurt you ... " I won't pretend that we had it easy. I spent countless nights crying over this boy and sometimes it seemed like he didn't care. But I knew that was just the anger speaking and I meant the world to him. The truth was no one seemed to know him like I did. I knew that he was a good person straight to his core, even if he made mistakes sometimes. Just like I knew he never meant to hurt me.
Summer rolled around again and I was in love for the first time. We spent a perfect summer together, learning from each other and falling even more in love every day. Days were spent driving around in his old red pick-up truck with the windows down, my hair flying everywhere, and singing along to whatever was playing. Nights were spent going out for dinner and watching movies. We would cuddle under a nice warm blanket and make popcorn with white cheddar seasoning. I loved his arms around me, and the tender moments when he would kiss my shoulders and softly whisper "I love you" in my ear. I'll never forget the way he smiled around me. Whenever I did something he thought was cute, his face would light up with the most amazing smile in the world. It was a smile that could make any girl fall in love; it was the smile that made me do just that. I gave Tyler my heart with no hesitation or guarantee that he wouldn't hurt it, and he gave me his in return.
There are moments from that summer that I will remember for the rest of my life. I'll always remember lying on the beach with him, looking across the water at the fireworks while he held me in his arms. I'll always remember when he danced with me in his room because we never got to go to prom together. I'll always remember the night with him spent lying in the back of his rusted pick-up truck gazing out at the stars. But most of all, I will always remember the things Tyler taught me. He showed me what a real friend was. He showed me that loving someone with all your heart is never a mistake. He showed me that no matter how impossible it may seem, I should always follow my heart.
We spent our last two weeks together enjoying the end of summer and the end of our time together. The last week was hardest for us, because we knew that our goodbye was coming and it broke our hearts. I had given Tyler a piece of who I was; my heart was his. He was and will always be my first love. We had been through so much together and come so far, it felt wrong to end it. But time couldn't stop for us, no matter how much we wished it would.
The morning he left for university he came to say goodbye to me. With the promise to always stay in touch, he kissed me for the last time. We pulled away from each other reluctantly and said I love you with unsteady voices. With tears slowly sliding down my face I watched him walk away from me, get into his truck and drive away to start a new chapter in his life, taking my heart with him wherever he went.
(1037 words)