Stronger

July of 2014 is where this story begins. This is a story I have been wanting to share for a long time but it never really had an ending, until recently that is.

I finally have a conclusion, closure if you will however, it wasn’t the ending that I had predicted when this story first began but that’s life I guess, unpredictable.

I was abroad in Western Europe with my family. it wasn’t my first time in this particular city I had spent the seven summers previous to the one in question in this beautiful city. I am lucky to be able to say that I spent the majority of my childhood summers in a city as beautiful and as fascinating as Budapest.

Although we loved the city, my family travelled there for a purpose but the purpose of our trip is irrelevant to the rest of the story except for the fact that it is how I orginally met Sam.

Sam and his family are from the United Kingdom. I hadn’t met him before we began spending summers in Budapest. We lived in opposite ends of the country when we were at home.

Despite the fact that we never saw eachother outside of Budapest we were still really close. He was my best friend. I told him everything, he was two years my senior so growing up he always appeared to be older and wiser than myself.

Our friendship was special, we wouldn’t be in contact with one another for eleven months of the year, prehaps the occasional message but when I returned Budapest year after year nothing changed between us. It was as if we hadn’t been apart. It was truly spectacular.

As we grew up, our conversations changed but there was never an awkward silence or a dull moment. He was a very intellegent person, always open minded about everything, he tried to see a positive side in every situation, that is what I liked most about him. I felt so secure and free when I was with him.

Both of our families were constantly teasing us about each other, as parents do but I didn’t see him that way which is why I was shocked when he kissed me that July. I wasn’t expecting it, I didn’t see it coming, there was no warning it just happened out of the blue. One minute we were talking and laughing as usual, next thing I knew we were kissing.

After it happened, I thought nothing of it, our frienship went back to the way it always had been and a week later we returned to our respective cities.

A few months passed and everythimg continued as normal, I returned to school, Sam I knew was starting university that Autunm so I assumed he was busy with that. I soon forgot about the kiss.

A few weeks after Christmas, I received a message from Sam asking if he could come to my town to visit me. I was surprised at his request but intrigued to find out why he suddenly felt the need to cme and visit me and because of the burning curiousity within me, I told him he could come when he next had free time. We arranaged to meet two weeks later in a small hotel in my town where he would be staying.

Two weeks passsed, I hadn’t told my parents that he was coming to town or that I had arranged to meet him, it wasn’t that imprtant and they never asked where I was going. It was a Saturday, I never spent Saturdays at home.

I remember it vividly, walking to the hotel and feeling incredibly nauceous with either nerves or excitement I couldn’t tell which one. I don’t know why I was feeling like that, it was only Sam at the end of the day.

He was already in the lobby when I arrived, it was peculiar to see him standing there awkwardly with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his hair sat messily atop his head. It looked like he had run his hands through it a dozen times, he did that when he was streesed about something

After he noticed me walk in he seemed to relax a little. He smiled and I ran to him and hugged him and immediately I felt safe. We went to his room and hung out like we always did and then in an imstant everything changed. We kissed, again. This kiss was different to the first one we shared, it wasn’t just to test the waters and see what happens. We both lnoew what we wanted and it was great. Sam then confessed how he felt about me and it was then that I finally relaised that I felt the same way and the nausea I felt on the walk there was in fact butterflies because I had feelings for him too. Our once platonic friendship and suddenly shifted into a new dynamic something that was so much more than just a friendship. I then thought of the kiss we shared a few months previous and how I brushed it off as nothing when it clearly held a more significant meaning because that kiss which we shared that previous July was the beginning, the beginning of a series of events that neither one of us could have ever predicted. The kiss was the moment everything including myself changed. I didn’t see it until it was too late but that kiss was my first mistake.