The Boy I Briefly Met

We met a couple months before I “graduated” from the sixth grade.

I met him briefly after school when my junior high friends visited my elementary school—only a five-minute walk down the street. Once I saw my friends I ran up to them, hugged them, excited at how they actually took time to visit. There was nothing of it.

Somehow we met again on Xanga except this time, he moved upstate. There was nothing of it.
Summer after the seventh grade, I received my first cellphone. I received a call one night from some different area code. I answered. Hey, it was him, he got my number from a mutual friend. How have I been doing? He hasn’t been on Xanga for a while, how was your first year in junior high?

We eventually talked for longer periods of time over that summer, overlaying into the fall and onwards to the winter. Come December, our conversations were as long as the night persisted, and I’d constantly fall asleep over the phone.
After two and a half seasons of association, he told me he needed to tell me something. He loves me.

Silence occurred; I didn’t know what to say. I did not love him. Did not know what love was. Knew what interest was.

Okay.
Well…this is awkward now. I feel stupid.
Don’t worry about it. I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.
No, it’s okay, we’re young.

It has been six years since the time we first met, five years from that moment. We decided to webcam recently.

“And now you graduated high school”. He is in the Air Force, stationed in Ohio, got his life straight.

An English teacher, huh? Ha, I can imagine that. You used to always correct my spelling anyway. Do you still do that? … Really?! I guess some things don’t change.