Crayon Promises − August, 2006

If it weren't for Brian, more than likely none of it would have ever happened. Samantha and I weren't really friends. We did talk a bit, mostly as our last year of high school drew to a close, but she was one of those people that seemed so at ease around everyone. The person that everyone likes. She was intimidating and powerful, and I felt small next to her. I remember one afternoon, after seeing me give another friend of ours a back rub, she asked for one, too. I was convinced she could feel heart through my finertips it was beating so fast.

She's still the only person that can make me feel that way, nervous. Normally I'm mister cool and unaffected. She slips past all that, and for once in my life I care what someone else thinks.

In college, she lived down the hall from me. She was friends with my roommate, and sometimes we would make plans to hang out together. On one such day, the three of us were to go eat lunch, but being the men that we are, we grabbed our lunch and headed back toward the dorm. We got a call later from Samantha. We had forgotten all about her. She expressed her disappointment at this, to which I made her a card that said, "I'm sorry. I promise I'll never forget you again." in my best crayon.

Though I didn't know it at the start of the semester, would have probably laughed had you suggested it, I would grow closer to Samantha than anyone else. She became my best friend, my confidant, and as is wont to happen when a stupid boy finds himself in the company of just such a young woman, I fell hopelessly in love with her.

All this to her boyfriend's chagrin, of course.