I was barley sixteen years old. My mouth was filled with braces on both my top and bottom teeth that were held together by elastics. I barely had any hair on my chest, and my armpit hairs were growing in unevenly… like noticeably like one arm had significantly more hair than the other. (They’re still uneven to this day I swear) Back then I was nose deep into football, I never really paid much attention to girls. That was until that day I saw her for the first time in the main hallway in high school. I had no idea how much that one day would change my life.

I saw her just before she looked up and saw me. She was smiling with her friends and instantly I felt something alluring radiating from her. When our eyes locked for the first time, even though it may have been accidental, it still managed to send chills down my spine. In that moment I felt this nirvana, something I’ve never tasted before, and something I needed more off. Unfortunately she wasn’t smiling at me the same way I was goofily smiling at her, but she still let butterflies loose in my stomach. It’s damn near impossible for me to explain how lucky I am I got to see her smile that day in the hallway. It is most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. She stole my heart in that very first moment she was smiling and in the blink of an eye I found myself falling in love, head over heels for her.

What we had was pure, it was something real, it was everything I have always dreamed about. We would laugh, we’d make fun of each other, and we’d even fight one another, but at the end of the day we always loved each other. We never would go to bed until the both offs were smiling together. No matter what, we were always there for one another. We cared for each other more than we cared for our selves. Her and I spent most of my better days together, we were living the dream. That was until I faced a fork in the road. I went left and she went right, stealing a piece of my heart before we went separate our ways.

I’ve never met anyone like her before. She stole a piece of my heart that I’ll never be able to get back and I’m so happy it was her. I’m so thankful to have been able to spend so many years with her. In all honesty in high school, I never thought I’d meet anyone like her. I was so young, in no way looking for something real, but somehow she found a way to make me fall in love with her and show me a world I’ve only dreamed of. One of those ones Nicholas Sparks writes about, or Disney would make a movie about, we had that real thing.

While we were together she taught me far more than I could ever learn on my own. She taught how to love, what it meant to be a real man, a gentleman, and I can’t say thank her enough for all of it. I wouldn’t be half the man I am today if it wasn’t for her. She taught me that love is more than just a feeling it’s a verb. It’s the act of putting someone else before you, someone you love. She showed me this everlasting, this incredible high you get from love and its truly magical and that when you find it, it’s something you fight for.

Since the day I lost her, at that fork in the road, I haven’t been able to stop searching for that high I had with her. I see a few girls here and there, and none of them have compared. I’ll give girls a try, if things ever gets serious I’ll give them an honest date and forget about the others I’m talking to. But if my stomach isn’t igniting fireworks, and If I’m not fighting back a smile while you look into my eyes we may only just have a date or two I’m sorry.

One day I’ll find something that made me feel the way I did with her way back then. I hope, Who knows when it’ll be or if I will actually ever find it. I’m in no way rushing it. Since I’ve faced that fork in the road, I’ve been trying to live each day, one day at a time riding the waves as it comes. I trust that one day I’ll find my way to what’s right for me. I wouldn’t know what to be searching for if it wasn’t for that day I saw her in the hallway, she changed my life. She made me feel something incredible, something I’ve never felt before. I know that if I find something real, I have to at least feel something along those lines for me to consider it real.