When I flipped over the picture, my heart was slamming and my hands were sweaty. I seen 4 girls standing with their arms around each other. They were all cute, but the one on the end in the blue, Nike tee shirt captured my attention immediately. She was simply adorable. I can still picture her smiling face in that photo, ever so vividly. All the other girls in the photo had suddenly vanished.
She was thin with messy black hair up in a bun. Her slightly rosy cheeks accentuated her silly looking braces, she had talked about them often. Her orthodontist visits were often a topic of our conversations. Her face lit up the photo, and her smile lit up my life. It was at that very moment, in which I truly felt alive for the first time.
I have no idea how long I starred at that photograph because the concept of time had somehow vanished completely. It was in this; "mesmerized" state of mind in which I took a breath, soaked it all in, and I just smiled. This warm fuzz feeling was like tidal waves of admiration gushing through my stomach. I just couldn't put the picture down. How could this be the girl whom I had been speaking to for hours upon hours? Why was she always so self conscious? The girl was gorgeous, inside and out.
Maybe I was just being bias? Perhaps, it was the fact that I was already in love with her personality, and she wasn't all that good looking? Maybe it was just a case of ; "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". But I can tell you this much, I have yet to see another photograph or person to ever take my breath away.
She was the first girl that I ever really cared about sincerely. This was the girl whom I had told all of my secrets to and opened up my heart to. It was such a surreal moment, one that can only ever be possibly understood by experience.
All of my "real life" friends were really judgmental, I could never talk to them the way I could with her. I always had to be a tough guy who wouldn't let anybody punk me. If you let somebody see a weakness in you, they would exploit it until the end. The same concept went for my brothers, if I ever tried to go to them with my feelings, they would laugh and use it as ammo to make fun of me.
Plus, I never really had any type of relationship with my father, so that was always completely out of the question. There had been times when I had attempted to talk to my mom about issues that bothered me, but she would never understand and I would get so frustrated every time.
Teenage years are probably the most sensitive time in the growth of the human mind. So, having nobody to confide in on a non-bias level was very difficult. All of my problems and insecurities were always locked away in a safe place. Therefore, when I met Blueberry, I really latched on to her compassionate, understanding nature.
Once I finally snapped back to reality, I remembered that there was another photo. This one was a close-up of her and one of the girls from the other photo. Again, my heart sank to the floor like a roller-coaster at full speed.
This was when it all became real. Suddenly it hit me that my telephone friend was not just a sweet voice, but a gorgeous girl. Here is a person who had become one of my best friends for over a year, suddenly personified by the simple opening of a letter. I felt like everything was about to change.
Then I remembered that I too had sent photos of myself. You see, the day we finally decided to send photos of ourselves, we had agreed to send them on the same day. I mean, it was only fair.
My insecurities began to run rampant in my head. My photos were garbage compared to hers, I would most certainly appear hideous to her. Therefore, my astonishment from her photos quickly turned into terrible fear. Compared to her, I was ugly as sin. She would certainly reject me and never want to talk to me again! Here was this sweet, adorable girl with whom I had grown so close with. And then there was me. A lanky, goofy, big eared, acne faced, looking loser who was never even good enough for his own father. My apprehensions dug a hole the size of an exploded grenade in my stomach.
I began to wish that this was a nightmare and that I would soon awake from it. Why couldn't she have been a groteste, fat pig? I wouldn't have minded one bit, I really wouldn't have! I would have never even batted an eye. She was my lovely little Blueberry whom I had become so close to, and now she was going to never want to talk to me again.
I was so afraid to talk to her after our photo exchange that I avoided the party line. It was my attempt to try to block this horrible experience from my life, but it was all I thought about. Finally, she called my house and told me to get on the party line. We would sometimes have 1 minute long distance calls in order to meet on the free party line.
To my shock, she didn't think my photos were hideous at all! We talked and talked about each others photos for hours. I have never been more relieved in my life, and I couldn't believe it. I could finally breath again. Our telephone routine went back to its same old pattern. And every few months or so, we would send each other more and more photos. It almost became a ritual.
2 more Years passed with this same routine until I was 17 and she was 16. By this time, I was madly in love with her, and I'm pretty sure she knew it. Over the years we had always said it to eachother on a friendly level, but I meant it with every bone in my body. In fact, I was pretty sure that this would be the girl I would marry.
I had my drivers license for over a year now. I had been planning to drive the hour and a half to meet her and hang out with her at her house for a while now. There was only one problem, I was terrified beyond words.
But, the time had come. It was now or never. It was time to be a man and go through with it. I was positive that if I didn't go, I would surely regret it forever. Now, just because I had built up the courage to go, I was far too afraid to go alone.
I recruited my friend Dom to come with me, there was just no way I could've done it alone. Thankfully he agreed to go along with me. So on a winter afternoon in January of 2000, he began the drive up 81 north. Although it was an hr and a half drive, it felt like we got there in 5 minutes. Millions of thoughts were racing through my head the whole drive, I barely even spoke a word to Dom. I was numb.
We drove by the house looking for the numbers until we found it. It was easy to tell from the outside that it was a really nice house. This of course only added to my fears since my house was over 100 years old and looked like it was ready to fall over.
I quickly performed an L turn and then drove again right past the house. Dom asked me why I didn't pull into the driveway. I explained to him that I needed to go find a pay phone and let her know that we would be there in 5 minutes. It was obviously just a ploy to stall, but I was a nervous wreck. I quickly found a phone booth in front of a gas station just at the end of the road and called her. I told her we were down the street and would be there in a couple minutes.
My heart was bumping out of my chest, I thought it would explode. After 3 years and countless hours and hours of chatting on the phone was about to culminate any second. I tried to calm myself down and act all manly, but it was useless. We drove back up her road and I pulled my moms 1992 buick century into the driveway.
As we exited the car and approached the house, I made Dom walk in front of me. The door opened before we could even knock.
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