Alex and I didn’t always used to hate each other. The story of our friendship is actually really simple. Jack had two best friends who hated each other. He didn’t like having two best friends who hated each other. So Jack did what works best for him, which is he whined and pouted and made cute faces until one of us (basically Alex) caved and decided to solve this.

I don’t remember what day it was exactly, but I do know that it was October when Alex called me while I was at Jack’s house while I was in the middle of doing homework. He told me to meet him at the park down the street from Jack’s house and even though I told him I’d show up, I didn’t.

It’s not that I was a total bitch back then, but first of all it was about 7 at night and obviously being a 15 year old girl, the first idea that comes to mind is oh my god Alex is trying to get me raped, it’s a setup. And secondly, I remember that it was raining really hard that day and I was having a really great hair day. So despite what others might say, I was not being bitchy, it just happened to be raining and I happened to have really great hair that day and it just happened to be dark when he called and I just happened to assume that Alex was out to get me violated and molested and deflowered.

I don’t really remember what happened between the time of Alex calling me, me deciding not to go and him showing up at Jack’s house. But when he showed up, I remember stubbornly refusing to open the screen door and letting Alex stand in the rain until Jack came and opened the door.

Alex told me that we needed to talk, that it was important and he ushered me down into the cold basement for ‘privacy’. It didn’t believe him, I still had the idea that Alex was planning my deflowerment, but I went anyway deciding that I had a loud scream and I knew where to kick so it would hurt.

When we got comfortable on the sofa downstairs, after I’d made sure to put as much space as possible between us, Alex asked me a question that to this day keeps me up some nights. “Why do we hate each other?”

I remember staring at him for a while, not really understanding what he was asking. “What?” I asked, thinking that maybe leaving him out in the rain for that long probably wasn’t a great idea. The cold probably screwed up his brain.

“Why do we hate each other?” He repeated, slowly, as if I didn’t understand the question.

“I. I don’t know. We just do.” I finally replied.

“Exactly.” He had this huge smile on his face as he scooted closer to me. “I don’t know either. I’ve been thinking about it all day, but I just don’t know why we don’t get along.”

“What’s your point?” I asked curiously, still not understand why he rode his bike in the dark and through the rain just to ask me this.

“The point is that we hate each other for no reason. And if there’s no reason why we don’t get along then we should get along.”

“Alex, what are you trying to say?”

“I’m,” He paused running a hand through his wet hair. “I’m trying to say that we should get along because there’s no reason why we don’t. We should get along for-”

“For Jack.” I finished for him.

He nodded enthusiastically and slumped down on the sofa next to me. “Exactly. So,” He said drawing out the word, “Friends?”

I remember looking at him for what seemed to be a long time wondering what my actual reason for disliking him was. The only reasons that I found were small things like how when we would go to his house his room would never be clean and things like that. After not finding any actual reason, I turned to Alex and nudged him with my shoulder. “Friends”

It took us six months to go from friends to something more and we dated for a year and a half, Alex’s longest relationship to this day. He even told me that he loved me and then the very next day I caught him making out with some random brunette. And after that I had plenty of reasons that would explain why Alex and I didn’t get along.