I met Dakota my freshmen year of high school. We never talked but I knew of him through other friends and saw him everywhere at school. He started talking to one of my close friends and so I really only knew him as the kid talking to my best friend. Then sophomore year he randomly called my phone and I had no idea why. I thought maybe he got mixed up and wanted to just talk to our mutual friend. He told me that he actually wanted to get to know me and who I was and what I was about. From that conversation we talked or texted nearly every day. I remember one of deepest conversations was about what is after this? I was never asked by someone to tell them what I thought. What I really thought not what others thought, or what I thought he wanted to hear, but my real feelings and opinions. He was the type of person you could talk to about anything and everything and if you disagreed he would simply say “never would have seen it that way, or that is interesting.” He had a way of getting into your soul. We basically had a long distance friendship from there on out. Then of course being teens full of angst we started to develop more feelings but kept denying it. When one of us would be ready to “commit” as much as 16 year olds can the other would be too scared.
I think our best memory was the first time we got to go on an actual date together. I remember we both couldn’t drive and he lived in Farmington and I lived in Augusta so we had to convince our parents to drive us to meet each other. His mom drove him to my house and we were both not looking forward to our parents meeting. We felt so awkward and uncomfortable about it and we were both terrified of meeting each-others parents. We went to a camp ground with my family and spent our whole “date” walking around the grounds holding hands being awkward as hell. We had a heart to heart like we usually did and I remember that was the moment I fell in love with him. I really knew what it felt like to be connected to someone and these crazy feelings that are still impossible to explain. Then of course we had the most awkward first kiss but still didn’t change the moment. Still felt great. But we were both terrified of feelings so I remember him saying “I am going to hurt you and it scares the shit out of me.” That has stuck with me since that day but I didn’t care and at the time I was willing to risk it. So we tried the whole boyfriend girlfriend thing and eventually we hurt each other, out of fear. We stopped talking completely and we didn’t reconnect for a while after that. Then I remember getting a random text from him and it was like all those feelings never went away. At this point I was in college in Presque Isle but I came home for Christmas Break and that break we spent freezing our asses off in his house because he had no heat. We went to the hookah bar, played cards against humanity and laughed until we cried. Of course he had that laugh that just made you laugh even harder and that cute dorky smile that melted your heart. I remember we cried about how we always both fucked everything up. How we just never could get the timing right. Of course it hit us again, the reality of feelings and how terrifying they were and we had to let each other go. We broke each other’s hearts but we knew it was for the best. He was totally my soul mate I told him that all the time and of course he blew that off he was not really into the whole soul mate thing. Even though we stopped talking and ended on not the best terms he still would reach out to me every year. I would get a random “hey” and ask “who is this?” and get “you don’t want to know” I hated those messages, they made me so mad because he knew it killed me to be apart. But I also loved to hate those messages. These messages gave me hope that someday we would reconnect he would have gotten married had kids and we could laugh about all the stupid crap we worried about as kids. I will miss those messages that made me so mad. I will miss his stupid laugh and cheesy smile. I will keep missing him like I always have. He will always have a little piece of my heart forever. When he said he would hurt me, I never knew he meant this. My heart breaks with all of those who love him. He was a great man with an amazingly rare soul. I love you Dakota, Please rest easy.
Much love