TIFU by confessing my love to my best friend

Tl;dr petty high school drama, but I just need an outlet for my own sanity

Sorry in advance I’m on mobile lol

Freshman Year. A new girl walks in, shy and extremely reserved. She ate lunch in the library, and was way too scared to talk to any of her new classmates. As quickly as she showed up, it seemed like she had already disappeared. One boy took notice in me though, and I know he felt bad for me. This began my best and worse years of high school.

I know you’ve watched teen romcoms. Think of this boy, you all know the one I’m talking about. Hair as gold as the sun, eyes that signature ocean blue, and a laugh that felt like warm sand under a brilliant sky. He reminded me of Summer, so that’s what we’ll call him.

When I first met Summer, let me tell you I was taken aback. I was waiting in the lunch line, thinking of nothing in particular. Probably just fantasizing about whatever show I was going to watch that day, Summer quickly interrupted me.

“Hey! I’ve noticed that you haven’t been eating in the cafeteria, so I was wondering if you wanted to come sit with me and my friends? I would love to get to know you better!”

“Alright”

His face lit up. That warm glow. The glow that I had now become so familiar with, and the glow that I never seemed to get tired of.

The lunch thing didn’t work out. I wasn’t meant for his friends, and they weren’t meant for me, but that little lunch blossomed into one of the best friendships that I’ve had to this day.

We grew attached at the hip. Everywhere I’d go it was always Summer and me, just me and him together. It became a running joke in our school, a “are they dating????” sort of thing. I never discussed it with him, and it generally didn’t bother me. I’m sure that’s how it looked on the outside though, I mean we were ALWAYS together. Every school function, every party, everywhere together.

Something that I regret not realizing was that Summer was a naturally flirtatious boy. If you knew me, you’d know that up until this point I’ve never had a good experience with a boy. Summer would say beautiful things to me, day in and day out. I had never felt more loved and desired than when I was with Summer.

Summer made me feel like I was everything.

I regret falling in love with Summer. In hindsight, it’s really not something you can control, but I still regret it. He was the first boy that was ever kind to me, and I mistook that as something more. It was inevitable.

I can find the exact moment it happened. Tuesday, March 8th at 11:09 pm. We were both stupid with lack of sleep, and spamming each other with random nonsense. He says he needs to go to sleep, and I don’t blame him. I text goodnight and he texts me that he’s in love with me.

What the fuck.

Summer quickly responds that he’s dreaming, he loves me, and that he’s not mentally all there. He calls me “baby girl” and asks me to forget this whole conversation when we wake up. Summer turned off his phone and went to bed. I was up for another hour.

I felt like I was on the beach. It was a warm, sunny day, and hardly anyone was there with me. I sat in the tide, and happily took in the sun. The warm waves melted against my sun kissed skin, and for the first time in an extremely long time, I was happy.

I’m not pretty. I’m overweight, insecure, and by god I know it shows. When a boy as gorgeous as the sunlight tells you that he’s in love with you, you can’t help but feel like he really means it. That night was one of the only nights that I’ve ever felt on top of the world.

We didn’t talk a whole lot the next day at school. He hastily told me that everything he texted me was just a joke, and he wanted to see how I would react. That fucking hurt. But, I was already in love, wasn’t I? Things eventually went back to normal, but my feelings for him felt more and more bottled up.

I was a coward. I couldn’t tell him myself, so I texted him everything that had been slowly rising in my heart. I told him what he meant to me, and how I slowly fell for him. I told him that he was my everything, and I was so sorry if he didn’t feel the same way.

A huge weight was lifted off my chest. I don’t know how he would respond, but all I knew way that I had said what my heart needed me to say in that moment, so I let it breathe. Part of me felt that it wasn’t going to go well, but I truly didn’t know that this was the message to end our friendship.

“Thank you for being such a great friend to me.”

My three paragraph love letter got a ten word response.

I fucked up.

And just like that, Summer was over. It’s the middle of my Senior year, and Summer and I haven’t talked since.

I don’t know how to feel about this, but all I can feel is that it’s done and over with.

I’ll never get to look into those ocean blue eyes, and get a look of love and appreciation back.

I’ll never get to feel that warm glow that truly melted my weary heart.

And I’ll never get to hear that voice. The voice of Summer calling back to me.

Thank you for reading this.