Looking in the mirror, I fiddle with the ends of my hair. I’ve just gotten it cut earlier in the day, and it is definitely a drastic change. My hair has gone from reaching my chest to reaching my cheeks in only about an hour. My eyes light up as I see I have a text from Nick; he says that if I don’t send him pictures of my haircut then he will come and see for himself. I laugh, and of course I don’t take it as a threat because, in all honesty, I want him to come over. Nick is my best friend; he’s likely the only person that would drive all the way to my house just to see my haircut. I’ve known him for a year, but it feels like we’ve been friends since we were little. The circumstances under which we met were pretty comical, as well.

It was October of my sophomore year, and it had almost been a month since I had broken up with my boyfriend of 11 months. I know. Typical teenage girl, right? But it had definitely hit me hard, and I was just starting to piece myself back together and feel like a normal person again. I was on Facebook one night, to get my mind off of my little one-person pity party, when I heard the “ping!” of a new message. I opened it up and saw a message, written in Japanese, from Nick. I had heard of him, a few people that I knew called him “Furry” and I’d heard his name a few times, but why was he messaging me in Japanese? Upon translating it I realized that I had posted a status earlier that said “only a best friend sends you ‘I love butts’ in Japanese” (because my friend Mike had done that). I didn’t expect anything out of it! Yet there it was, in front of me, “I love butts” in Japanese from a Mr. Nick. I smiled and, as I talked to him, my day got progressively brighter, my smile got wider, and my heart didn’t feel quite as heavy as it had for the past month. That’s how it started.

After about a week or so of talking, he told me about a youtube series called Marble Hornets. Marble Hornets is a sort of horror series, and I quickly realized that I couldn’t watch it by myself without being afraid to turn around. I was interested, though, and Nick and I talked through facebook messages while I attempted to watch the first video.

“Do you have skype?” He asked, and I said yes.

“Do you want me to get on skype and watch it with you?”

My stomach jumped and I grinned, even though he couldn’t see me, and promptly agreed. We started a skype call, both of us only on audio. I couldn’t talk because my mom and my brother were asleep in the next room, but Nick would make comments every once in a while. Every time anything too frightening happened, he’d hear me furiously jabbing at the keyboard and he'd laugh. Most of the time there was just silence, but it was a comforting silence. We watched Marble Hornets like that until 4AM.

In the following several months, Nick and I saw each other on an extremely regular basis. The way these days usually ended was that he would give me a ride home, because he (unlike me) has his license. We would pull into my driveway, but I never got out of the car within the first 20 minutes or so. We would sit in his car, parked in my driveway, and just talk. We’d talk about anything from serious conversations about feelings and problems to absolute babbling nonsense. We’d stay like that, parked in my driveway, laughing and talking, for at least half an hour. We’d laugh until we cried, and when his mom asked why he took so long taking me home he’d just say my dad was chatty. Of all of the fun things we’ve done together--all of the concerts, movies, and adventures--those times, just sitting in the driveway, made the most difference. The Nick outside of there was my friend, but the Nick I got to know parked in my driveway every night was the one that became my best friend.

That winter, Nick and I were on our way to our friend Natasha’s sixteenth birthday party. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of Nick’s Jeep, our friend Dylan in the backseat. We turned into Natasha’s neighborhood and, as was tradition (from the way Nick acted and talked about it, he seemed to have had done this before), Nick had to drive through the neighborhood blasting dubstep with the windows down. Nick and Dylan exchanged a glance and Nick hit the gas, cranked up the volume, and rolled down the windows. As we raced down the street, the late November wind nipping at my cheeks and my hair flying around my face, something just...clicked. I grinned, and it felt like my body was full of balloons. I looked at my friends, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was finally sinking in for me that Nick really did want to be my friend, which, for me, is a difficult point to reach. I looked over at him and I saw the wonderful person that I had met only a few months before, only after allowing myself to move past moping around and being a big self-pitying dope. I looked at Nick and I thought about how incredible I felt and I realized that none of that would be happening, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed my life so thoroughly, if it hadn't been for him. I looked and Nick, and I saw my best friend.

And now, here we are, Nick and I, laying on my front lawn by his parked car. He made good on his threats, and he came to see my haircut. It's been a year since we met. We've finished marble hornets (along with countless other series), gone to concerts and parties, and had endless nights parked in the driveway. I look over at him and notice that he's starting to get sniffly, and I remember that he's allergic to grass, and we have been laying in the grass for over an hour.

"Well," Nick takes off his glasses to rub his eyes as we both stand up, "I should probably get going." Of course this means that we'll be talking for at least another ten minutes while he makes minimal effort to get into his car. After about 20 minutes or so, he manages to get into his car, and he pulls away and drives down the street. I linger for a moment, watching his tail lights recede into the darkness, before opening my front door. I know that I'm lucky to have a friend like him, and I know that I'll never let feeling sorry for myself get in my way again. I never would have met Nick if I had! I am so incredibly grateful for all that Nick has brought to my life. Absolutely nothing about my life now would be the same if he hadn’t sent me a message that day. That day, all those months ago, brought my life back up from one of the worst states it’s been in. All because I let myself look for happiness again, and Nick is the one that brought it to me. I smile as I take another look down the street, and I go inside.

"Well that certainly took awhile!" My mother's tone is only jokingly accusatory, and dinner is almost ready in the kitchen.

"Yeah," I toss my shoes to the side and smile to myself, "you know Nick."