You never fully understand something unless you've felt its opposite. To know love, you must know hate. To appreciate happiness, you need to have had tasted sadness. And to know how important trust is, try having someone cheat on you. See how it feels. But I brought it upon myself. Every single bit.
But we're not there yet. Not even close. It all started in middle school, eighth grade. A student had transferred to our school late, and the only locker available for him was next to mine, alphabetical order be damned for once. And I hated him. Of course his locker had to be to the left of mine, so that when it opened it would cover mine nearly completely. And when particularly frisky, he'd trap my hand in the gap by the wrist.
It didn't take him long to learn my locker's combination. I would get occasional mystery presents, a pair of drumsticks here, and pearl bracelet there. Suddenly he knew when my birthday was, something I was rather secretive about. He would follow me to band practice, and duck into the nearby gym locker room when I'd notice him.
It was clearly a case of puppy love on his end, and it started leeching into my side as well. Gradually, we became friends. I learned where the presents had come from, why all these little notes were popping up. I began to write back. We met up at a school dance and actually danced together, something of a declaration of love back then.
High school happened. By this time we were crushing on each other hard. He joined band to be with me, same section even. I'd be breaking drum heads, he'd be cracking cymbals. We gave it our all. We'd sit together on the bus when going to play for away games. And we'd put the other band to shame.
Then he got a girlfriend. It started out as a bad case of high school drama. I had gone on a pity date, and the word got around that I was taken. So my real crush gave up on me then and there, and found someone else. My adolescent heart was broken.
Somehow we remained friends, despite my devastation. And he went through three more girlfriends by the end of high school. I barely dated, only going to a few of the many school dances. But this time we didn't dance together. I refused him.