The Truth

Part 1: The Beginning

To set the moment, think of the feeling when the one person that you have secretly been dying to send you just one more message finally responds. It could be after minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, maybe years. The anticipation has grown for so long that you legitimately feel the sense of relief after reading their name. Like your heart is mended before even reading what they had to say. It feels exciting yet scary.

I just moved to a new city. 6 hours away from home, in a new state, with a new job, and new roommates. Everything felt new. Everything felt a little lonely. I think this was my first time feeling lonely in a long time. I basically was on a repeat of wake up, work, sleep repeat. If you knew me then that was not normal. Before moving I was always around friends, working, going out, partying… maybe a little too hard, but I was never alone.

It was a busy day at work. I reached for my phone and my heart sunk right into my chest. The notification I had waited months for. There was no way. I double checked the name before getting too excited. I truly remember the feeling of re-reading the name. The butterflies were definitely fluttering on the inside. As I was going to unlock my phone I felt the urge of tears because I had waited so long to hear from Zach again.

You’re probably confused because I didn't start from the beginning. The beginning was a short but truly meaningful encounter on (April 10 2021). My best friend Aaron and I were eating at chipotle the morning of a Parker Mccollum concert. We were probably hungover from the night before but ready for the adventures the night had planned for us. Aaron had known some of Zach’s music and that he was the opener for this concert. After some minor investigation through social media, Aaron found that Zach had already been following me on social media. With little to no convincing from Aaron, I messaged Zach on twitter and i********:. Double the chance of him seeing it I guess?

It was an innocent message. Little did I know this message would change a lot of my life. Me and my friends truly just thought it would be cool to get a picture and maybe meet Zach. Truly, we didn’t even think he would answer. Before we could even finish up our lunch my phone dinged and it was a response. Zach passed along his phone number to me and let me know to message him when I arrived at the show so we could meet up.

For a quick summary, we never ended up meeting up. Zach and I exchanged a few messages but after a while he hadn’t responded. I couldn't tell you how the night ended but the next day I got a response from Zach, he apologized for not being able to meet up and invited me to another show. I agreed to go to another show and from there started our conversations. We talked over the span of a few days but honestly those few days years. We talked about our goals and dreams for life. We were digging into some deep s**t, especially for never meeting each other. We understood each other. We listened to each other. Eventually, I stopped responding to Zach. I felt guilty for the connection I had made with Zach over that short period of time. I forgot to mention that I had just gotten into a relationship with Brad. Brad was a part of our friend group and I did really like Brad, but our relationship really lacked intellectual intimacy.

Brad truly isn’t a huge asset to this story. We were together for a short period of time but the time we had was great. He was kind and hardworking, always wanted to work on things not only in the relationship but in himself. We were definitely in different stages of life; but other than that there was nothing really wrong I could point out in this relationship aside from the fact that he simply was just not my person. I eventually ended our relationship a few weeks after meeting Zach. Let me be clear, I did not end this relationship to be with Zach but it was because of Zach I knew I wasn’t fully happy in my current situation with Brad. I wasn’t with someone whom I could have those deep conversations with. Me explaining this might sound silly but it was my first step into adulthood dating; this was me realizing what I craved out of a relationship and what I would need in my future. I was only 18 years old.