Flashback Friday: A Story

On Wednesday I went to McDonald’s to grab a quick breakfast. When I went to pay, the guy at the window looked familiar so I did one of those “nonchalant” double takes. It wasn’t who I thought it was. But it got me thinking about my friend, and I started to wonder how he was doing.

When I was about 13 years old, I used to hang out at my friend Lori’s house. We knew each other through catechism classes (CCD), and church. We didn’t attend the same school but we were both into basketball, and still going through that awkward stage of really acting like “young ladies”, so we bonded instantly. Our wardrobe consisted of basketball shorts, t-shirts, and our Nike's. The perfect BFF’s.

Well, my friend has an older brother who is two years older than us and a football player. ;-) I thought he was so cute and he always had his friends around, who weren’t bad looking either. LOL! My friend and I would hang out in her room, talking about sports, and boys. But on occasion her brother would let us all hang out in his room, which we thought was “totally cool”. Us two girls, hanging out with all of these cute guys that most of the girls in there school were after. Ha! We were so lucky. LOL!

One of the guys that came over constantly was a guy that we knew through CCD and Church as well. He was also a football player, and he was a huge flirt. To other girls, at least. To us, he was such an ass! LOL! He would tease us and make fun of us for not even attempting to look girly. He’d tell us that we were still “little girls”, not “women” so what did we know? Like he had a clue what the difference was either. I always seemed to get the worst of the teasing too. I felt like he only came around to make me feel bad about myself. But over time I got better at comebacks, and then I turned 15.

Everything happens so fast and all at once when you’re a young teenager. Everything is so much bigger to you than it really is. Well, at one point I started dressing up a bit more, and attending dances with my friends. This is when that guy, first started speaking to me. Nicely. I don’t know what changed? Maybe it was my cleavage finally making it’s appearance? Before, I always hated that I had bigger boobs than everyone else, so I would wear sports bras to keep them suckers strapped down! He was always coming over when I was at my friend’s house, even when her brother wasn’t there. He attended a lot of the same dances as I did, and all of a sudden he was asking me (and only me) to dance. Still being his cocky self, he would always make sure to state that he “Only danced with me because I was the only girl there that really knew how to dance to a cumbia or ranchera.” Right. Now, even though his teasing lessened it didn’t completely go away.

However, he totally won me over. I have no idea HOW it happened, but all of a sudden I was totally crushing on him. Cocky attitude and all. But, he had a girlfriend. Actually, he had two. One here, and one in Mexico. Sure did know how to pick ’em huh? Well, even if I had decided to pursue him, my crush was cut short. Not long after all of this “nice attention” started, he was in a really bad car accident. He spent a week in ICU, and when he started recovering, the doctor’s said that his brain had suffered quite a bit of damage. He had to go through a lot of physical therapy and speech therapy. At times he forgot who certain people were, and the doctor’s said that his mind set wasn’t exactly where it had been before. Pretty much meaning that mentally, he was set back a few years.

A lot of his old friends ditched him after that. Both girlfriends broke up with him. I still got to see him every once in awhile but he was completely different. He was very child like and very sweet. A few years passed, and he called me up out of the blue asking me if I’d like to take him out to see a movie. LOL! We went to eat at Chicken E before seeing a movie and I remember asking him if he remembered anything from before the accident. All he said was that everything was very fuzzy, but that he remembered me. I was pretty.

It broke my heart to see him like that. Here was this guy who had a whole future ahead of him, and it was all taken away because of a reckless driver. I kept a bit of a distance, because after that one outing, he started asking me if I would be his girlfriend. When I told him, no but that we could be friends. He kept asking "Why?" And how was I suppose to answer that? Then, I moved away. When I came back to Texas, I ran into him and his parents at the theater, and that was the last time I actually saw him. He texted me a few times asking if I’d go out with him or if I’d be his girlfriend. It's like he picked up right where we left off, before I moved. I would always so no, but that we could be friends. Then, the texting just stopped. I always feel so shitty for that. I feel like I should have handled it differently. Sometimes I wonder how he’s doing? If he’ll ever really get better? And the other day when I saw that guy at McDonald’s, I wished it had been him. Just so I could say hi. 

p.s. Sorry this doesn't contain pictures!

If I can find physical photo's I'll post them later.

Seeing as how all of my other ones are gone forever,

I'll have to dig a bit in old albums to see if I can find any.