A Lovely Life

Chapter 3: Summer Encounters

Summer was as expected. I was bored out of my mind most of the time. Since none of my friends drove I didn't go out much with them, so it was just me with my family most days; did I mention summer isn't my favorite time of year?

Since I spent most of my days locked in my house, anytime my mom or step dad wanted to go somewhere I would tag along just so I wouldn't be bored.

One afternoon my family decided to go to the mall, which was a common place my family liked to go to, but on this particular trip I ran into someone I was not expecting to see at all.

After walking around for sometime I decided to just go sit down at the food court to relax, and text people. I was just about to get ready to leave when I saw Alex walking by in front of me, but he wasn't alone. He was with a girl. Now I had expected he was straight, so it wasn't too big of a deal. The real problem for me was that he looked at me, and didn't even say hi.

Alex, and I weren't friends, but as I have mentioned there had been minor interactions here and there. He was in the football team, but unlike all the other players he'd never been mean to me, or made fun of me, at least not to my face. Just then I had the urge to text someone about it, but what could I do? Tell them that the guy I was crushing on didn't notice me while he was walking with who could be his girlfriend? Then what? I really had no one to talk to about this kind of thing. I put my phone back in my pocket, and walked around some more.

A couple of minutes later I was waiting for my mom outside a store. I got a text from Henry, it didn't say much, nothing actually, he just sent me a meme. I simply replied with LOL, and the conversation ended. He and I didn't text too often or much, but I liked hearing from him.

When I looked up from my phone I saw Alex, and the girl walk by again. This time somehow she managed to run into a sign standing in the middle of the path. She didn't fall, but Alex did reach out to make sure she was okay. She was, then he looked around to see if anyone had noticed, and saw me looking. He made an awkward smile, and nodded at me. I half smiled at him, and nodded. I mean how could I not smile. He looked really good, and finally acknowledged me, so yeah I fell for it.

A couple of days later Kyle texted me if I wanted to go to his house the next day, I said yes before I even asked any of my parents to take me there. It had been a while since I had seen him, and I was really excited to see him again.

The next day I got there a little bit after midday, and it was too hot to do anything outside, so we just went to his basement, and watched TV. I was expecting Adam to be there, but he wasn't. Not that I was complaining. I like it when it's just him and I in his house.

After watching a movie, and some YouTube videos, we played a board game on the floor. After a while I had to stretch because my back was hurting from being hunched over.

"Do you want me to crack your back?" Kyle offered.

"Like a massage thing?" I asked a bit scared, but excited if the answer was yes.

"Not necessarily. If I pick you up your spine should pop." He said.

"I don't think you can pick me up. I'm too fat." I said, and it was true, I was over-weighted.

"Shut up, you are not fat. Besides, I can lift you up." He said, and flexed both his arms. I have seen his biceps hundredths of times, and every time I have the same blank expression while staring at them. "So come on, let's do it." He added.

I got up, and he went behind me, told me to open my arms, and I wasn't expecting him to wrap his arms around me, and then he lifted me up. While I was midair I heard my back crack so that was good. He then put me back on the ground, and turned me around to face him.

"So, feel better now?" He asked, still holding both my shoulders.

"Yeah, a lot better." I said.

"Good. Never doubt me again." He said with a grin on his face. He then went to sit on the couch, and I followed. I sat on a different couch to not make things awkward.

We kept playing the board game until nightfall came. We went outside, and made a bonfire, and just talked about school. I wasn't planning on staying over that night, but when he asked if I wanted to stay I didn't think twice.

We went to bed a couple of hours later, we watched more tv, and then he fell asleep. He had a tendency of sleeping shirtless, which I didn't mind. In the middle of the night I woke up, turned around and saw his abs. He was really muscular, which looking back might be the main, and only reason I was attracted to him, but this particular time I didn't look at him to admire how hot he was. After I looked at him, I turned around to face the ceiling, and I started to wonder if I would ever feel confident enough to sleep without a shirt. If one day I would be skinny enough for someone to find me attractive.

My whole life I've been over weighted, and has caused a lot of problems to my self-esteem. I've always seen the idea of the 'perfect' body to be someone I wasn't. Light skin, light hair, sharp jawline, and the body of a Greek god. I possessed none of those qualities, and because of it I always felt like I would never be enough for someone, like I had to change who I was in order to become worthy of someone's love.

My dad always made this problem worse. He always liked to point out I was fat, and no girl would ever like me like that. I didn't pay much attention since he always said girl, but maybe the same applied to guys. I mean in the few things I had seen gay guys in they were always flawless, and here I was plagued with flaws wondering if I would ever find someone who would be able to overlook all of my flaws, and love me as I was.

The next day after I got home we went out to buy a couple of things we still needed for our trip to Mexico the day after. When we were leaving the store I turned around and saw Alex with the same girl he was with at the mall. They looked happy talking and walking into the store, and it made me sad, not because I knew I wouldn't get Alex, but because I wanted that; I wanted someone I could do stupid little things with like going to the freaking store for no reason. I choked a little to prevent tears from coming out, but my sister heard me struggle, and saw I was staring at Alex. She then asked me who that was, and I simply replied with "no one", and walked away.