Coming Home (Complete)

A year with no hellos

The summer before their freshman year was the first vacation where they didn’t talk with each other a lot. Lindsey stayed home with her family, trying to enjoy her summer as much as she could while getting ready for high school. Josh spent his time at football camp and then went on a long family vacation for the remainder of the summer.

She missed him. She wanted to know what he was doing and then she started to become angry. He had her phone number to her house, so why would he not just reach out? She tried calling his house but never got an answer because they were never home. Throughout the days, with less and less communication, they soon started to forget about each other. They started with their own hobbies and just got busy.

Then one day, the first day of band camp came. Remembering what he had promised her at the end of the school year, she was excited about seeing her best friend. She got dressed and rushed out the door, running to school with her clarinet in hand. She waited for him by the door to get dropped off. She smiled at all her friends that saw her and told them she would be right there, hoping that the next person to turn the corner was Josh.

Josh never came. This was the first heartbreak that she had experienced. She was sad and disappointed, but she couldn’t let her other friends see that. She turned and went to meet everyone else to start the week-long camp.

Her freshman year was uneventful. A lot of classes, music, art. She went to a couple of games with her friends, secretly wanting to see him. They didn’t have any classes together for the first time in 2 years and she kind of felt lost, not knowing what was happening to their friendship.

She would look for him throughout school, but every time they made eye contact, he would look away, like he was ashamed of her. It broke her heart more and more every time. She wanted to approach him, to talk to him, but everytime she would get the courage to, she would chicken out.

It got to a point where her heart couldn't take it anymore and she decided that during school hours she would give up the notion of trying to fix things with him. She went through the motions without him but always hoped for the best, that maybe, one day, he would come to his senses and actually talk to her and tell her what was going on.

One day, her friends decided to take her to a football game. She was avoiding them because she did not want to see Josh. It hurt too much. She went to the game, much to her dismay, and was actually having a good time with her girlfriends. They were laughing and telling jokes and watching the game. Lindsey looked over to the sideline, looking for that number, 45, to stand out, and there he was. She saw him on the field, and she thought that for a brief second, he looked over at her while they were standing at the fence.

She knew he saw her. He looked right at her, looked through her, and turned back to go to the game. He ignored her completely, no wave, no smile. Her heart shattered and she knew, this was it. Their friendship that started so innocent was over and her heart could not take it anymore. Tears started to swell in her eyes. With that, she looked at her friends.

“Hey guys, I’m just gonna go home. I don’t feel so well.” she looked down, trying to hide her tears from them. They looked at her and all offered to go home with her, and she turned them all down. She wanted her friends to enjoy the game. She didn’t want to be the reason they didn’t have any fun. Plus, she just wanted to go home and cry.

She ran home and threw herself in bed and cried. Her heart had officially been broken. He broke their promise to each other, the promise to always be friends. He broke his promise to be at band camp so they could spend some time with each other. And more so, he broke her heart. After crying for what seemed like hours, she wiped away her tears.

“I’m done.” She whispered to herself. “I’m moving on. I don’t need him…” and she continued her freshman year just like that. Throughout the months, hanging with her girlfriends, going out on the occasional date, she slowly started to forget about him. Then out of nowhere, their sophomore year, he came barreling back, creating all sorts of emotions.