Time passes & people change

Let’s call this guy Austin. There’s a back story to all of this; his step dad and my aunty are close friends. Austin would come to my house every single time his step dad wanted to catch up with my aunty. Eventually, Austin and I got close.

Since he was the only boy and the oldest of his three siblings, it was difficult for his younger sisters to accept the fact that their older brother gave his attention to some other girl. As a result, Austin’s sisters hated me. Of course, being that we were still young, he continued to play with me since I was alone most of the time when they came over.

At one point, he had no problem showing that he liked me—holding my hand, hugging me whenever he came over, little things like that—but with him showing he liked me, his sisters started to hate me even more.

One day, his sisters were making fun of me and being incredibly mean to me for no reason and Austin stood in front of me and told his sisters to stop and they did. I knew right then and there, I liked him.

The last day I saw Austin, we were watching Anime on cartoon network and we sat by each other. He tried explaining what was going on in the show, but I did not pay attention at all. I was getting bored and suddenly, he asks “can I kiss you?” I was shocked but I smiled. All it was was a quick peck on the lips. Austin was my first kiss. I was looking forward to seeing him the next day, but that day never came.

Fast forward to 2013, I was working on homework and I hear my aunty greeting people. I did not think anything of it because my aunty likes to bring a lot of friends over. She comes to my door and asks to come outside to greet her friend. I do as she says. I walk outside and Austin and his step dad are standing there. Austin smiles at me and runs his hand through his hair. He hugs me and his step dad tells him to catch up with me while he catches up with my aunty. We go into my room and we talk.

He seemed like the same guy I liked, but older and more attractive. He told me that he moved to the mainland. Our conversation went on for hours and continued over the phone when he left. He talked to me like I was a princess. He bought me food and drove to my house to see me as much as he could.

Since he graduated in 2013 and it’s my senior year, it was difficult to balance seeing someone who lives on the other side of the island and homework that takes 6 hours to do. At one point, he got upset. He told me that I wasn’t trying hard enough to be with him as much as he was when it came to me. It got to the point where he completely shunned me out of his life.

Until this day, we haven’t talked and it still hurts because of the amazing history we had. I wanted to continue having a friendship with him, if a relationship never worked out, but that did not happen. I had that vision of being in love with a childhood friend. I wanted him to be the person I could go to when I needed a shoulder to cry on. I wanted him to be the person who would know me better than anyone else. I wish we went back to how things were when we were younger—no stress, no problems, and no such thing as distance because we knew we would see each other soon, but we both grew up and we just grew apart. A lot of people would call it puppy love. But many people don’t realize that heartbreak is heartbreak no matter what age.