My Best Friend's Love

You know how somebody comes into your life and affects it so much that you're not sure what life was without them? My friendship with this girl was like that, but not romantic at all. In fact, the most romantic thing she ever did was sit on my back to pin me down so that I would watch Finding Nemo with her. We were fourteen.

I'm not actually sure why or how we were able to become such good friends; we were and still are the exact opposites of each other. When I first met her, she was a dancer, a singer, a cook, and a horse lover. I was a football and lacrosse player, a gamer, and I spent a lot of time with my dog. She played cello and had at one point played flute, while I played piano and guitar at the time then came to play drums and string bass a couple years later. She has fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes and was around 5'9". I have tan skin, black eyes, and black hair. I'm also nowhere near her height. But she came to be one of my homes, and more important to me than I would've ever known.

We met when I was 12-years-old, and before I tell this story, let me remind everybody that I was a hyperactive 12-year-old boy. I was stupid and obnoxious as most boys tend to be at that age, but every time I tell this story this girl—I'll call her Rapunzel as it was her nickname—gets annoyed all over again. Anyway, I attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp every summer until I graduated high school. This was my second summer when I met Rapunzel (ironically, we had been in the same session my first year, but we hadn't known each other). About halfway during the week, because we were younger campers and isolated from the older ones, we had this thing called the Bernstein Blast, which was basically field day. We were playing some Simon Says-esque game but Rapunzel and I had gotten out. We were talking, she was teasing me and drawing in the sand, and I was getting riled up the more I was teased and the more I ran around. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, or what was going through my head, but I decided to pull Rapunzel's hair. She had put it up in a ponytail, so I ran up and pulled it.

I don't know what I expected. Maybe I thought she would yell at me or give me the stink eye but she didn't do either of the two. She picked up a large stick that was lying next to her and started chasing me around, trying to impale with a stick. It started a friendly, teasing rivalry between us for the rest of camp. To this day, I don't think I've worked so hard to annoy somebody as I did for Rapunzel. I was always asking stupid questions, throwing things, or running around her to try and get a reaction. It worked.

Then the night of the camp dance, I had a little meltdown. During the school year, I found myself locked into an abusive relationship. I came out of it a little broken, tainted with depression and anxiety. I grew anxious when I felt isolated but also in big crowds. The dance was hard for me because I didn't like big crowds, they made me nervous, but all my friends were on the dance floor. That left me alone. I spent the entire night sitting at the edge of the pavilion because I was too afraid of being made fun of or looking stupid to go join my friends. My cabinmates came and went, asking if I was okay, but I told them to go away each time.

At the time, I didn't know I had anxiety, I didn't know what a panic attack was. All I knew was that something was wrong. But I wasn't the only one who knew; Rapunzel knew too. I would catch her worriedly looking at me from the dance floor, and even though I told her to leave me alone and go away, she was reluctant to do so. She was the only one who came back after I sent her away.

The next day, we talked about it as we sat by the pool. I didn't go into specific detail, but she understood and didn't press the topic when I didn't want to elaborate. Don't get me wrong, I ruined the moment as boys do, and we didn't stop messing with each other, but it was nice to talk to somebody for once. And, she would play an important role in my healing process.

After camp ended, I found myself missing her the most out of all the friends I made. She and I were definitely not the closest, but for some reason, I missed her. At the same time, I had this strange feeling that we would be something more than just camp friends. Not romantic, no way, but something more than just the girl from camp.

There was a few months between the end of camp and the start of seventh grade where we didn't talk. She didn't have her own phone, and even though I had become more outgoing, I was still awkward and geeky and didn't want to deal with having to call and maybe talk to her parents. But I digress; it was over Christmas break when we got back in contact. I had a tradition of texting all of my contacts "merry Christmas" or whatever holiday it was at the time, and the number she had given me at the end of camp-most likely one of her parents's number, was still programmed in my phone. A few minutes after I had texted her, I got a text back from an unknown number. It was Rapunzel. I don't remember specifically what she said, but I remember that our conversation spanned over hours about everything from books to family to travelling. I don't know why I wasn't a jerk or as big of an idiot as I had been when I met her, but for whatever reason, we became close.

Around that time, it became apparent that my mental state wasn't stable. Meltdowns were frequent, and I spent a lot of time in my own head and room instead of living in the real world. On February 4, 2014, I broke. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I remember that I called Rapunzel and told her I was tired, and I didn't want to struggle anymore. She called me back, begging me to talk to her, and I did. We talked for a long time, and she proposed visiting in the summer. She lived in Illinois and I lived in Michigan, so we didn't get to see each other very often, and I was excited by the prospect of it. Sure enough, in the summer, she came to visit for the first time. She spent a week with my family and I in my hometown, and we did everything from paint fights to wrestling. She brought me back to life. I was obnoxious and annoying as I had been when we first met, and it was a refreshing change from the gloomy kid that I had been during the school year.

As the years pass and we change and grow, she's been the biggest constant in my life. With her encouragement, I've become more outgoing and taken more risks. My freshman year of high school, I danced at our Band Camp dance for three hours straight. I dyed my hair red, then blue, and I attended Blue Lake even when she couldn't, I took up more instruments and pushed myself more, and I even got a job at a rescue barn. I joined my high school's drum line, became President of a club, and made so many friends in all different groups. I've become much more of a dreamer, something I would've never pegged myself as before I met her, and I've become more comfortable as who I am.

Before I met her, I believed love was weakness. I thought love blinded people, and made them soft and vulnerable. I thought it hurt people, and that it never really had a use. But, as always, she was right and I was wrong. Kind of. I still think that love is weakness, but maybe that's because most of the "love" I've experienced isn't love. My parents told me that they loved me, but they hurt me. They never listened, they mocked me and dismissed my injuries; physically and emotionally. Maybe they loved me, but it didn't feel like it. Because Rapunzel has said she loves me, and she's fought for me. She is the best parts of me, and has made me realise that love is supposed to make you strong, and give you a reason to wake up and face the world.

That's why love is hard, I think. Because if it were easy, then it would make people weak. It would hurt them. I still believe that love is weakness, but maybe not all of it.

And as for Rapunzel, we're growing up and planning the future, but she'll still be in mine. Because to me, she'll always be the girl who tried to impale me with a stick at camp, and to her, I'm always going to be the idiot boy who tried to open ketchup packets by stabbing them with a fork. Some things will never change.