“Why didn’t you yell at her as you yelled at me? She didn’t know how to call out using this phone, and you didn’t treat her the way you treated me,” one of our peers asked before leaving the hallway.
We had just gotten back from a play performed at a church about an hour away and were waiting for our parents to get us.
It was the early 2000s before teenagers carried their own cell phones.
We were subjected to making telephone calls from the one public phone available in the building and there was a special procedure to make outside calls.
“Ugh,” My best friend sighed as he leaned his head against the wall.
I looked up at him, wondering what was going on in his head.
Something had shifted with us that day, but I tried to ignore it, but maybe he noticed it too.
As I leaned in to comfort him, he swiftly grabbed my purse out of my hands and ran up the stairs to the youth sanctuary.
“Hey!” I chased after him. Up the stairs and through the door I went until I caught up with him. As I lunged toward my purse, he placed both hands, one on each side of my hips, and gently pushed me up against the pillar located in the middle of the sanctuary.
My purse hit the ground as he lifted my chin and kissed me sweetly. I didn’t know what to do.
It happened all so quickly, and before I knew it, it was as if I was paralyzed.
If I had known it would’ve been our last kiss, I would have kissed him longer.
After a few moments, he looked down into my eyes. Then slowly walked up to the piano on the alter and began playing while looking directly into my eyes while doing so.
It was as if we were in a teenage romantic drama and I couldn’t believe it was happening.
I knew I was in love — I had become aware of that a few weeks prior, though our friendship was three years old- but how and why would I tell him?
He said he was going to marry her. God told him she was his future wife.
My parents told me early on in our friendship he must’ve liked me because he called every once in a while, and they could tell from his tone he was interested.
But I blew their comments off. He was clear in his intentions for her.
So I let our friendship take a natural course, one I wasn’t interested in taking further until one night I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming he had been killed in a brutal act of violence.
Why did such a violent dream force me to realize what I was feeling for him?
But I kept those feelings inside until it was him and me in the youth sanctuary.
…
Within the week, a group of our friends, his friends who I thought were our friends, met with him, without me — I was not invited — and tried to talk him out of us.
“What will she think of your new relationship?” They said. “You are a senior going off to college soon and she is a freshman. Are you sure this would be the best decision?”
They had legitimate points. Even at a young age, I understood that.
If I were to take myself out of the situation and replace myself with someone else I would be able to understand their encouragement in breaking things off with me.
But at the same time, these were my emotions. My life. And he was my best friend.
…
The next Saturday, we teens, were tasked with ushering a play being performed at church.
He asked me to walk outside with him when it was over.
Caught in between rationalizing my emotions and feeling them to the very core of my soul, I didn’t know what to do when he began talking.
I faced him.
Fear of what he was going to say kept me from giving in to the urge to run my hands through his long brown hair he always kept in a low ponytail.
What was he going to say?
I couldn’t help but wonder, had they gotten to him? Had they gotten to us?
…
For more nonfiction by Jehan Senai Worthy
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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