Love Stories: Study Hall Notes

The first time I met Corey, we were six years old and in the same first grade class. Even though we went to school together from then on, we didn’t have another class together until eighth grade. We happened to sit next to each other in science class that year, where our friendship kind of began. Looking back, Corey admits he had a crush on me then, while I admit that I had a crush on the other guy who sat in our row (oops). Even after that, our friendship was still not fully fledged until two years later during our sophomore year of high school. We ended up in the same study hall class and truly began the most important friendship of our lives. The teacher in that study hall class was probably the scariest woman I’ve ever had the misfortune of being around, so without a peep, we built our friendship off of notes passed back and forth across the row.

Something clicked between us, and we were self-declared best friends before any time at all. We talked on the phone for hours every night, hung out nearly every day after school, and divulged every bit of personal information about each of our lives. We always joked around that “we could never date; we know way too much about each other!” Despite the constant rumors, we truly were just friends for the remainder of our high school years. We grew closer every year through the openness of our friendship. We helped each other through relationships, good and bad, comforted the other whenever there was a particularly stressful or upsetting incident, and simply were consistently there for each other. To this day, I have never had a friend who measures up to the level of friendship that Corey and I shared with each other.

The moment that everything changed was the summer after our senior year in high school. I left the state of South Carolina and went to live with my sister and work at an organization local to her area.  That month I spent in New Hampshire was the longest time I had ever spent apart from Corey since the true beginning of our friendship. We still talked on the phone and Skyped all the time, but even with that, I realized that there was a void in my life where he was supposed to be. We talked these feelings through, and he admitted that he had feelings for me, as well.  However, we had both decided on our future colleges by this point, so we knew that in two months, I was going to be headed to Oklahoma and he would be going to school in South Carolina.  We lived out the rest of the summer to the fullest, and at the end of it, he accompanied me to the airport where we said our temporary goodbyes.

When I got to Oklahoma, I started seeing someone, and Corey was also seeing someone in South Carolina.  However, as hard as I tried, I could not get what Corey and I shared beyond our friendship out of my mind. Within the month, both Corey and I had ended our respective relationships, but we still didn’t act upon our own. Finally, in October, he came out to Oklahoma for the homecoming football weekend. During that weekend, we reaffirmed our love for each other and I very clearly stated my desire to be with no one else but him. So, after twelve years of knowing one another and four years of being best friends, Corey and I were finally in a relationship.

It has been nothing but perfect since.  Despite going to school halfway across the country from one another, we continue to fall more in love every single day, and most importantly of all, we are still best friends. I still tell Corey every detail about my life, but instead of talking about other guys and girls, now we just talk about each other. We’ve worked out a schedule of traveling back and forth once a month to see each other, and though at times we have to be apart for longer than two months, we are still the happiest together we could possibly be. I have less than two years left in Oklahoma, and we are counting down the days until we never have to say goodbye again. We can't wait to affirm our unending love for each other and start our lives together!

I still have the notes from that study hall class.  They’re filled with talk about other guys and girls that we liked at different points in our high school lives, but they simply serve as a reminder of everything we went through that ended up bringing us together.

--Lara

♥

See the previous Love Stories here! If you would like to submit your story and join our Ruche Blogger Family, please send an e-mail to blog@shopruche.com. You may attach up to 5 photos. Please try to keep your stories to a 1200 word limit. You will receive an e-mail when your story is selected.

Tweet