Some say that you choose who you fall in love with, others would argue that it is love that chooses you; the amount of ambiguity I feel towards both of these statements could not remotely be described even if I attempted to. I guess all I can do at this point is to write what I know; here it goes…

He was a boy, slightly taller than me, of Italian and a junior at the time. I was unsurprisingly already involved with his best friend Blake. I was not in the least bit interested in his friend but seeing as how it was a set up I made the best out of this situation. It was my birthday, my best friend and I Ashley was due to go get her tattoo with Blake Neale and him. From first glance to first words I was clearly not interested in Blake; he was skinny, frail like, and far from what I normally go for. However his friend, clearly a product of a biracial affair, medium length curly hair, and a very calm demeanor for some odd reason captured my attention. It wasn’t “love” at first sight; it wasn’t even “like” it was pure curiosity. “What’s your name?” I questioned him, and in a calm but deep and subtle voice he replied “Jay…” That was it. That’s all the knowledge I could gather about this boy. Ashley and I left the tattoo shop leaving Blake, Neale, and Jay behind. Less than a month later I had stopped talking to Blake and Ashley had given up on Neale. As for Jay I never saw nor heard of him again; and with only a first name there was little hope of it ever happening.

I didn’t dwell on him; I believe that after that week had passed I hadn’t spoken more than 2 words about him. I was content with just knowing his name and accepting I would never speak to him again. A year passed and it was summertime again, late June early July. I spent my late nights curled up with a book and when there wasn’t a book to engross my attention in, I, as do most teenagers, turned to Facebook Twitter and the infamous Tumblr. While playing my Mariah Carey Pandora station in the back ground and browsing Facebook a familiar face appeared along the “People You May Know “Colum. One click, page redirecting, page private, add as a friend and Ta Daaaaaaa. It was just that simple. I scrolled down status’s he had made and found one I could agree on so I liked it. Several moments later he popped-chatted me inquiring as to why I had liked his status. We chatted momentarily while I tried to jog his memory on who I was; he had no recollection as to who I was. As moments passed the night grew later and he told me to call him, so of course I exited my Facebook tab and grabbed my phone. We talked and seemed to argue the entire night, proposing debate after debate on topics that seemed to come out of the sky. By the end of the night which looked like morning he came to the conclusions “I could never go out with you.” Obviously I agreed, but still with both of us saying how we could never work we still hung out around 3 times each week. Each night spent talking on the phone for literally 6 hours straight. This lasted for a complete month and a half. By august he ended up going out with another young woman by the name of Jewels, I told him he should settle down and go out with her seeing as how they had been talking on a “dating” level for about 9 months – a year. I was ecstatic he went out with her but I wasn’t upset either. We obviously would never work out and have a successful relationship so there was no lost. We decided friendship was the only other alternative that could successful work.

From august to November we continued to talk so frequently I knew his number backwards. Sometimes it may had been a week or two since our last conversation so we’d just try to fill each other in on the events that happened in our life since last spoken to. Other times we would just talk about things that mattered and things that didn’t. He was the person I would vent to and whine to when things in my life just wasn’t measuring up to its expectations. For some odd reason he really didn’t seem to mind though, he would listen no matter how repetitive I tended to be. All I know is that this young in which I hated and despised had come in and became my best friend.

By December he and the notorious Jewels had been going through a rough patch. I was his person to vent to as it had always been. I knew she was not too fond of me and from what I had heard of her, I hadn’t been too fond of her either. She was a senior like him , a tad bit taller than me , and carried much more baggage , she did have beautiful hair that fell slightly above her undesirable “boobie tatt” tattoo. Jay had been out of town for winter break and I went to a party with Ashley that ended up with me babysitting her, so we both were deprived of our New Year’s Kiss. When he returned home, a week after New Year’s had came and went, we kissed. The only significance in that was the fact we were each other’s first kiss of the year. There’s some old superstition my mother and grandmother use to make of but I never cared to listen. I’m not really sure what changed from December to January but we decided to give it another try. Nevertheless he chose her by mid- late February. At this point I decided that I could not invest anymore time into a boy who thinks he can have his cake and pie and eat them both. It was easy, it felt like I was standing in wet cement and the longer are stood the deeper the imprint was and the harder it was to leave. But, I did. I left, I went out with friends, and met new people. That when I met Roy , a little taller than Jay , much nicer , sweeter , caring , and athlete committed to Howard for soccer; He was 100 % Croatian , and had beautiful white teeth , pretty skinny but looked like a soccer player and unfortunately involved with some of the same people as Jay. Me and Roy talked every day for a few weeks, went out, dated but in a way I was forcing myself to like him. With jay things came naturally but I was entirely too sick and irritated with him to even reply to one of his text messages. But that didn’t stop Jay from texting and my phone from receiving. “I made a mistake.” “I think about you every day, sometimes not in the best ways but I do.” “If you were in my position you would have done it too.” “I miss you.” Text messages from this sort went on and on for maybe 2-3 weeks. Roy and I stopped talking for reasons unknown and despite me trying to avoid , rid , and free myself from every having to deal with the indecisiveness from this almond eyed , skateboarding , curly headed , asshole … I couldn’t. We talked and talked and eventually went out. Jewels hates me, which is slightly understandable, Roy doesn’t speak to me, and my mother loves him. And although we talked so much in the past we can still manage to sit and talk for hours and hours more. In the end I don’t feel like I had a choice as to who I fell for. I chose to leave him alone, I chose to make things work with another guy, I chose to just be friends with him, but nothing worked. As dysfunctional as we may be, I just accept it. You can’t help who you fall in love with because love chooses you.