From a Distance

The Ten Years of my Life

I still remember my first crush back in school.
Chloe Bourgeois.

She was the Mayor's daughter with blonde hair and cat-eyes. We were eleven then and she helped me colour a honey bee for Art class.

That event inspired my love for art. Also, my love for her. She was my muse.

Only later. Long later did I realize that I was colouring her classwork, not my own.

But my innocent mind never really minded. Not everyone is perfect, right? And she must be mistaken?

This continued for a year. Me doing all her work and silently loving her from a distance.
And only then did I make the observation that it wasn't she who was mistaken, but I. When she marched towards me with perfectly manicured nails and pushed me against the locker, her new sidekick, a brunette girl following her, I realized that I was wrong.

I had fully intended to marry her one day, when she strides in, in those utterly ridiculous heels and tells me "I wasn't important anyway."

Which really, is the only interaction I've ever had with her.

That was some Stockholm Syndrome I had.
It took my mom two tubs of ice cream anf over three hours to get me over her.

I was content after that.

Then I watched her fade from a distance. I never really liked her that much anyway.

______________________________

Then came the year of my second and most significant infatuation.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

A beautiful bluenette with mesmerising blue eyes, ones which I so desperately wanted to draw.

And draw I did.
I stayed up all night capturing her beauty.
Those eyes that held a million emotions. Those pigtails of sweet innocence. Those adorable freckles sprinkled across her nose. That cross bag she adored so much...

I had her drawn, looking as pretty as she could be portrayed on paper. Though, even I got to admit, I couldn't really capture her completely.

Now, I had her on paper and managed to get her exactly as she is, except that brave expression she had on her face, replaced by a look of helplessness in my sketchbook and her support replaced by my arms.

She was a clumsy girl after all and she did need a superhero to catch her from falling. I wanted to be that for her.

And once that concept set in my mind, my hands couldn't stop sketching.

From that day on, thirteen year-old me had found a new muse.

You see, it wasn't just her beauty that mesmerised me, it was her kindness and bravery.

And I loved how I didn't have to be close to her to love her. I could watch her from where I sat as she twirled the ends of her pigtails or chewed on the end of her pencil or sketched designs on the margins of her notebook.

Or simply looked back and blushed?
Seeing her blush was something I had dreamed of. Except that it wasn't for me...

I was devastated the day I found out about her unbelievably huge crash on Model-boy Adrien.

And just like that I had a hunch that Crush Number 2 in my life would fade away too just like the previous one without giving me a chance to confess, as I watch from a distance.

But, I wouldn't give up either without a fight, obviously.
So I watched and waited with baited breath, for that moment, that opportunity that she would give me to love her from up close.