What could have been…

As she drove into the town in her rental car, Sarah tried again not to think about her childhood friend getting married. She did not want to deal with all the complicated feelings associated with it. Not today. Today she was going to be happy for her friend and just enjoy the wedding weekend.

She was looking forward to meeting old friends, and this thought brought a smile to her face. As she entered the town center, all the memories came alive around her. The ice cream parlor they used to hang around the summer holidays. The street where she fell, while driving Sarah’s Vespa for the first time. Now she could see the school, and the tracks she had spent after school hours at. The coffee place near the school where her debate team would meet. The wooden bench in the park next to it where she and Jon would sit and talk for hours. Jon. Jon, who was getting married today. Jon, who had been her best friend.

They were neighbors, and Jon had been one year old when she was born. He was her oldest friend. It felt like they had always understood each other. She could talk with him about anything, even the things she wouldn’t talk to her girlfriends about. They had shared many silly secrets and many profound ones. The first time she became aware that her feelings for Jon might be more than just friendship was in the sixth grade, when she saw Jon’s friends teasing him about a girl. She couldn’t tell why, but she felt jealous of this unknown girl and strangely possessive of Jon.

The next few years brought new changes for her and even more complicated feelings. The more she wanted to be close to Jon, the more he would push back. When she talked to her Mom about this, she said it was just typical behavior for a teenager. She told her to be patient and make other friends. So, Sarah did. And she got involved in her own life as only a teenager could do. She went through her own experiences, not sharing them with Jon anymore. She and Jon had different friend circles now. She told herself that her feelings were nothing more than a crush, and she has moved on from them now.

But that was never the case, as she discovered in college. Every summer she would return home and look forward to hanging out with Jon again. Jon had started working at his father’s garage after high school. He had become more pleasant toward her now too, and calmer in general. Again, it felt like they could talk for hours about anything and everything. But, every time she felt a little hope that their relationship could become romantic, he would bring up some girl. It was unfair, she felt. Why doesn’t he see me like those girls? Doesn’t he realize that no one can understand him better than, no one can love him more than her?

“No!”, said Sarah, catching herself. She would not fall into the despair spiral over Jon. She was lucky enough to have such a long lasting friendship with him. She parked her car in her parent’s driveway and went straight to Jon’s open front door. She could hear her friends laughing and getting ready for the rehearsal dinner. She went in and was met with lots of laughs and hugs. Jon came running in from the backyard, and with a stern look said something about her being late. But then, his face split into a wide grin and he pulled her into a hug. As she hugged him back, she thought, “I will always love you”.

“You will never know how much I love you”, thought Jon as he pulled Sarah into a hug. Even now it was difficult for him to be so close to Sarah. “I have someone who loves me and thinks the world of me”, he reminded himself, thinking of his fiancé. But Sarah was the first girl he ever fell in love with. He had been terrified and excited when he first discovered these feelings about Sarah. But he was never good enough for her. She was the head of school debate team, going to advanced classes; while he was barely getting by in high school. After, she went to college to study law; while he was only good enough to work in his father’s garage. ‘She deserves someone much better’ he told himself.