I remember when I first met Sally Watkins. It was a warm summer day and I was six years old playing in the front yard of my house when a station wagon flanked by a large moving truck pulled up to the house next to ours.
She got out of the back of the station wagon with a smile on her face. Her blond hair in a pair of pigtails and wearing a light blue summer dress. Even thought I didn't know it at the time, I had just fallen in love at first sight.
While her dad instructed the moving men, she and her mom came over and introduced themselves to me and my mom. Our parents became close friends, and of course that meant that Sally and I became friends as well.
We hung out together all summer. I learned that she was a bit of a tomboy, preferring to climb trees and wrestle than play with dolls or have tea parties. That first day I saw her was one of the few times I remember ever seeing her wear a dress, her preferred attire being jeans and t-shirts.
As we grew up, we grew closer as friends. Our parents thinking nothing of us having sleepovers in the tent in one of our backyards were we would try and stay up all night, only to pass out shortly before sunrise.
Over the years, I started to understand what the weird feelings I had for her were. It was love. I was in love with my best friend.
I remember when we were fourteen, we were talking about the rumors of some kids at school going out together, when I asked her what she would say if people starting to say she and I were going out. Sally stared at me for a moment before busting up laughing.
"That would be weird Brian," she said. "You and I are like brother and sister, we're so close."
I forced a slight chuckle and said, "Yeah... Yeah, that would be weird."
But inside I was crushed. I could feel each crack as my heart broke. Here I was, in love with the girl of my dreams, and she viewed me the same as a family member.
The years passed on, and me feelings for her remained the same. I was still in love with her, even through she didn't have those feelings for me.
During our senior year of high school, I was going to ask her to prom. I had been planning on how I would ask her for months. I was going to tell her everything about how I felt in the hopes that she would see me in the same way I saw her and say yes. However, the day before I was going to, Sally came bouncing up to me in the hall between classes with a huge smile on her face.
She told me about how this cute guy she liked in her science class had just asked her to prom.
I told her how happy I was for her, but once again, I was crushed inside. Sally then told me all that we needed to do was get me a date, and the four of us could go to prom together.
"That's okay," I said. "I'm not really big on the idea of prom. I was just planning on staying home and watching some Mystery Science Theater 3000."
"Come on, Brian," she said. "It's prom. You have to go to prom."
"I don't want to," I said as I put my books away in my locker.
"Why not?" she asked as I slammed my locker closed.
"I just don't," I said and walked away. Nothing more was said about it.
The night of prom came, and I watched from my bedroom window as her date picked her up. Sally looked even more beautiful and gorgeous than she normally did in her prom dress and with her hair all done up. This was the second time in my life that I had seen her wear a dress.
I spent the night watching TV, but not really paying attention to what was on.
It was a few hours after Sally left that I heard a car pull up next door. Looking out my window, I saw Sally getting out of her prom dates car, looking really pissed.
"Come on," he called out to her, but she just kept walking while giving him the finger before she went into her house and slammed the door.
"Fine," her date shouted. "Be a bitch." He then got back into his car and sped off.
A half hour later, there was a knock on my bedroom door.
"Yeah," I said. The door opened and Sally walked in wearing a pair of sweats and a t-shirt with Kermit the Frog on it.
"Fucking ass," she said as she walked in and plopped herself down on my bed.
"What did I do?" I asked.
"Not you," she said. "My date. He was such a fucking tool. We got to the hotel were the prom is and the first thing he does is go talk to his friends. Then later when he actually spends time with me, we dance and he grabs my ass and tells me he got us a room... The fucking balls on him to actually think I was going to sleep with him."
"Sorry to hear your night sucked," I said. Sally moved next to me and rested her head on my shoulder. Instantly I smelled the green apple shampoo that she uses.
"I should've gone with you," she said. "At least then I would've had a good time, and not have to worry about you trying to get into my pants."
"Yeah," I said, once again feeling that pain inside as I was reminded that I could never have the woman I loved.
After high school, we went off to college. By some stroke of luck, or maybe misfortune depending how you look at it, Sally and I got accepted to the same school.
I never dated in high school, hoping one day that Sally would start to feel for me the way I felt for her. But in college, I tried to date. Those dates never went past the first one. As hard as I tried to move on, I couldn't. Sally was the one I loved and every girl paled in comparison to her.
Sally dated as well, and I put on a brave and happy face when she would tell me about them.
During our final year in college, Sally moved to an apartment off campus with some of her friends while I stayed in the dorms. It was during that time she met Greg. Even I had to admit that he seemed like a good guy and treated Sally the way she deserved. As much as I wanted to be with her, I was at least happy she had found someone that made her happy and treated her well.
That is until one night she called me...
"He's been cheating on me," she cried on the other end of the phone. I told her I would be right over, jumped into my car and raced over to her apartment. She was by herself when I walked through the door without knocking. I found Sally in her room, on her bed with a box of tissues. I sat down next to her and held her as she cried and told me how he had been seeing someone behind her back for the last couple months because he got tired of waiting to have sex with her.
"You mean, you guys haven't..." I started to ask.
"No," she said. "I mean... I want to. But at the same time, I don't because I want it to be perfect when I do."
I don't know what suddenly came over me. I had managed to keep my feelings hidden from her for the last fifteen years. But tonight, I suddenly let it all out when I whispered, "I love you."
Sally pulled away from me and stared at me blankly for a minute.
"You what?" she asked, her voice flat.
"I love you," I said. "I've loved you since the first time I saw you. I've loved you all of these years. Everyday I see you is the greatest and the worst day on my life rolled into one because of how much I want to reach out and hold you in my arms and kiss you. My heart breaks every single day because I know you don't feel the same way that I do and that you and I will never be together. It kills me to know that the most perfect woman in the world is right in front of me and she sees me as nothing more than a friend."
I laid it all out there as I bared my soul to her. For nearly ten minutes I continued to tell her how much I loved her and what she meant to me. The entire time, she just sat there with a blank, expressionless look on her face.
"I'm sorry," I said after I was finished. "This... This is the last thing you need to deal with now. I'll... I'm gonna go."
I walked out of her room and left the apartment she shared with her friends. I was just getting to my car when I heard footsteps running up behind me. I turned around, expecting to be mugged, when Sally launched herself at me. Her lips attaching to my own and her tongue entering my mouth. It was my first kiss.
We stood there next to my car for five minutes as we passionately kissed.
"Asshole," she said and slapped me across the face when the kiss ended. "Why the fuck did you wait so long to tell me?"
I didn't answer her. Instead, I pulled her to me and kissed her again. We ended up back in her room and continued to make out on her bed for nearly an hour.
