My twin bed abutted the window horizontally, so that when I laid on my side, I could look out at the moon at night. I lived in a stuffy apartment with my mother, my sister, and my dog back in 2015. I was a full-time undergrad student with four part-time jobs. My sister and I both shared a bedroom but one fateful summer, she decided to visit my father in Colombia and when she did, she left the room empty for me to fill with my thoughts, my presence—and for the first time in 20 years, I had my own space.
I had been on Tinder talking to guys for a while now with a couple of failed relationships under my belt and was fed up with talking to men after a failed string of conversations. From the guy who told me that he just wanted a boy toy to mess with on the side while he was affianced to a very pretty, young woman to the army of men taking their insecurities out on me because I refused to have sex with them on the first date, I was at the end of my rope—which is why when my phone vibrated lighting up the screen with a friendly "Hey 👋," I just rolled my eyes and kept drawing.
I had connected with Nick two nights prior on a snowy night in Denver. We really hit it off and we talked for quite a while that night. That following night, the knee-jerk reaction to roll my eyes and ignore his text was impulsed by my thinking this was going to be another "curious" man who wanted to keep things under wraps. I was tired of the senseless fooling around with men. I rolled over and cried looking at that same moon. As tears fell down my cheeks, my mind raced with all of the things I now realize most gay men battle with. Self acceptance, the hope of one day finding love, the yearning for stability, control, happiness. Against the exhaustion inside me telling me to ignore everything and just fall asleep, I texted a simple "Hi" back.
To my surprise, he texted back and all of his texts involved no salacious undertone. No sexual subtext. It was genuine. He was kind and involved. Engaged. He told me of his tales and adventures in Central America—from hiking up a volcano, to being cast away on an island—and he took me away, though virtually, into a world entirely new. We exchanged texts that night until I fell asleep at around 4:00 am (needing to wake up at 6:00) and to my surprise, again, his texts were there for me to wake up to. He told me he was leaving to go back home to New Hampshire, but he hoped we could keep talking. There, amongst all of the dull, jaded pieces of my heart, a spark formed. Little did I know that I had found my best friend.
The next few months, Nick and I talked about everything and nothing. From 6:00 am to 4:00 am every day, we would text, Snapchat each other, and confide in one another. Initially, I was determined to keep it a strict friendship—I planned to move to Los Angeles, I wanted to put my Film degree to use, and I was lining up a place to live and had an initial job prospect; however, life had another plan: I started catching feelings for Nick. In a panic, I began rebuffing Nick's advances. I forced myself to go silent, to wait longer in between texts even though I was dying to talk to him and also started feeling jealous when he told me about his dating life. I told myself that someone who was just supposed to be a pen pal was not going to wreck my plans of moving to Los Angeles; however, Nick kept insisting that I tell him what was on my mind and constantly expressed sadness over my distancing.
Around the same time, I was helping a casting director with some auditions in the Meatpacking District and spent the whole day stuffed in room. At the end of the day, after my dinner with the casting team at 11:30 pm, I published a Snapchat story with a location tag and no later than five minutes go by when I get several text messages from Nick asking if I want to go out for ice cream. In the midst of my exhaustion from working all day and my resolve to not catch even more feelings for him, I rebuffed him once more. That action was enough to make him fall silent and for me to think through the next several weeks that our friendship was through.
The weeks following, our communication varied. We weren't talking anywhere near how we were at the beginning. We became much less involved in each other's lives. I finally told him my prep to move to L.A. was almost complete and that I wished him well in New York. I will never forget the moment he somehow convinced me to visit Boston. His job had transferred him there at the time and he wanted me to visit the East Coast before I decided to move to California. I figured I had everything mostly set, so taking a quick vacation before going back and finalizing everything wouldn't hurt, plus, I had never been to New England before.
It went as expected. I fell in love with the guy. I fell in love with his laugh, his stories, his unique way of saying and doing things. The way he scratches his head when he thinks. The way he lights up when you mention pasta or ice cream. The way he cuddled me at night (when he used to big spoon, just to impress me). His fire for adventure, his endless need to be doing something at all times.
I went back to Denver and my family was strapped for cash in order to pay rent. We had a beat up old car that somehow had become my responsibility to sell to help pay for rent—I had spent most of my capital on the move to L.A. and I had never sold anything in my life. I was once again panicking. My mother and my sister were about to get evicted and it was up to me somehow to sell a car in less than 9 hours to pay rent. The phone kept going off with texts from Nick asking if I was okay since I had gone all day without so much as a "hello" so when I finally answered him, I apologized and told him what was going on. His only response was that he would take care of it. Within the hour two men show up at my door asking to see the car, they look at it, inspect it, hand me the money and they leave with it. I was in awe—how was this stranger able to do all of this from 2,500 miles away? Did he really care for me that much? It turns out, he did. Ironically, Nick grew up helping his Dad with his used car dealership. Nick absolutely knows cars. From how they work to how to sell them, Nick knows exactly how to approach cars. This, among the many other instances in which the stars happened to align when it came to Nick, answered the question that one day popped up on my screen. "Come stay with me for a few months, what's the worse that could happen?"
The answer: nothing. I would've missed out on the best six years of my life (and counting). Six years of passion, immense growth, travel, fights, smiles, kisses, caresses, adventure, friendship, love. I look forward to keep writing this story, because how we met and these past six years are only the beginning.