Dear Haiiden,


The pounding of my heart grows more intense as I think about her. Is it wrong that I feel this way? I mean can you love your best friend? Is that wrong? We’ve known each other since grade school and here we are in high school; my feelings have yet grown for her.
“Tristen!” she calls out, “are we hanging out today after school?”
I pause, every moment I spend with her I begin to fall more deeply in love with her.
“Yeah. Sure,” I say with that thought still running through my head.
“Great!” she replied as she walked away with a smile.
The pounding of my heart dropped to my toes as I walked to my car to go home. Later that night she knocked on my door.
“I brought pizza!” Her beautiful curly blonde hair flowed behind her as she looked at me, and smiled with her gorgeous green eyes.
“Thanks. I was getting hungry,” she laughed and began to say something but stopped and just sat down and started to eat.
“You gonna eat?” she asked with a stuffed mouth. I couldn’t help but to laugh at how cute she looked.
“So, how are you and Joey?” She stopped chewing and swallowed her food,
“Well, it could be better.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I mean I don’t know what to do anymore Tristen, we just don’t get along that much and he constantly checks out other girls in front of me. I’m done with it.”
“Wow,” I gasped.
“I know, I know,” she said looking down shamefully.
“Well, you deserve so much better, you don’t need a boy treatin’ you that way. But if he makes you happy then you need to straighten things up.” She pauses, looks at me gives me a kiss on the cheek and say, “Thank you.” The rest of the night we at pizza and talked about the “old days” it was great until she left. Then my mind went back to thinking about how I should tell her how much she means to me.









*******

Here it is, the 10th grade and still best friends with the girl I can express my feelings to. On the first day of school, she runs up to me give me a big hug and starts telling me how she talked to Joey, how things are going so well and, how much she missed me over the summer, and the whole time she was talking I couldn’t help but to think about how beautiful she is and how much of a coward I am for not telling her how I feel.
“Tristen, are you listening?”
“What? Yeah sorry, I was thinking”
“It’s alright, so what did you do this summer?”
“Nothing, really”
“Are you going bowling tonight?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess,” I said with second thought.


“Great, I’ll see you there.”
That night I took a shower and got ready to go. Who would have thought bowling could be so much fun? Spending time with her makes the worst days seem the best.
Three o’clock in the morning, my cell phone rings. The only thing running thought my head was who in the heck would be calling me this early? I answered, and what I heard was probably the thing I hate hearing the most: crying ;Hard.
I knew it was her
“Haiiden, what’s wrong?” she was crying so hard she could barely speak.
“It’s Grandma Tristen Grandma died,” She started crying even harder.
“Haiiden, listen to me I’ll be over in one minute.” As I hung up the phone I threw on a shirt got in the car and left. The whole night I held her in my arms, running my fingers through her hair. She looked at me with weakness in her eyes, kissed me on the cheek and said, “Thank you,” and slowly fell asleep. I tucked her in with a kiss on the forehead and drove home.












*****
Two years have passed and graduation is tomorrow. I feel like such an coward, I haven’t told her once how I feel about her, and if I were to even hint it to her all I receive is a kiss on the cheek and a that sweet, “Thank you.” I fell asleep thinking about it the whole night. I woke up early that morning, got ready, stopped and thought, “Today’s the day; I’m telling her.” I called her up and asked her to meet me in the front of the school before graduation rehearsal.
The whole ride there I felt the stress, what if I’m making a mistake? What if I ruin it; the friendship? What if she looks at me weird or if I just get another kiss on the cheek and a thank you. As I arrive at the school I see a crowd of people, sirens, and lights. I got out of the car and run over there. I was hoping it wasn’t Haiiden the whole time, and sure enough it was just a fight. As I turned away from it all, I heard horns and swerving. As I looked up I saw her car smashed to pieces by an 18 wheel truck. I ran as fast as my legs could go, as I got to the driver’s side I saw her, looking as if she had passed out. I made my way to get the door open; I couldn’t. Seeing her look so helpless in there made me angry. I felt the adrenalin run though my body. I pried that door open and slowly, little by little she fell out; enough for me to hold her in my arms just one last time. She looked at me, tried to smile weakly and softly told me to come closer. I leaned in and she handed me a note, from her diary kissed me on the cheek and said “Thank you”.
I will never forget that day, for the rest of my life. The day Haiiden died in my arms; the day my life was nothing. I read the words on the burnt scrap, they read:

"The pounding of my heart grows more intense as i think about him, does he know? os ot wrong; is it wrong to love your best friend?"