As I walked into the comfort of my little house after leaving my girlfriend Stacy's party, I was emotionally spent. Stacy had somehow developed a crush on my best guy friend, Jay, who lives in Newport Beach. Jay seemed to be attracted to her as well. He was in town at her party and she was wooing him as I was lying in a heap on my living room floor, still wearing my party dress—I'd slipped out of the party so that they could be together. As I lay in the darkness, I was contemplating my life.
I thought about Jay. About how his friendship had been like a life preserver to a drowning swimmer. When we met, I had a boyfriend; when that relationship was over, he was involved. Our timing was always off and so, over time, we just slipped into the role of friends. He became my go-to guy, the first person I called when something great happened, and the first shoulder I cried on when the world was kicking my ass. I trusted him completely. And he never failed me. With him I allowed myself to forget all the worries in my grown-up life. I could be a kid again, the child I rarely was when I actually was a little girl. For this I loved him.
Suddenly, my mind took a detour to that place inside each of us—a place that we didn't mean to block out on a conscious level, just a place that we haven't visited in a very long time.
I grew up on a dead end street. At the end of the street was a brick wall which separated our development from a large, green apartment complex. On the other side of that wall lived a boy named Gary Washner. He was the first boy I ever loved.
Gary was 13 and I was 10. Kid years being similar to dog years, that meant that we were a lifetime apart and I knew that he would only ever see me as the little girl who hopped the fence almost everyday to bug him. But I didn't bug him—he'd said as much. And although I never confided the fact that my dad was sneaking into my bedroom late at night, robbing me of my childhood, he must have sensed that something was different about me because he took me under his wing and protected me.
Before too long we became inseparable. I was his best friend, his little buddy, and despite the complaints from the other boys in the complex, he included me in everything. He took up for me when the bigger kids would bully me and he even put bunny pegs on the rear axle of his bike just for me. I would hop up and put my arms around him, my heart beating wildly as I held him close, not fully understanding what I was feeling at the time, only knowing that I trusted him. We used to sit on the sidewalk in the summer heat and eat ice cream and burn ants with his magnifying glass, the same magnifying glass he used to burn the words: "Sonya The Living Doll" into a piece of wood that he'd sawed down and sandpapered and then varnished. When he presented it to me I cried. It was the most thoughtful gift of love anyone had ever given me. More than just a plaque with a few simple words, his gift somehow gave me hope. I never had the heart to tell him that he'd spelled my name wrong.
When the sun set, Gary would walk me back to the brick wall and help me over; and always say, "See ya tomorrow!" God how I loved him. No matter how bad the nights were with my father, I always had tomorrow to look forward to. Tomorrow, playing and being a kid with Gary.
Of course, like all good things, my play days with Gary came to an end. I stopped hopping the wall shortly after I turned eleven, and Gary had met Lisa, a girl in his junior high. I'd been replaced. I hated seeing her arms wrapped around him while she rode on the back of his bike on my bunny pegs, hated the way he didn't have time for his little buddy anymore. But mostly I hated that it was taking so long for me to grow into a teenager like him.
I remember the last time he walked me to the wall, he smiled his boyish grin with teeth that were too big for his mouth and gave me his patented wink and promise of tomorrow. But I knew that tomorrow would never come. So I sat up on that wall for the longest time, memorizing his face, his smile, his blue eyes, his messy red hair, wishing I could muster up the courage to tell him how I felt about him. But I didn't. I couldn't, because although my father's visits made me feel old beyond my years, the truth was that I was still just a kid. I knew enough to know that I would die a thousand deaths if he laughed in my face. So, instead I just slipped away, silently vowing that I'd come back over that wall when I was thirteen and claim my prize. My true love. The boy of my dreams.
My thoughts were suddenly disrupted by the sound of my door bell, abruptly bringing me back to the present.
Jay. My heart was suddenly very heavy as reality set in: I'm in love with my best friend but because I was too afraid to tell him, I'd probably lost him to Stacy.
As I answered the door, my breath caught in my throat. Standing before me with his dazzling blue eyes and his red hair illuminated by the moonlight, was Jay. Tears stung my eyes as the past met the present as I suddenly remembered too clearly; I never went back over the wall to tell Gary how much I cared about him, I never got the chance. Because in my 13th year, the year I was to make all of my dreams come true, Gary had committed suicide. He was gone forever, and I never told him how I felt.
I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice. I pulled Jay into my arms, he didn't say a word, he just held me, gently rocking back and forth. My go-to guy. Finally, I found my voice and I whispered to him the words I'd been longing to say.
Sonja covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?