It was quite a simple question, but it was taken so differently from both of us. One of us trying to push of the fact that he would be quite happy if this relationship would truly work, but the restrictions, the need for communication, made it seem the relationship would never work, and never considered her feelings on it, which was seemingly my downfall in the long run. The other one was crying on the ground, hands in her face, because the question stabbed her so hard that she couldn’t handle it anymore, and all parties felt terrible that night. “Aren’t you guys dating?”
It was the second year of my community marching band, the 50-year-old marching band: The “Green Beret Marching Band”, and I was nervous. Sweating bullets on the first day, seeing people I haven’t seen in a little under a year, having to re-socialize with them again to get caught up. There are also a bunch of new faces in the crowd, but I finally see more and more familiar faces as I head towards the warm-up area.
There’s a new girl across the circle from me now, and she wasn’t here last year. She has long, seemingly silky black hair, and red t-shirt with the name of her high school, and jeans has her jeans rolled up to her knees. There’s a nicely placed ribbon in her hair. However, I try not to pay too much attention to her to make myself look awkward and such. Band practice goes on like normal, and I never interact with her.
Months later, we’re at our first marching band show, it’s cloudy and windy for July, but we’re still able to perform with no problems. After out performance, we head back to the stadium and I see familiar faces, so I had over to them, and they had a bouncy ball in their hand. They threw it up and down behind the stands, since they didn’t really care for the shows. I joined them, and I notice the new girl was their too. We all played together until we just sat down and started talking, nothing important about our conversations, just silly little banter back and forth between us.
As we head back to the bus, I invite the new girl to sit by me, and she happily agrees. I’m suddly nervous, I’m sweaty, I’m flooding with sweat. Wait, a girl is sitting next to me? I thought to myself, as she finally came to sit over by me. Okay okay okay, calm down calm down, and miraculously, I’m calm. She sits next to me, and she’s beautiful. But hold on, I already like one of my classmates, what am I going to. Long distance isn’t really my thing and-
We spend our time together on the bus nicely, we talked and talked and talked. It was nice to have someone to talk to, since my seat was always my man spreading spot, now I have to sit nice and tidy next to this girl, I never wanted to intrude, so I sat next to her, like I was going to be killed if I even move an inch closer, but overtime, she got closer to me. I sweat a little more, but overtime I realize, that this was nice, really great really.
I started to wonder or not if I had a crush on her or not. Overtime it kept eating away at me, whether or not I felt love. I truly felt like I did, but didn’t I like my classmate back in Franklin. I can’t date a girl that lives an hour away from my house, and has a flip phone that you have to pay for every message. What am I supposed to do? A meaningful relationship, how was I supposed to have one? Do I tell her? Do I not tell her? How do I avoid this situation, I don’t get i. I don’t get it.
The next few weeks were amazing, we started holding hands, and she leaned up against me sometimes, however, we weren’t dating. We were just friends. I told her that, myself, to her face. I told her that we were just friends, but we still continued with this. I felt somewhat awkward, and I felt like repeating myself because I didn’t know if she was uncomfortable or I was uncomfortable, I really couldn’t tell.
At our last show, one of our bandmates came up to us with just one simple question in mind, since me and the girl were by the fence watching the shows. He asked, “Aren’t you guys dating?” and then made fun for a little bit, I was offended, but she broke down. I panic and panic and panic. I feel anger rising more like boiling water, I haven’t felt this angry, however, I feel empty. I could just say, “no we’re not dating” and that would be that, but I couldn’t totally identify if that’s what she felt. She’s been an amazing friend, and I’ve obviously developed feelings for her and I don’t know how I could go and tell her, I don’t want to date. It’s all these emotions inside of me wanting to get out and just scream at the guy who asked. Or maybe, I want to get mad a me. Instead of getting mad, in that moment, and sit down next to her, put my hand around her, and told her “I’m sorry.”