I was your typical 15 year old teen; just sitting outside in my back yard with my two best friends Kyle, and Lizzie. It was the perfect summer night, it was comfortable out, the flowers all around were in bloom, and the sun was just setting at 8:30 pm. We were enjoying each other's company, just chatting about what the rest of the summer would bring. Kyle was sixteen, so he was working on getting his license. Lizzie, like me, was 15 and had no big plans for the summer. I lived (and still do) in a valley where you can rarely hear the city buzz; the most my small valley heard was extremely loud churchbells. I did not have friends that lived in my area since I went to a private school that was almost an hour away. My neighborhood had kids in it, but I was not all that interested in hanging out with them. I was rarely home and from what I could tell the kids that lived in my neighborhood were all boys that were always outside playing catch.

As we were sitting there, a group of about five boys come out of the house across the street from mine and started playing with a Frisbee. I didn’t seem to notice them until one of the guys ran into my yard chasing the Frisbee. I said hello, he smiled, and ran back to his friends. They left, but returned about fifteen minutes later with ice cream. Kyle recognized one of the boys as someone from his school and soon began talking to them while the rest of the guys just stood there. I had my eyes on two things: a blue-eyed, blonde curly haired boy and the ice cream in his hand. Trying to make conversation and get the ice cream at the same time, I asked: "What kind do you have?"

"Actually, it's just sprinkles but you can have some." He replied as he poured some in my hand. After talking to him for a little while, I found out that his name was Bryce, and his friends' names were Ryan, Malcolm, Travis, and Fabian. After a little while, Kyle, Lizzie, and I went in for dinner and Bryce and his friends went across the street to Malcolm's house. Just a few moments later, Fabian was at my door inviting us to go toast some marshmallows. We said yes, but instead of actually toasting marshmallows, we ended up watching a movie in my living room. I sat next to Bryce, and we began to chat. I found out that he had been home schooled all his life and he had been playing guitar for a very long time. It was about 11 o'clock when everyone left, and we made plans to hangout again the next day. I didn’t know what I had been missing all those years. I saw these guys before but never said a word to them. They were a blast! They were all so easy going, and very stress relieving to say the least. I hadn’t laughed so hard in what seemed like years.

I grew very fond of Bryce and eventually we found ourselves calling each other "Best Friend". It was a couple weeks after our first meeting, but this particular day we could not hangout because I had to go to Connecticut. Bryce had biked to my house that morning to see me before I left. Before I knew it, we had kissed nervously and said goodbye. While I was at Connecticut, I called him to tell him I missed him, and he said he missed me too. I never thought I could feel so happy, so content. It's the strangest but best feeling; I couldn’t stop smiling. Knowing that someone that I cared about cared about me really just changed me. To understand how it changed me, and what a phenomenon it was to me, I'll have to tell you a little about my past…

I was a student that always had to do better then I did last time. Being a good student isn’t what changed. If that was the change than I would just believe myself to be distracted. In the situation that I was in, I was being overly stressed about things that didn’t need that much thought. I had no problem with making friends or being social. Trust me; just check the comments on my report card if you doubt me. What I guess hit me and made me so caught up in school and finding a job was that my mother got cancer. Even though I wasn't close to my mother, it was painful to watch her go through it. We barely talked to each other before her cancer but once she actually got the cancer we never spoke. I just watched her from the sidelines. She was losing hair, and she could barely move. I could feel myself becoming depressed. Therefore, my solution to this was more schoolwork to get my mind off things. I would stay in the school library till six o’clock some days, which meant I wouldn’t get home till seven o’clock. I became very stressed, and with the stress eventually came migraines. I would feel myself in so much pain form the migraines that I would be in tears and not able to get out of bed to go to school. I could feel the knots in back and neck just growing tighter, but I kept working even harder. All my teachers knew about my mom so at least three times a day, every single school day, I would get asked how she was doing. I knew they were just asking because they cared but no one could ever imagine how stressful and heartbreaking it was. I mean, these people were constantly reminding me what I was trying to get my mind off. So many times I almost came to tears in front of the people asking but instead I would just tell myself to suck it up. So, with school, my mom’s cancer, and all of my stress and feelings bottled up I was, to say the least, a mess.

But then I met Bryce. I finally had someone to talk to and I never worried about what he would think of me if I told him things because I knew he would never stop caring. He brought me out of the very dark ditch I was in. I stopped getting the migraines that seemed deathly and I found myself just in a better mood altogether. Of course I was still stressed about my mom, but I had someone that was a great listener and so patient to just sit with me. I don’t think Bryce could ever understand how he changed me or how grateful I am. To this day, I am still with Bryce and to say the least, I am happier then ever.