Spoiler! :
My Friend,
As I look out my window on this cold and rainy Sunday afternoon I see your face in the rain drops. Since you left, I find myself staring off in to space remembering the times we were together. Is love enough to keep us together when you are half way across the country? When I recall the way you held me on the last day we were together my answer is yes: love is enough. Then, when I think about the times we erupted into huge fights my answer turns. Please remember that you will always hold a very special space in my heart. But, all I have left now is hope, trust, and memories.
Love always.
-Maggie
♥ ♥ ♥
It was the 9th of July 2008 when we met. I was fourteen years old at the time and had just finished my eighth grade year of middle school. We were in our parent’s home town of Onslow, North Carolina for a festival that was celebrated every year. Onslow is a fairly large city located on the eastern coast of North Carolina. I always looked forward to going to Onslow to visit my grandparents every summer. Grandma Jean and Grandpa Mike live only two minutes from the beach. My nine year old sister, Ashlyn, and I have always enjoyed going to the beach; as soon as we unpacked, we hopped on our bikes and took the trail to the beach.
As I slowly walked down towards the water, I felt the sand between my toes as I first stepped onto the beach. The graininess of the scorching hot sand along the souls of my feet burned as the smell of salt filled my nose. The sounds of the crashing waves and high school girls screaming about a beach volleyball game made me forget everything about the previous school year.
“Check out that guy surfing!” Ashlyn yelled from a few feet in front of me. “Maggie! Look! That is so amazing!”
I looked out into the ocean where Ashlyn was pointing and saw a blond hair, very tan local showing off in the six foot waves. The way he moved through the waves made it seem like he was born in the water. I remembered when my mother and I would stare into the ocean at all of the surfers. I must have been staring at the water for a long time because when I finally snapped out of it my father was standing next to me.
“What are you looking at Mags?” my father said as he came to stand next to me.
“Nothing,” I said “I was just remembering when we would come here in the summer with mom and eat our picnic lunch on the beach. Everything seems so different without her here. She used to love coming to the beach. The sounds of the crashing waves, the feeling of the wet sand squishing beneath her feet, and the feeling of the warmth of the sun, we used to sit out on the beach for hours before Ashlyn was born. It just isn’t fair!”
After all of the memories of my mother filled my mind, the tears let loose. I could not hold it in any longer. I hate crying about my mother in front of my father, because I know he feels everything I do. It had been eight years since my mother died, and I still had not gotten used to it. I mainly felt sorry for Ashlyn; mother had died in an accident only five months after she had been born. My father had done a very good job of raising Ashlyn and I, but it just is not the same without a mother figure in the house. My father had gone on dates with other woman but had never been close to getting married again.
“Ahh Mags I know, I miss her too.” My father said as he wrapped me in a hug “but she would like to see you be happy.”
All I could do was nod my head to signify I agreed.
Seconds later, Ashlyn came running towards us asking when we were going to the festival. My father had told her on the drive to Onslow, that morning, that there was going to be a big trampoline and inflatable toys to play on. Seeing her so happy made me smile. I wrapped my arm around her as we turned to walk back to my grandparent’s house.
♥ ♥ ♥
Once we arrived at the festival, I paused and looked around at all of the activities. Straight ahead of me were the famous inflatable bouncy houses Ashlyn had been so excited about. To the right of the inflatable toys was a grassy field with trees, picnic tables, and a path to the beach. To my left were brand new tennis courts, and located just behind all of the activities was the big green party tent where all of the parents usually reminisced.
Ashlyn’s eyes lit up at the sight of the inflatable bouncy houses and she wanted to race me there. We took off sprinting through the freshly mowed grass; I let her win since I thought it was a sisterly thing for me to do. I jumped around with her for a while until she found one of her friends from the year before.
After I left Ashlyn, I walked into the big green tent to find my father. He was talking to someone I had never seen before. I walked over towards him. At the same time I arrived at my father’s side, a boy about my age, maybe older, arrived at the side of the man my father was talking too. I examined him. He had eyes as blue as sapphires and had short dark blond hair. He was about 4 inches taller than me and his smile made me suck in a breath. He had very strong looking arms and it seemed as though he went to the gym everyday. There was nothing ordinary about him; he was nothing like anyone I had ever seen. As the wind gently blew I caught a smell of the cologne he was wearing. It was just enough that the smell was not too overpowering. The navy blue shirt he was wearing made his eyes pop and his body was an excellent golden brown color. It represented the many hours spent out in the sun. As I became lost in my thoughts about him, the world around me seemed to stop. I did not even notice my father’s voice when he began talking to me.
“Maggie” my father nudged me. “This is Mr. Dyke. He was one of my very good friends in high school.” He said acknowledging the man.
“Please, call me Henry” he said as he reached out his hand to mine.
“It is nice to meet you Henry” I replied timidly.
Out of the corner of my eye, I was watching the boy. I was trying to guess his age. I was staring at him again as Henry introduced him to my father.
“Ethan,” he said to him, “this is my friend Mr. Kane from high school.”
My father extended his hand towards him and said, “It is nice to meet you Ethan, but please call me Ray.”
“It is nice to meet you Ray” He confidently said.
Then they introduced us. When I took Ethan’s hand in mine, my heart was beating like the sound of a thousand drums and I could swear he could hear it too.
Ethan smiled at me and said, “It is very nice to meet you Maggie.”
The way he said it made me actually believe that he was excited to meet me. Because believe me, I was thrilled to meet him. A second later, we let go of each other’s hands. I stood there for a while with my father, Henry, and Ethan while the parents talked. My father was telling Henry how much I liked to play tennis. Much to my surprise, Henry responded by saying how Ethan was on the tennis team at school and had been playing for quite some time. Then, Ethan eagerly asked me if I wanted to play and gestured to the tennis courts. Hearing his voice again made my chest pound.
As we walked to the tennis courts, we fell into easy conversation.
“So you are pretty good at tennis?” I asked him beginning to get a little nervous for what I had gotten myself into.
“Yeah, I have been playing for ten years, since I was six years old.” Ethan said very confidently. “How about you, how long have you been playing?”
“Only about a year or two,” I said “I started playing with my sister as soon as she was old enough.”
“Oh, I have a younger sister too,” Ethan said as he turned his head to look at me “Lexi is nine years old.”
“Really?” I questioned, shocked we had more than one thing in common “Ashlyn is nine also.”
“Do you have any other siblings?” Ethan asked smiling.
“No,” I replied. “It is just Ashlyn and me. Do you have any siblings other than Lexi?”
“Yeah, I have two younger brothers as well. Noah, who is 13 and Denzel who is six.” He explained. “Noah looks a lot like me and Denzel is very full of energy.”
“Wow,” I said. “That must be crazy for you.”
“It is.” He simply said.
I was pleased we had a few things in common. He was turning out to be the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. We exchanged a few more small facts about our lives before we reached the tennis courts. We played a quick game, which I won easily.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the edge of the water together talking more about our lives and getting to know each other better. While we were walking he grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine, I did not object. I learned so much about him. His birthday was the day after mine, he lived about an hour and a half from my home town, and he also played basketball. We kept walking along the water until the sun began going down. When I stopped to look at the setting sun, Ethan stood behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He bent his head towards my ear to whisper something to me,
“Maggie,” He said with a dark, yet concerned, voice. “I’m not right for you, I am too dangerous.”
I turned around in his arms to face him and quietly said, “No, you are, and there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind.”
Then I looked up into Ethan’s cold mysterious eyes as he said, “hmm, I hope you are going to keep that promise.”
“Me too.” I whispered so quietly that not even he could hear me.
When it was close to ten o’clock that night, everybody was called over to the beach to watch the fireworks. I grabbed a beach towel off of the huge pile located near the tree line and spread it out for Ethan and I to lay on. As I settled into my place, cuddled against Ethan’s side, all of the commotion around me disappeared.
♥ ♥ ♥
September, and the first day of school, had always been awkward for me, ever since I was little. Over the years it has gotten better, but I will never be able to join into my friends conversations about how their mothers made them pose for pictures on the front porch.
It all works a little differently at my house. Luckily, for Ashlyn, I have always made her stand on the front steps every year to take her picture. I feel like I have so many responsibilities, and I am only fourteen years old.
Walking through the doors of Crestview Central, for my first day of high school, was scary. As I made my way down the hallway to find my locker, I ran into a few of my friends. I felt weird being around them because none of them knew about Ethan. I had not told any of them a single event from the times we had spent together.
Ethan was a big part of my life now, and I could not even talk about him to anyone. We agreed to keep our relationship a secret. Our parents could not know, our siblings could not know, and our friends definitely could not know. I talked to Ethan frequently and he even came by my house, secretly, too see me a few time in August.
When the lunch bell rang, my friends and I found a table and everyone began talking about their summers. Kyra was telling us all about this wonderful guy she had meet at her summer camp. He was a sophomore and all of my friends were extremely jealous. I was the only person who had no input on the subject. Ethan was a junior, and I did not understand what the big deal was.
I cannot even explain how much I wanted to tell everyone about Ethan, but that would be against the rules. We kept our secret for six months until I thought I had found someone trustworthy enough to tell. Emily knew everything about Ethan and me. I told Emily about when we I met Ethan, our secret meetings, and all of the times we had talked on the phone at night. Emily and I were inseparable, but maybe we were too much the same. We did everything together and we even planned out what we wanted to do in the future, which of course were the same things.
Our friendship was confusing; everything seemed to be a competition. She would tell me about all of her past relationships and I would tell her about Ethan. Emily would always try to “one up” me. If I told her about a romantic evening Ethan had planned, she would say her significant other had done that a long time ago. One day, I decided I would tell her about the day Ethan officially asked me to be his girlfriend, which I knew she could not top.
“Ethan, can we take the boat out now?” Noah asked.
“Yeah, we can but we have to be very quiet so the parents do not wake up.” Ethan whispered.
The three of us all snuck out of the cabin. On the way out the door, Ethan grabbed the keys off of the table in the kitchen and I grabbed a stack of towels off of the railing outside. Then we walked down the dirt path, with the moon as our only light. Once we reached the dock, Noah immediately began to untie the boat and push it into deeper water. Ethan settled into place behind the steering wheel of the boat, and I was sitting on the opposite side of the boat watching him. As we speed off into the open lake water, little drops of lake water frequently sprinkled my arm.
After we had been riding around for a half hour, Noah fell asleep along the back bench of the boat. This must have been what Ethan was waiting for, because as soon as he noticed Noah was asleep, he killed the engine and dropped the anchor. I stood up and walked to the front of the boat, and looked out over the quiet lake. My mind flooded with memories of the past week I had spent with Ethan. We had been inseparable, without being too obvious. As the slide show of memories came to a close, I shut my eyes and breathed in the cool night air. I opened my eyes again when I felt Ethan’s presence next to me.
“We have to go back home in a few days, you know,” Ethan said. Finally bringing up the topic that neither of us wanted to admit.
“I know.” I whispered, my voice shaking from the tears forming in my eyes. “I finally got to see you again, and now our time together is almost over.”
“It will not be completely over Mags; I will still come and see you whenever I can. We just need to try and make the most of the rest of this week.” He coaxed as he took my hand in his. “What I feel for you scares me, but I am not going to give up on us just because we will not be together every day.”
I turned to face him and as I looked up into his dangerous eyes, I could see the moonlight reflecting in them. Today marked exactly nine days since we meet at the festival, and both Ethan and I were falling hard for each other; I could see it in his eyes. We had managed to be secretive about our feeling this entire week in front of our families, but it was hard. Ethan turned to face me and wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me close. He quickly glanced over my shoulder to see if Noah was still sleeping before he said;
“Maggie, can I ask you something?”
My heart began to beat rapidly as I looked up into his eyes and nodded my head.
Ethan paused a while before he spoke again. “Umm will you…will you be my girlfriend Maggie?” He stuttered, hardly able to get the words out.
I smiled at him, which was just as much of an answer as he wanted. Then I gave him a hug. As I laid my head against his chest, I could feel his heart beating just as fast as mine. After a minute went by, I lifted my head to look up at him again. He placed his forehead against mine and as light raindrops began to fall, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him.
“You want to know something?” Ethan said in a cocky voice. “Noah really likes you, and I mean really likes you.”
“Oh does he?” I said sarcastically. “Maybe I should not have settled on you so quickly.”
“Hey now Mags, don’t make me throw you in the water with all of the big, hungry fish.” Ethan teased.
“You wouldn’t!” I said actually scared he might throw me into the dark cold lake.
“Of course I wouldn’t, I like having you right here.” He said giving me another kiss.
♥ ♥ ♥
After I had been friends with Emily for five months, she went behind my back and started to tell others about Ethan. She was so jealous of my relationship with him that she needed some attention of her own. Emily started rumors about me, ones that others believed. When I confronted Emily about the rumors, she denied everything. I knew it was her because she was the only person I had told. Luckily, I had Ethan to talk to at night.
When he called me one night, slurring his words together and making no sense, I felt even more alone and confused.
“Maggie…”
There was deep heavy breathing on the other line of the phone.
“Maggie,” he said again. “Do you remember me Maggie?”
“Ethan, quit fooling around.” I said with a shaky voice, afraid he was not actually pretending.
“Ohg good Magsyou dorem ember me.” Ethan said slurring his words so much I could not even understand him.
“Of course I remember you Ethan. What’s wrong with you? Is everything okay…?”
[The line goes dead]
“ETHAN!” I shouted.
Quickly I dialed his number again, but it went straight to his voicemail. His phone had been turned off. Not knowing what else to do, I chucked my phone under my bed and sobbed myself to sleep.
In August of 2009, after being together one year, I finally realized what Ethan had meant when he said he was “dangerous.” Ethan was a seventeen year old alcoholic. He knew he needed to stop drinking and had tried too many times. Ethan’s mother also knew about his addiction and forced him to go to therapy once a week. Unfortunately, therapy did not work because Ethan’s friends were such a bad influence on him. This caused Mrs. Dyke to take further action, so she forced Ethan to go to Gainesville, Florida so he could live with his uncle.
When Ethan arrived at my house late one August night to say good bye to me, I was very angry with him. I felt as though he had been lying to me ever since we met. I wanted him as far away from me as possible, but I knew I would end up regretting this feeling. Our phone calls slowed down and eventually stopped. I felt myself falling into a depressive state. I needed someone to talk to. I needed to tell someone what I was going through. Emily had betrayed me, but I had other friends. The “no telling deal” was over with Ethan, so I thought I would take advantage of it.
By October, all of my close friends knew about Ethan, but they were sworn to secrecy. I told them about all of the ups and down we had been through, over the year we were together. Everyone wanted to meet him and they also tried to convince me to give him another chance; but I would always come up with some excuse for him. They wanted to see pictures; I would tell them I ‘forgot’ them at home. We had promised to keep our relationship a secret, and I violated that promise, so I felt the need to keep at least one thing a secret, and that one thing was his identity. I would always tell them, “He is too far away to just fly home for the weekend.” Or “I am done with him, he hurt me once and he will hurt me again.”
With this new distance between us, it was easy to forget about him. I found myself not being as depressed and slowly cheering up. It was a long process, but I was getting by. He stopped calling, and I stopped caring. It was almost as if we had never even touched, never met, or never spoke...
♥ ♥ ♥
Okay, so here is the truth, my name is Margaret Kane, Maggie for short, and for most of my life I have “had a boyfriend” but the truth is…he never really existed. He was all a figment of my imagination and his name was Ethan Dyke. I really did fall in love with an amazing boy named Ethan Dyke two and a half years ago on July 9th, 2008; but I have never seen or heard from him since that one day. Yet, for a short period of my life I actually believed the ‘love’ we felt for each other was real. Every night I would cry myself to sleep because I “missed him” and “couldn’t wait to see him again.” I would talk about him all the time with my friends, telling them about a weekend or day we had spent together. It is amazing they never saw through my little lie because they have never seen a picture of him or were able to meet him. I feel ashamed for this lie I have been hiding behind…but every time I try to quit talking about him I begin to “miss him” again. I feel like without him to think or talk about, my life is boring. He has become quite an elaborate character in my mind. A vivid description of him pops up when I think about him and I can retell any story about a "time" we spent together.
From the time I started telling this lie, I have wanted to get out of it and I have tried many times. “Ethan” has joined the army, broke my heart, moved to Orlando, gone to rehabilitation for an alcohol problem, been arrested, and cheated on me. Nothing I thought of seemed to work. But now, I am finally ready to let him go and I wrote him this letter to finalize it…
Ethan Dyke,
I used to think it was my fault, who made us fail from the start. Now looking back I do believe I was the one who made us last. For when I stopped trying we fell apart. Everything we ever had was beautiful. You taught me how to believe in love. Except for now it is clear for me to see, we never were meant to be. I’m so sorry for being sorry and making you think it was my fault. It never was it was always you, breaking me to pieces. And even thought we both are wrong and our love fell apart. I’ll miss you all we were and all we could have been. We fell with a crash and with no warning signs. No one could have guessed it to happen. And when it did I broke down and wondered what went wrong. Was it something I said, was it something I did, who made this happen? All I know is that we are through and I’ve done all I wanted to do…
Yours Truly,
-Maggie Kane
P.S. Here’s to the future because I am done with the past.
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