Band; The place where most of my stories start. But this one goes back to 5th grade band/orchestra.

I was in orchestra, I played the violin. I hated that instrument with a passion. Why did I play it? I still don’t know why I didn’t start the flute back then. But anyways, back to the story. My best friend at the time, Megan played the clarinet and she sat next to this geeky blond kid with a blue clarinet. A very cute geeky blond kid; I never bothered to learn his name, I simply sat and thought about how much I’d like to date him once we hit middle school. But of course by 6th grade I had already started to forget about him. He was an old crush I’d never see again. Why? Well, I moved. To another city and I knew he and I would never go to school together.

I was so upset I quit music completely in 7th grade. I went to every band and choir concert to support my best friends, Toni and Bekah.

At one particular concert, I was sitting with Toni after she got off stage and the other middle school’s band had come to play at the concert. I noticed one boy the most, the geeky blonde Bassoon player. He seemed so familiar. But I couldn’t remember from where. And once again I pushed the childish crush to the back of my mind and tried to focus on school. Soon enough the bullying started to affect me and my parents decided I needed a different middle school. The only other middle school we knew of in the area. The same middle school whose band had been at mine a month before hand.

On the first day of 8th grade, I saw him again. I was waiting outside my 5th hour history class and he walked past me. I recognized him from the band concert and remembered how cute he really was. After a couple of days, his best friend Kevin caught my eye; A fellow Broncos fan and well, pretty attractive. I started to hang out with Kevin every day. I had almost forgotten about the geeky blond Bassoon player. Whose name I had finally learned was Garrett. When Kevin turned me down day after day I started absent mindedly flirting with Garrett. He and I debated a lot of things at the lunch table. Who was taller, who should it next to Kevin; Silly things that didn’t matter. Garrett and Kevin became my best friends when everyone else had abandoned me. And I loved them to death.

Freshman year, finally we were in high school. Garrett had literally become my best friend, but he had a crush on me that everyone could see, except him. I never thought I’d like him, but when he got a girlfriend shortly before homecoming, I was jealous. His girlfriend, Katie, was out of town for the game and dance. I hung out with Garrett at the game and we cheered on our team while Kevin was about to lose his sanity on the sideline. The next night at the dance, all three of us, me, Kevin and Garrett didn’t have dates so we simply hung out with each other. The joke was that “these two losers are my last minute dates.” But I loved those losers, I still do. But anyways as Freshman year continued I joined band and started the flute, Garrett had recruited me to marching band the day I started. But the year ended and Garrett was my best friend.

I saw him again at mini band camp, we hung out at every break and talked a lot, after all he was my best friend. But I had slowly started to have feelings for him. I talked to my female best friend about it every day in Summer School. She said she knew it all along. We invited him to see the new Harry Potter with us, I was turned down. And it upset me a bit. Band camp came along and the last day or so he asked me to the movies. We were gonna see the new Harry Potter movie again. It was the third time we had both seen it. The second time we had seen it together. I sat there most of the movie debating in my head whether or not I wanted to date him or not. Finally I listened to my heart and put my head on his shoulder. That simple move had started the bet relationship of my life, the longest relationship so far. And I loved him. I still do, I always have. I just never knew it was him until I saw a picture of him from 5th grade band. The geeky blond kid with the blue clarinet was the love of my life. Is the love of my life. And now I sit and stare at him in band as he plays the Bassoon, or the Sousaphone, or the Bass Trombone. And I always remember back in band when he was the geeky bond kid with the blue clarinet weirded out by my best friend.