happy belated.

It was eighth grade when I thought I fell in love. There was a day when we were telling each other about ourselves, our likes and dislikes, when we realized we both knew that the strips of wax for braces never helped and it was more fun to chew. That you were so perverted and that I could be equally so, just for you. I was never nervous around you, I used to punch your left leg so hard if you annoyed me that it would go numb for a second. I took pride in knowing that I could be friends with a jock. That was your label, already.
There was a time when we were laughing at the girl who sat on the other side of you, our eyes met, and I quickly looked away. We could never be together, you, already a baseball and basketball star, white, friends with the pretty girls who claimed the best table in the lunch area. And me, the epitome of the geeky asian girl.
I’ve been writing this blog for a long time in my head. Somehow I can only get this far and then my mom will call me to dinner or a teacher will ask me a question in class. Something always stops me from writing more, from thinking more about you.
I loved you 3 weeks into 8th grade. The first day of school I was too shy to even look at you. The last day, I was too shy to look at you with your friends, but it didn’t matter anyway, because you would have been too embarrassed to look at me with all of your friends watching, your arms wrapped around some girl with no brains. What I would have given for it to have been me.
I stopped smiling when I would hear your name long ago. I’ve stopped thinking about what could have been. But only yesterday did I stop hoping. Seeing you dance with Laura never stopped me from wishing, watching you make out with Sandy or Alli or Jane or whatever her name was for 2 years by the science halls never stopped me from thinking, “maybe”. That was your life, this was mine, if destiny wanted to be nice, she could have easily intertwined them together.
I hadn’t said your name out loud for at least two years. I forgot what it sounded like, the quirkiness, forgot to stop the river of memories it brought back. But for the first time in a long, long time, I didn’t sigh after I said it, out loud or in my head.
So it’s over?
That question I asked after a long plane ride, after a boring football game, after the 8th grade grad dance, after I hugged you goodbye on one chilly evening before you and your girlfriend went to a middle school grad party. The answer is always the same.
Yes.
Yes, it’s over.
The time I hugged you was the last time I touched you. The dress I was wearing that night is still hanging in my closet, heavy with tears and the smell of your body when your arms were around me tight, and I thought I was in love.
I was in eighth grade and I thought I was in love.