Forever Friends

In my childhood I changed best friends as often as I changed clothes, but Mafer was always in my life, either I hated her or loved her she was always present. I clearly remember when I first enter in the school and she was in my class, we started to hang out with other two girls. We were the four inseparable girlfriends of the class for two years, until we started primary school and we changed the group members a couple of times but Mafer and me always stayed together. We rode the same bus so we spent more time together than with the other girls. We knew all our secrets, had inside jokes, and always stayed together in the bus, in our friends’ birthdays, and in the class.

The problem started when we realized we liked the same guy. I remember how all the moments we spent together, all our memories, and all our friendship became just insignificant to me when I found out that this guy liked her too. We were in second grade I think when all these started. We began to distance because I couldn’t handle my jealousy when she showed me all the things he gifted to her and talked about everything that he told her. Then things get worse because they broke up and the guy started talking to me and I liked him so much that I didn’t care about Mafer feelings and started dating with this guy. When I say dating, at 8 years old I mean spend a couple of recess together, talk in MSN, and very occasionally talking on the phone, but to us it was a big thing. After he broke up with me he went back with Mafer and so on, he did it a lot of times. I think Mafer and I could blame him for our fights but it was also our fault because instead of trying to become friends again, we started teasing and talking bad about each other.

Our bus seats turned into a battlefield, we had fights every single morning when we ended up crying, the teachers scolding and sending us to another seats. In the afternoon we were like nothing happened the morning before and were friends again until the next day when the circle continued. We spent more than a year in that situation that I believed we both enjoyed a little bit. Then Mafer moved to a different house, we stopped riding the same bus and we were not in the same class anymore so then was we became real enemies. We couldn’t even listen to our names without making disgusted faces or saying something bad about us. We spent almost all primary that way, we swore we will never talk or be friends never again.

In sixth grade, teachers had the great idea of putting us in the same class again after four years of fighting. At the beginning, neither if us liked being in the same classroom at all but as the time passed we realized we were already over everything that happened before and we started talking again. Little by little we became friends again. Now she is one of my best friends, she is the one I have more time knowing of the entire group and the one I have more memories with. We spend a lot of time together and count on each other almost for everything. Every time we talk about our fights and everything we went through we laugh a lot and know that no matter what goes between us, we will always be there for each other and we will be forever friends. 

You Never Know if You Never Try

When I read "write about one person who is significant to you who is not from your family”, the first person that appeared in my mind was my boyfriend. His name is Jose. Jose has everything that I had always searched for in a guy and our relationship is like the one I always wanted. He is outgoing, sociable, tall, has dark hair, tanned skin, his smile is cute and contagious, his arms are long so when he hugs me I feel like nothing can happen to me with his arms around me, and he has beautiful little brown eyes that make me fall more and more in love each time I look into them.

I met him at a party in late February this year. Since the day after we met we began to talk and became friends, we talked a lot almost every day. Before we met, I had heard a lot of stories about him and the things he did. I could tell that Jose was the type of guy who likes to be with his friends partying without thinking about anything or anyone but himself. He did not care about how other people felt and how the consequences of his actions affected others. Suddenly, I started listening that he was looking for something more than just friendship with me and that this time he was going serious. This was difficult for me to believe because he did not knew me so well and the impression I had about him was not exactly the greatest. Because all the things I had heard before, I did not saw him as a good guy to fall for and besides, I was not looking for a relationship with anybody. For me it was dumb to begin a relationship or fall in love with someone who had a reputation like his. It was hard to imagine him committed to just one girl, even though he swore that his feelings for me were real. I was also afraid to believe in him and in the end realizing that he only wanted to be with me for a while and being me the one who ends hurt. I was a bit blocked on changing my mind about him and I did not listen to others when they tried to convince me.

But finally, I noticed that Jose behaved really different with me than with everybody else. His cute and special behavior when he was around me, the way he talked to me, how much he tried to talk to me, and even the way he looked at me, somehow made me feel like maybe I could really believe in him. After he made me feel that way, none of the things I had heard about him mattered to me. I began to feel safe and secure when we were together. I also realized it was not that difficult to trust in him, I started to like him and developing feelings for him that made me decide to give us a chance to be together. After such a short time since I first met him, he made me break the promise that I made to myself of not falling in love with anyone without first knowing him perfectly and be absolutely sure that every little thing he was saying was true and he would mean it. With him everything felt different, it all seemed to be like fate wanted us to be together.

We started dating and everything went just perfect, there were no obstacles on our way. He got along with my family and my friends very well. He told me all the things I had always wanted to hear from a guy. I found out he had everything I ever wanted, I am sure I would be regretting now if I would let my decisions be carried by the things I knew about his past and not by the way I felt about him. He became my boyfriend and my best friend. I feel comfortable talking with him about everything and I trust him so much. We have a lot of things in common, even our birthdays are near, and we know how to accept our differences. With him I can always have a good time, it does not matter where we are or with whom, if we are together I feel happy and safe. We have been together for almost four months now and I cannot assure how much time we are going to spend together, I hope it will be a long time, but I am sure that if we break up now we had already learned a lot of things from each other and spent countless incredible moments together that are now saved in my heart and I will leave them there forever. 

Past: a Good Place to Visit, but Definitely Not to Stay

On the morning of my first day of 7th grade I was in the school bus when a boy I’ve never seen before got in it seven houses after me, carrying his backpack just in one shoulder, big tennis, and his boxers showing off of his pants. He was not that tall, had dark skin, brown eyes, semi-curly hair, and a perfectly-shaped nose. He caught my eye just because I lived far from school and nobody going to it had ever lived in my neighborhood before, so I looked at him for a few seconds and turned my way. That afternoon when we where going back to our houses, he interrupted when I was talking with a friend to ask my name, I just answered him without asking back for his name and continue speaking to my friend without putting him anymore attention. The next morning he said "hi Ale" to what I could only answer "hi" since I had no idea of his name, that made me feel a little annoying so that afternoon I asked my friend for his name, it was Luis.

As the days passed, Luis and I became good friends, even though at times he teased me too much that I got mad at him. We ended up being such good friends that my friend who always sat and talked with me in the bus began to tell me that I was replacing him. Luis always told me his stories and I told him mine, the only thing that I felt a little bit uncomfortable to talk with him was about boys because he always ended up bothering me with his bad jokes, but we almost never ran out of things to talk about. Sometimes he gifted me nerds with no reason, just because he knew I loved those candies. Occasionally, he cooked brownies and kept pieces for me to try them and tell him how they tasted. I also remember that one day when he got into the bus, I smelled his lotion and I liked it so I bothered him telling that he should use it more often, since that day I felt the same scent almost every morning when he sat next to me in the mornings.

On August we had to move to different neighborhoods. We stopped talking like we used to because we were not riding the same bus anymore, but every time we found the opportunity to talk it was as if we were having the same good friendship as before. He kept calling me whenever he could and we still kept track of what was going on in our lives. He still teased me with all he found to annoy me as much as before.

Suddenly one-day, Luis’ friends began to ask me if there was something going on between us or if I liked him. They bothered saying that one day we would end up together. I had never thought of him as more than just a friend until those questions became more frequent. I began to wonder if he was looking for something more than friendship with me and that was the reason for the candies from him that appeared in my locker, the long night calls, and the reason why he behaved so gentlemanly and nice with me. Although I saw him as a good guy, he was definitely not my type and I didn’t imagined myself dating him, neither in a relationship with him.  My friends and his friends always told me all the good things about him and tried to convince me of how a great boyfriend he would be, how cute we would be together, and how happy he wanted to make me, but I was still thinking he was not my type.

One day he told me how much he liked me and asked me if I would give him a shot, my answer was no. After that, vacations started and the way he behaved with me changed since I rejected him but we were still being friends. I found myself missing the way he treated me before he confessed his feelings for me, I wished he had never said anything about how he felt, that way everything would continue as it was once. He began to tell me about a girl he met and that he was starting to like, that made me start to feel jealous and that was the day I realized that I had not made the right decision and I did want to give it a try and begin to date him, I am thankful that it was still not too late because it has been one of the best decisions that I've taken so far. He was my first boyfriend; he gave me my first kiss. After a year and a half of being together, it all turned out to be completely the opposite of what I thought it would be. It was all so different than when we started that even the same people who once tried to convince me to give him a try, treated to convince me to leave him later on. But even though it was not the fairytale I wanted at all, our relationship and he taught me so many things that are getting so helpful on my life nowadays. And the only thing I regret about it is how badly we ended and how I just don’t talk anymore to a person that means so much to me.