Falling in love? What is love? What does it take to love someone? Love is complicated. Love hurts-- but love is beautiful. His love made me feel warm. His love is what made me smile stupidly at my phone. I remember the first time I saw him with his dark shimmering hair. Long and flowy but not too long. The long dark locs that met his ears. His beautiful hazel eyes exploded like shooting stars when he talked and the warm feeling that fell on me like a blanket when our eyes met. He was built like every teenage girl's dream. A nice toned body because he played football. He was my dream and I was his. He always smelled like vanilla-- the scent that whispered, “Everything is gonna be okay” when I clung onto his jacket when I cried that day. We were best friends in middle school. We were the girl and boy duo everyone always swore liked each other. We always denied it.

“She has cooties,” he would say. He has always been in love with me but I was too naive back then to see it. He always used to come over to my house back then. We were inseparable. Two peas in a pod. One day he brought me flowers.

“He likes you,”  my mom teased after he left that day.

“He’s my best friend”, I snapped back. I would've never believed that my best friend and I would have ended up dating.

“I love you, Angel.” He told me one day. “I've loved you since we met on the first day of kindergarten, I've loved you since I laid eyes on you and I think I'll love you forever.” He always called me Angel because my middle name is Angelica and he said I reminded him of an angel. So the nickname stuck. We started dating that summer. He was always there for me especially after my dad died. He always skated to my house when I told him I was feeling down, never empty-handed. Always a flower, candy, a stuffed animal, a rock, a sticker, a letter, anything he could find. He always knew how to cheer me up. The dumb boy that always made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. The beautiful loc of hair that always fell in front of his face. His gentle touch always made me feel at home. He was my home. Summer of our sophomore year of high school he got a car for his birthday. We drove all around town. We went everywhere that summer. When school started we both got really busy. I was juggling AP classes and track practice and he was juggling football with APs. We hardly would see each other anymore. I missed him and I missed how things used to be before everything got complicated. One week we went a few days without talking, somewhere between track and my APs we lost each other. After track practice, I plugged my phone in and went to take a shower. Buzz buzz. My phone rang but I didn't notice it was Zyare. He left a message saying to meet him outside at 10 pm because he wanted to talk. I was so anxious we had barely talked all day and not very much this week. I wondered if he was gonna break up with me. I felt like my world was getting turned upside down. My stomach was in knots waiting for every minute to go by until 10. Tik tok tik tok tik tok tik tok.  7 pm, 8 pm, 9 pm, 9:01 pm, 9:27 pm, 9:30 pm. It felt like time was passing in slow motion. I felt more anxious as time went by. At 10 pm I snuck out my window to meet Zyare. He drove for a while without saying anything and I blurted out “are you… breaking up with me?”.  He shook his head no and pulled over. I started to break down, letting out all the emotions I built up all night waiting for him. He hugged me... Well, I hugged him, I hugged him tighter than I ever had before. I hugged him like I was gonna lose him. His vanilla cologne hugged me even tighter telling me that everything was going to be okay. “I love you, Angel,” he said, “ and I know I always will”.