Maria

I've felt lonely inside since my party ended last night. I could try and convince myself that it's because I'm missing ALL of my friends, but I know it's not. I'm missing one person right now.

Maria.

We talked about our friendship earlier in the summer and she let me know that she didn't see me as anything other than a friend and I've been trying to convince myself all summer that I didn't have feelings for her.

That all changed last Thursday when we got together to spend a day at the beach and say goodbye. It's funny because it was the first time that just the two of us were hanging out and going into the day I thought it'd be the last time we spent one on one time together. We had joked about it being a date; I didn't expect it'd actually turn into one.

The day went as planned at first. I arrived at her place early in the morning and we watched the West Virginia rafting video that I had worked frantically to put together before leaving. We spent the next half hour getting food around and getting changed and ready to go to the beach. The car ride was nothing new, we had our same 'I pretty much disagree with everything your saying but I respect your opinion anyway' conversations that we normally have.

Actually, it's not that bad. For the most part we agree on certain things but she's very selfish in a lot of ways and I'm a very selfless person. She see's her selfishness at least, but she isn't at the point where she is willing to change.

When we arrived in Grand Haven we went to a park to run a trail that climbed up some sand dunes. It was a decent workout and good conversation. We drove over to the actual beach afterwards and set out our towels and sat down to talk and eat our grapes and lettuce leaves.

It wasn't a very tasty lunch but at least it wasn't going to make me fat.

Eventually our friendship came up in our conversation and I apologized for coming on so strongly and so quickly earlier in the summer. I talked about how I valued her as a friend and I was really glad that we were able to spend one last day together before I went off to school. On the outside I showed that I was okay with just being friends and that I was okay with moving on with my life. Inside I was mostly dettached from her and I was okay with the fact that I'd probably never hang out with her like this again.

Little did I know, things on both the outside and the inside were about to change.

During our conversation she started making comments about how I was going to go to Steubenville and how I would probably just forget about her. She had never said anything like this before, and I didn't think she would say it unless her interior feelings toward me had changed. I didn't press to find out more because I thought I was just reading her wrong though. Eventually our conversation stopped and we both layed down on our stomachs to get some rest and catch some sun rays.

A few minutes later her hand slid through the sand and under my towel. I thought about leaving it alone but I playfully pushed it out from under the towel. She let it hover there for a while on top of the sand and I put my hand on top of hers. Then I interlocked my fingers with hers, eventually my other arm was around her, and she was turned towards me and we were looking deep into each other's eyes.

"Do you like me, Jonathan?"
"In what way, Maria?"

The woman that I had wanted to have an interest in me all summer finally did, just as I had finally prepared my heart for moving on and being nothing more than friends. I've been wrestling with myself ever since. Part of me is excited because she is interested in me, part of me feels devistated because I leave for school in two days and we'll be over 7 hours away from each other.

I'm really struggling with whether or not to allow my heart to be attached to her, and why God allowed her heart to finally open up right before I leave for school. I was completely detached from everything here in town and ready to go away to school. Now I have another major thing that I am VERY attached too to deal with.