My Only One

"Perhaps, I was never his." Or at least that is what I will continue to tell myself. I'm currently in my last day of my Junior year at Mona Shores High school looking absently out the window, not at all looking forward to summer vacation. Summer Vacations used to be my favorite - Time spent with my family; my parents Thomas and Sarah Adams and their best friends Andrew and Elizabeth Dexter and their two sons Ethan and Easton. Ethan, growing up was my best friend - he still thinks were best friends, and I try to be. It's not easy for me though, I've wanted more than a friendship with him for awhile but he got swept up with Melissa Andrews and well, here I am thinking about a Summer where I have to see her face at events and her car in his drive way. I'm just not looking forward to it. I look up at the clock on the wall and see I have 25 minutes left of being a Junior and I slip into a trance... REWIND How I got here, simple really... I lived. Or at least I was living up until the middle of my sophomore year when it all went to s**t thanks to Melissa Andrews. It's not her fault though, she simply told Ethan how she felt, not me. It could have been me and to this day that will always be my biggest regret, not telling him how I truly felt about him. Growing up, my mother and father both went to Mona Shores and are high school sweet hearts. They went to college together and had me a year after they were married. I am their only child, simply because they got it right the first time. Or at least thats my story - in reality, my mother had complications and couldn't have any more kids, but we tend to tell my first story. Andrew and Liz moved into their house while pregnant with Ethan and my mom pregnant with me - the 4 of them became best friends and because we were raised togheter Ethan and I too. Andrew and Liz were from the Muskegon area as well and happened to move next door because Andrew got a job as a teacher and football coach at Mona Shores and thought moving into the district with their family and laying down roots for their small family was what was best for them. Liz she has worked her way up through the county and is currently the habitat for humanity spokesperson in West Michigan while she works as a nurse on the night shift - that woman is pure gold. My parents being from the area too landed close jobs. My father is an accountant and my mother a relator for commerical businesses along the lakeshore. We all do well for our respective families and were able to do vacations together year after year together. Our families were so close that if when we got off the bus is my parents were not home, the bus driver would hollar for me to just go to Ethans house - I mean, I guess with Andrew being a big shot Football coach does have its own respects - but as a child I always thought it was because everyone just saw how close we were. Growing up with Ethan and his family was what shaped me into the woman I am today. I've always been on the sidelines with Andrew helping coach Ethan because I've been involved with football and this family for so long it sort of became second nature to me and I was incredibly interested in it because it kept me with Ethan. Andrew never complained, as Ethan got older I could pick up things Andrew couldn't see or I could provide insight to Ethan that his dad was trying to get across - I became the liason between the two and it worked. Who am I kidding, it still does. I am an assistant to the Varsity Football Team, I have been since I was 9 years old, yeah back then it was getting water sure... but now, its more. I help run the offense, sometimes I get asked to help out with the defense but because of my insticts at the Quarterback position Andrew doesn't keep me far from Ethan - he never has. Ethan was essentially born with a football in his hands, and yes there is baby pictures to prove that. Andrew was a D1 Quarterback out of Michigan and played for the Lions on their practice squad for a couple years due to a torn ratorcuff - its ashame because ledgend says he could have been great- but he really never bounced back just right from that injury so he did the practice squad for a couple years and went back on his degree to teach history and coach football instead. I believe Liz had a major part to do with that though, she is from the Grand Rapids area and actually met Andrew at Michigan where she was studying to become a doctor - she changed her mind though because she wanted more physical one on one time with the patients and now she is the #1 requested Pediatric Nurse in Muskegon county when kiddos are sent to the ICU. She wanted a family and to start her life - and so, Andrew followed her back to this side of the state where Andrew was offered a JV coaching position because his father was the Varsity Coach at the time 17 years ago. Andrew took over the Varsity team when Ethan and I were 9 - so, hes been coaching the big guys for 8 years, with me right along side him. My parents were never huge sports fans, that was until Andrew came along... or at least that is the story. We are a huge Sunday football family who creates massive lunches for game days and gets decked out in Lion Gear to support Detroit regardless if they can see us or not. Every Thanksgiving since i could remember we go watch the Lions play at home - in part because Andrew is a season ticket holder for life having been a previous player, but also because its our two families and we are a big united little family! This past year when Ethan brought Melissa to Thanksigving I knew I had messed up. I knew I should have just said something, but I've always felt like he looks at me like a little sister and not as a woman, a woman he could be in love with. Which is incredibly frustrating because I've been in love with him since our freshmen year when I threw it all out the window, it was the first time I saw him clearly for the first time. It hadn't been when we were 10 running in the mud out behind our houses, or when we were 12 in Disney World with our family it wasn't even when we both turned 13 and our parents let us have boy/girl parties - nope, not even then. It was when Ethan made Varsity our freshmen year and the look on his face when his dad called his name to the team - it was pure joy and not because he was the coaches son, no it was because he knew he earned it. In that moment the confidence that erupted out of Ethan was all consuming. The pride I felt, the tears in my eyes - were not just for the boy who was my best friend but were for the boy whom I was in love with. So, this year after Ethan and the Mona Shores Sailors lost in the state championship game at Ford Field I fell into a depression of sorts. Watching Ethan hug Melissa and kiss the top of her head after the game made become a mad woman and I havent truly been the same since. I wish I would have told him our freshmen year, I wish I would have told him how I love to see his sweaty blonde hair messed up after he pulls his helmet off. Or how I loved that his mouth piece was always purple because it was my favorite color the way no matter what resturant we ever went to he only orders chicken strips and fries. How I love that when he sleeps he snores slightly - its adorable. I even love that he would hug me after games and be drenched in sweat and smell like a gym sock - but it didn't matter his arms around me are what kept me grounded. I just wish I could look into his blue eyes and tell him everything that I've been holding back... but I can't, no I won't. (The bell rings off in the distance and brings me out of my tance) Over the intercome within the school I hear, "Congrats class of 2014" while a tone of people run out of the classroom, I'm left behind gathering my things and moping out of my Junior year - leaving once again behind the idea of hope.