Some say I have a typical teenage life. Being a seventeen year old teenager in a regular public school with just a typical life. Yeah right. I just so happen to be part of what society calls the “gay community”. I really don’t understand that sort of stuff. People act as if we are from another planet or something. The only normal thing about me is that I have gone through some changes. Grown up, went through puberty, and got into high school. What’s in high school besides teens, drugs, drama, and alcohol? Oh yeah, one of the hardest things to get through, love. Love. What does that word even mean? It’s just four letters that happen to mean the world to everyone. Well I’m going to tell you my little love story.

It all starts at school; second period is just about to get out. I have my backpack on and then boom; the bell rings. Instantly you hear the sound of doors flying open, dragging of the feet, and laughter from jokes that had just been told. The hallways are filled with bodies moving as slowly as cars in LA traffic. Looking around all you see is teenagers with earphones in their ears and their eyes glued to their phones. This is when it is time for me to shine. I yell my friend’s name so he can hear me from the other end of the hall. Wait, another friend just yelled my name and wants to do the respectful shakedown. Don’t forget to not hit anybody while you shakedown. A couple minutes go bye, I only have five minutes left to get to my next class. Tell my friends goodbye and there I go. Off to go to my math class but hey I want a snack. As I pass the vending machine that’s when I see her.

This girl happens to be one of the most beautiful girls I have seen since I have been at this school. We make eye contact so I smiled because I didn’t want to look like I was staring. When all of a sudden she smiled right back at me. I wonder who that girl was; she had a great smile. Her smile was from cheek to cheek and something about that smile just felt so friendly and warm. I wonder who that girl was. All these thoughts about that girl are running through my head. “Beeeeeeeeepppp.” Damn the two minute bell just rang, I really have to walk a little faster. My teacher is going to yell at me again because I’m “always” late. Run up the ramp, YES! I made it. Sat down in my seat right as that bell rang. I’m not late, success.

Great now I’m in my math class with this dumb teacher. I honestly don’t even think he knows what he is teaching. I can’t focus in school my mind just wonders off all the time. But today is different because I am so distracted by that girl that I saw. All throughout class I think of her. She looked really familiar I think I had seen her before. That’s when it hit me. She goes to the same church as me. I knew I would be able to figure it out sooner or later. How come I haven’t noticed her before? How could I not notice a girl like that? How in the world did she get a smile that great? I bet she is a wonderful person, she really seems like it.

“Marisa?” asked Mr. Swagner.

Did this guy really just say my name? What the hell is this guy even talking about? He knows I don’t pay attention is his class. Why does he think I sit in the back every single day and put my earphones in right away?
“Marisa” he repeated.
“What!?”
“What is the answer ma’am?”
“You swear like I know dude.”
“Maybe you should pay attention instead of staring out the window.”
Kiss my ass dude. Pay attention in this class? I don’t think so. Where am I going to need to learn this stuff in life? That’s right, I won’t. Oh how I hate this class with a passion. I wonder who invented school because I would love to have a one on one conversation with them to tell them how I really feel about this school crap. How many more days until summer? 56 days. Damn. That’s too long. Hey look I got a text message. Only about ten more minutes until I get out of this class.
“Yo Swagner imma go to the bathroom okay!”
So I just leave without him saying it was okay. I wonder if he even heard me but oh well I’m finally out of class. Man that teacher really sucks. He doesn’t even teach us anything. Oh well screw it I’m going to go walk around. Hey I see my homie Reyleen down the hallway. I think I’m going to go talk to her to kill some time. Hey maybe she will know who that girl was.
“What’s good?”
“What up man!?” she responded.
“Yo I saw some girl earlier and she’s pretty cute.”
“Well get at that!” sounding all happy that I finally found a girl.
“I don’t even know her name dude.”
“What’d she look like?”
“I don’t really remember, all I know is that she had long hair and a cute smile.”
“Damn bro well talk to her next time.”
“Hey I got to go back to class I’ll see you later.”

Finally the bell rang for this class to get out. Man I wish it was time for lunch but now I got to sit through another class. At least this class goes by quicker, well not really but it feels like it anyway. I hope I see that girl again but I doubt I will. Until then, another seven minutes of freedom until the next class.

Different friends to see, don’t forget to hug anybody. Oh look it’s my cousins, I have to make sure I go to say hi. Wait was that her? No? Damn. Great now I’m going to be wondering about this girl all day. Whatever, at least her beautiful face will be in my mind. I can’t get over her smile. Come on Marisa, stay focused. “Beeeep” Damn already? I swear, those seven minutes between classes go by way quicker than the time actually during class. Now it’s time for history class. I’m just going to put in my earphones and fall asleep.

I wake up just in time for lunch. I’m going to go meet up with my brother Dario. Man I have a story to tell him. I hope he knows that girl, I really wish I knew her name. He’s probably going to just laugh at me because I’m thinking about this girl too much.
“What’s up Dario.”
“Hey what’s up Marisa.”
“Dude, I saw this girl that I think is really cute.”
“No way, you’re finally opening your eyes and seeing other girls now? I’m happy. So who is this lucky girl huh?”
“Well you see that’s the thing, I don’t exactly know who she is. I don’t know her name, I don’t even really remember what she looked like. I saw her after chemistry when I was on my way to stats class. She had the cutest smile though and she had long hair I think.”
“Wow, I think you just described half of the girls at this girl. Way to go. How come you didn’t talk to her?”
“Well first of all because I have never talked to her before, second of all I’m a stranger so I thought I would just smile at her, third of all because I don’t even know what I would say.”
“You could have said hi duh.”

I could have said hi? Really, hello? I don’t even know who that girl was. I didn’t even remember that I had seen her before. I just smiled at her friendly. Plus, she doesn’t even know who I am. We are just familiar faces to each other. If destiny wants us to be together then only time will tell. And I wonder what he meant by me “finally opening up my eyes.”? He must have been talking about my ex. And since we are on the subject I guess I have to explain to you all what my brother meant by that statement.

So this story being my freshman year. I knew I liked girls but I hadn’t come out to my family yet. Well I had just started high school and something inside of me made me come out and be myself at school. I started dressing more like a boy and I started becoming comfortable with myself. As I became okay with who I was I met this girl, Elisa. Elisa was a junior at the time and to me she was really cute. She was on the softball team and was one of the first people that started talking to me when I came to the team. Elisa and I started talking and before you knew it I had a big crush on her and she had a crush on me too. She had a boyfriend when she met me but as we started talking and flirting more and more she then broke up with him and decided she was going to date me. We wanted to keep it a secret and since I thought that was normal I decided that I would go with it. We started dating and everyone started to find out. Our honeymoon phase lasted a whole year. After that year is when my life and our relationship went for the worse.

All of my friends had told me that they hated Elisa and gave me pretty good reason why I should break up with her. But since I had fallen so hard for this girl I didn’t want to believe any of them. So I stuck it out with her until I had a reason not to. That reason came all too soon. I had been out of town for a week and during that week she had cheated on me with my cousin Anthony. But apparently that wasn’t the first or the last time. The only reason I knew is because my cousin decided to tell me. About the other times she cheated, her cousin told me. My heart was officially broken. But did I break up with her? Of course I didn’t. I was just a sophomore who had fallen in love and so I believed all the crap she was telling me to get me back. She made me feel horrible about myself and made me feel as though I deserve it. Did she ruin my life? Yes. The first heart break will stay with you forever and it will make you judge all your next relationships. Great, now I have trust issues.

It’s now been almost two years since I have talked to Elisa, and I’ll admit it that it took me a whole year to fully get over her. But the hurt will always be there. I still have trust issues and I had been looking for someone to help me believe in them. I’m barely opening up my eyes now. Why have I wasted all this time not looking for another girl? I can’t believe that I wasted nearly two years of not paying attention to other girls. But now I have, but I doubt this girl is the one. But who knows, what if she is? I can’t waste my time thinking of just one girl, I got hurt last time.

I had this best friend that had meant the world to me. She wasn’t the kind of girl that I usually go for but hey maybe that’s what I need. All the girls I go for usually end up being wenches. The kind of girls that I went for are the kind that when they grow up, they are on the corners of Haley Street. Gross right? I know. Well this girl truly cared about me and I knew she would always be there for me. Maybe I should give it a shot. We started hanging out every single day but she had a boyfriend. Hey I’ve taken a girl away before why don’t I just do it again? It took a couple months but I finally did it. I got to date my best friend. Can’t get much better than that right?

Oh boy had I been wrong. We ended up breaking up and she went back with her boyfriend. Great, just one more heartbreak. Maybe it’s me? Maybe I’m just not good enough. At least that’s how I felt when she broke up with me and went back to him just about two days later. It took me less time to get over this break up. Maybe because we only dated for about two months. But it still hurts, to know that you aren’t good enough. But then it hit me; it’s not me. I treated every girl I dated like a queen. I stayed loyal and I never did anything to hurt her. It’s their lose not mine. So just keep smiling and move on. If only it was that simple.

But now back to my current love story. A couple of months have gone bye and I still see that girl every day after second period. We still haven’t said a word to each other just a smile every day. I wonder if she has ever wondered who I was. Well it’s time for softball practice, time to get to work. Hey, that girl is sitting at the field. I wonder what she’s doing here. Oh well, I’m just going to show off a little and hopefully impress her. Damn she left the field. That’s whack. Practice is finally over and now JV is going to take over the field. I couldn’t believe my eyes. That girl that I see every day is practicing with JV. All of a sudden my coach comes up to me, “Kid I’m going to need you to help out some of the new girls with hitting is that cool?”
“Yea totally, I would love too.”

Finally I’m going to be able to talk to that girl. I had the biggest smile on my face. The girls went over to the hitting stations and I was told to go help them. I went over there and introduced myself.
“Hey what’s up my name is Marisa.”
“Hi I’m Jasmine and this is my friend Janet”

Jasmine, her name is Jasmine. Finally I knew the name of the girl I had a little crush on. There she was with that amazing smile on her face. Her voice sounded exactly how I had imagined it. I noticed that she only had a dimple on her face, but only one and it was on her right side. She has gorgeous brown eyes with long dark curly hair. She was pretty tall too. They were talking about how they played basketball and wanted to try another sport out. So they had decided that they were going to try softball and see how they liked it. Destiny was calling.

A couple days went by and Jasmine and I started talking. We became friends on Facebook and then one day she messaged me saying something about how she learned how to hit from me. I got to admit that when I saw her name pop up on my screen I got a really big smile on my face. Finally she knows who I am and she actually wants to talk to me. We started talking every day and none stop. Eventually we got each other’s phone numbers and started text messaging each other every minute of the day. I think she happened to be the one person that would responded quicker than me. I hope I don’t run out of things to talk about with her.

Turns out we never ran out of things to say. The only bad thing about talking to her every day is that I started growing feelings for this girl. I mean how could I not? She is hilarious, nice, caring, loving, honest, straight up, and just straight out amazing. There is just one thing wrong, she doesn’t like girls. I think this girl is as straight as they come. She flirts with me and I act like I don’t notice because I don’t want to get my hopes up. But of course I flirt back because well I like her. So many emotions were going through me during that first week of knowing her. So many times I had thought about telling her how I felt. I mean it’s obvious isn’t it. Everybody else can notice that I like her and that she likes me. Screw this I’m going to tell her.
“Jasmine I got to tell you something.”
“What’s up?”
“I like you.”

I think I screwed up. I knew I shouldn’t have told her anything. Now she won’t respond to any of my text messages or even look at me at school. This is just wonderful. I knew I should have hid my feelings. Whatever I guess I just ruined our destiny. We started fighting as if we were a couple. But then we also flirted as if we were a couple. Man I was just so damn confused. I didn’t know how to tell her. Finally I told her I wanted to be more than friends. That didn’t exactly go as planned.

We ended up deciding that we were just going to be friends. It killed me to hear those words come out of her mouth. But as I thought about it I started to become totally okay with it because she is a great person and I rather have her in my life as a friend then not be in my life at all. Just as I was becoming okay with just being friends spring break came along and I remembered we stayed on the phone all night. Literally all night, we stood on the phone talking until about 5am. I have never done that with anyone before. She must really be special. Staying up late was totally worth it because she told me words that I have been praying for her to say to me.
“Marisa, I like you.”

I got the biggest smile from cheek to cheek when I heard those words coming out of her mouth. We started fighting a lot less and things were going great. We got back to school and we started having lunch together. We had this spot down by the softball field and it was kind of alone, away from everybody else. Well one day we were flirting and our faces were close together. I had been dying to kiss her so many times but I didn’t because I knew she wasn’t ready. Finally our lips were close and I told her, “We don’t have to kiss if you don’t want to.” But then she pressed her lips against mine. I had gotten a swarm of butterflies in my stomach. No girl has ever made me feel that way with just one kiss. We locked lips and we didn’t separate. It felt so comfortable for me, it felt like nothing I had ever felt before. I could defiantly get used to this. Wait, I just remembered; I am the first girl Jasmine has ever kissed. I wonder how I did. I wonder if she liked it. Well she must of if she kept kissing me. We finally stopped and that’s when I needed to ask her something.

“So how was it?” I asked desperately.

“It was good.”

Dang, just good? I had never been told that it was just good.

“Can I tell you something?” she interrupted my thoughts.

“Yeah of course.”

“You are a really good kisser, like no joke.”

I couldn’t help but to smile, I hope it wasn’t to obvious that when she said that statement, it pretty much made my day. I left to my class with the biggest smile on my face. My friends asked me if I had just gotten some because I was so happy. And like a little kid I blushed and said no but we kissed. We finally kissed. I couldn’t believe that we finally kissed.

I started liking her more and more each day but I don’t think she feels the same. I feel like she’s holding back some feelings towards me. I wonder sometimes why she doesn’t just want to be my girlfriend. Then I remembered a story she told me about her sister being gay and when she came out to her family it wasn’t exactly pretty. Maybe she’s afraid to admit her feelings towards another girl because of what went down with her sister. I understood that completely. The only problem is that my friends didn’t, especially my brother Dario. Dario has a very unique sense of thinking. He happens to be a very old fashioned type of guy. He didn’t understand how hard it is being gay and all the obstacles we have to go through because of society. He gave me every reason why I shouldn’t like Jasmine. Sometimes it really got to me and after a whole month of getting yelled out for liking that girl it really got me thinking. One day I started thinking way too much. That’s when I said the famous words of a break up. “I think we should just be friends.”

Instantly I wanted to jump in a time machine and take back what I had said. Just looking at the look on Jasmine’s face broke my heart into a million pieces. But in my head it was the right thing to do because according to my friends, she treats me like crap. What am I even saying? How does this girl treat me like crap? I don’t make any sense. What is going on in my head? I have all these thoughts but I don’t even know what I want anymore. This girl means the world to me, yeah we get into fight and yeah we piss each other off all the time. But remember she is the one girl that made you become a better person. She made you like yourself. How in the world could you let this girl go? You have to be stupid. And now look at her, you broke her heart she is probably going to hate you now.

The very next day I wanted to break down and cry when I saw her face. I went up to go say hi and she looked like she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. You really screwed up this time. At least she is talking to me, even if it’s in a pissed off way. I guess it’s better than nothing right? I feel like she has so much anger built up inside of her because of me. I wonder if I tell her to forget what I say if she would come back to me. Doesn’t hurt to try right?

I was so wrong. It defiantly hurt to try, I talked to her and she broke down in tears. Her tears weren’t from being sad but they were from being hurt and then they turned into anger. She yelled at me as I was walking to class telling me how I could be so heartless and hurt her like that. She got everything off of her chest. I think she had been holding that in for way too long. I know I put her through a lot of different emotions but so did she, I just never told her. I never liked when I made her sad, I hated myself for doing that. I hate that I hurt her, so then I ended up hating who I was. How could I hurt the girl I love?

The very next morning we were texting each other and you could tell by our language that it was finally over. I sent the final goodbye message and I broke down crying. Finally I push sent and a minute later she calls my phone. I couldn’t answer. She calls again, I tried picking up but I just couldn’t. Finally I called her back and she was in tears. I could hear it in her voice as she struggled to talk. She tells me this isn’t what she wanted. Finally the truth comes out; she actually wants to be with me. She tells me her mind tells her to leave me but her heart still wants me. I tell her I wouldn’t hurt her again and I will do my best as long as I got another chance. Finally she said she would. We are starting all over as if we are strangers. Which is kind of impossible in a way because the feelings are already there. So now we just take this slow and hope to just go with the flow. Only time can tell what will happen. Hopefully destiny will bring us together. Into that happy couple I know we can be. But I know it is not up to me, it is up to us. As long as we trust in each other we can do anything. But for now, I will let destiny do its part. Destiny brought us together before, I’m sure it will do it once more.

I know that in time we will be together and it will be worth it. Even if it doesn’t last a long time I know that we will give it a try. Deep down in my heart I know I have the strongest feelings for this girl. She means the world to me and I want to do everything I can to prove it. I will do everything in my power to show her that I am good for her. I want to be the one to make her believe that not everyone is bad and that you can trust someone in a relationship. Just like she did with me. I now know that I can trust someone else and that I can love someone again. I love who I became when I met this girl. I love myself and that’s a big deal for me. Now I leave it all in the hands of Destiny.

Sweet, dear Destiny.